PrintWelcome to GEOG 868 - Spatial Database Management
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Quick Facts about GEOG 868
- Instructor: Jim Detwiler
- Course Structure: Online, a minimum of 10-12 hours a week for 10 weeks
- Overview: GEOG 868 is an elective in Penn State's Master of GIS program. A prerequisite - GEOG 484 or equivalent experience is required.
Access to accurate data is a cornerstone on which all successful organizations are built. The data stewards who maintain an organization's information systems thus have a crucial role to play. This course is intended for students who want to learn how to create, maintain, and retrieve data from a spatially enabled database.
The course begins by covering relational database topics that are relevant in both geographic and non-geographic contexts (e.g., Structured Query Language and database design). It then focuses on the special considerations involved in the management of a spatial database by demonstrating two broad approaches. The first utilizes open-source technologies (specifically, the Postgres database management system and its spatial extension PostGIS); the second utilizes technology from a leading vendor (Esri's geodatabase).
The course is 10 weeks in length and requires a minimum of 10-12 hours of student activity each week.