Introduction to QGIS: Understanding and Presenting Spatial Data

A short course jointly organised by the Administrative Data Research Centre for England (ADRC-E) and Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC).

Course summary

This course will introduce spatial data and show you how to import and display spatial data with the free open source GIS program QGIS. We will also show you how to create choropleth maps and explain appropriate methods of visualising spatial data. We will also cover some basic spatial data analysis (e.g. calculating rates).

Target audience

This course is ideal for anyone who wishes to use spatial data in their role. This includes academics, commercial users, government and other public sector researchers who have data with some spatial information (e.g. address, postcode, etc.) which they wish to show on a map. This course is also suitable for those who wish to have an overview of what spatial data can be used for. No previous experience of spatial data is required.

No previous experience of GIS or QGIS is required, but some experience of using spatial data will be beneficial.

Please note this course can be taken as a one-day course, or can also be taken in conjunction with other two one-day courses on 16 January and 17 January 2018. 

Further course details can be found here.

More information regarding our courses can be found here.

Podcast for some of our previous courses can be found here.

Course Leader: Dr Nick Bearman, FRGS, CGeog (GIS), AFHEA

Course contents

• Understand spatial data and what it can and can’t be used for
• Use QGIS to view and symbolise spatial datasets
• Appropriate symbology for choropleth maps
• Joining spatial and non-spatial data
• Be able to set up QGIS and add data
• Understand how to add data with a latitude / longitude coordinate
• Join tabular data to spatial data
• Understand how to undertake simple calculations
• Understanding how to classify data for representation on a map
• Designing and producing a publication-ready map in QGIS
• Saving/exporting your maps as image files

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• set up QGIS and add data
• understand how to adddata with a latitude / longitude coordinate
• join tabular data to spatial data
• understand how to undertake simple calculations
• understand how to classify data for representation on a map
• design and produce a publication-ready map in QGIS
• save/export your maps as image files