Geographic Information Systems

Entry requirements

Applicants are generally expected to have a minimum 2.2 honours degree with a substantial component of geography, environmental science or computing.

Applicants with qualifications in other relevant disciplines or with academic qualifications below 2.2 honours will also be considered on individual merit. In such cases, previous experience of GIS and competence in day-to-day computing will be an advantage, and should be explained in detail on the application form.

Months of entry

September

Course content

With over 25 years' experience of teaching GIS, and nearly 20 years via online distance learning, we have a significant and successful track record in GIS education. This course has been designed to provide a broad-based education in the principles and practice of GIS, and you can choose to study for the award of Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma or Master of Science. You may take the course full-time or part-time.

Content focuses on the representation, acquisition, management, manipulation and analysis of various types of spatial data. It also includes modules on remote sensing, spatial databases, web-GIS and GIS in the commercial environment. Additional optional modules include GIS work experience, spatial analysis and modelling, GIS for environmental management, and Customising GIS. Over the duration of the course you will gain extensive practical experience using a variety of commercial and open source software. In addition to development of core GIS skills using ArcGIS, you will also get hands-on practice with packages such as ERDAS Imagine, Excel, SPSS, QGIS, OpenLayers, GeoServer, PostgreSQL and PostGIS, together with a number of GIS extensions, plug-ins and programming languages. If you opt to complete the Masters project you can focus on a topic of your own choosing.

The relevance of the course to the workplace is demonstrated by the very high success rate of our graduates in securing GI-related employment and by the significant benefits gained by students already working in GIS.