Geographic Information Systems Technology

Master of Science

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Quick Facts

Credits Required: 30

Cost Per Credit: $820.00

Top 1%

of all Higher-Ed
Institutions

- Center for World University Rankings, 2024

In Best Value Among
Arizona's Public Universities

- Payscale, 2022

College of Social And Behavioral Sciences

Program Details

GIST programs at the University of Arizona emphasize cutting-edge trends and have become some of the largest and most successful programs in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Our newly redesigned graduate curricula respond to emerging technologies in GIST-related fields, focusing on web, mobile and open source applications to ensure graduates are ready for an ever-evolving workplace.

Arizona is dedicated to offering the highest-quality GIST programs available, both in person and online. That’s why our programs meet the standards of the GIST Body of Knowledge compiled by the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, which guarantees the program provides a comprehensive overview of GIST topics such as programming and development, data capture and management, analytics and modeling, and cartography and visualization. Our online instructional methodology meets all relevant standards for quality in online education. As a result, MS-GIST graduates often find or advance related careers in fields such as public administration, natural and cultural resources, IT engineering, and defense.

Other amazing features of this program include:

Earning your MS-GIST online in 18 months from a top-ranked geography department with some of the most cost-effective programs available.
Learning about:
- Current remote sensing and LiDAR processing skills.
- Professional geodata analytics and the latest trends in big data applications to geospatial analysis.
- The fundamentals of web GIS, mobile GIS and GIS programming with Python.
Gaining hands-on experience in the use of leading proprietary GIS/remote sensing software (e.g., ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Online, ERDAS) and open source solutions such as QGIS.
Working with the Arizona’s internationally renowned faculty.

View detailed program information

*Residents of some U.S. Territories may not be eligible. Please see our Eligibility & State Authorization page for more information.

Courses

The curriculum for this program includes:

This course will introduce the fundamental concepts of geographic information systems technology (GIST). It will emphasize equally GISystems and GIScience. Geographic information systems are a powerful set of tools for storing, retrieving, transforming and displaying spatial data from the real world for a particular set of purposes. In contrast, geographic information science is concerned with both the research on GIS and with GIS. As Longley et al. (2001, vii) note, "GIS is fundamentally an applications-led technology, yet science underpins successful applications." This course will combine an overview of the general principles of GIScience and how this relates to the nature and analytical use of spatial information within GIS software and technology. Students will apply the principles and science of GIST through a series of practical labs using ESRI's ArcGIS software.

This course provides an introduction to the scientific principles and practices of remote sensing. Topics that will be covered in this course include issues of spatial resolutions, the electromagnetic spectrum, remotely sensed sensors, spectral characteristics, digital and digitalization issues, multispectral and LiDAR image processing and enhancement, and land-use and land-cover classifications (LULC) and change detection. The course also emphasizes integration issues and analysis techniques that arise when merging remotely sensed data with geographic information systems (GIS).

Examine the principles and practices associated with raster data development and analysis, particularly the development of real world surfaces and statistical analysis based on these surfaces. The course is presented in a lecture/laboratory format which presents conceptual issues necessary for the use of raster approaches within a GIS framework and practical experience with rasters in an ArcGIS environment.

This course focuses on an introduction to vector based spatial analysis and its application in GIS software. You will learn how to analyze distribution, direction, orientation, clustering, spatial relationships and processes, and how to render analytic outcomes into cartographic form. This course also provides foundational knowledge of global positioning systems, data collection, geodatabase development, and georeferencing.

Explore introductory-level geographic programming and data automation techniques. In this course, you will become familiar with the ModelBuilder tools inside ArcGIS for Desktop to automate redundant tasks using ModelBuilder and learn how to build a script using Python to customize functionality and task with GIS.

Gain an understanding of web mapping using applications like ArcGIS for Server, ArcGIS Online (AGOL), WebAppBuilder (WAB), web-enabled geoprocessing, Story Maps, AppStudio, and the Javascript API.

Prepare to apply a GIST-based problem solving approach within the context of a student-directed project. Specific GIS skills covered include project planning, spatial data sources and acquisition, data compilation, coding, analysis, and presentation of results. The course topics may vary, each session examines a different urban or environmental issue in the natural and social sciences using geographic information systems technology.

This course provides students a brief introduction about Open Source software for both desktop and internet GIS applications. You will go through hands-on learning about applications hosting, data development, processing, and sharing using open source tools and technologies such as GITHub , Quantum GIS (QGIS), Python, GeoServer and PostGIS using real-world data in lab assignments.

The Master’s Project includes a formal report and presentation submitted in lieu of a Master’s Thesis and reflects what a student has learned from the MS-GIST program. This course focuses on addressing normative and/or scientific geographic problems, data capture, compilation and manipulation, and formulating methods and analysis to address the problem in a given timeline.