In 2015, the Center for GIS at Towson University collaborated with the state Geographic Information Office, WBCM and Salisbury University to develop courses for the Statewide GIS Training Program for State of Maryland employees. Throughout the years, we have trained over 1,200 state employees and offered in-person courses ranging from ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Pro to the browser-based GIS software, ArcGIS Online.

MD Statewide GIS Training Program online courses

The TU Center for GIS has developed two self-paced online courses available on MD iMAP’s training page:

  • Intermediate ArcGIS Online and MD iMAP covers searching for data, creating new data, editing, performing analysis, and creating maps in ArcGIS Online.
  • ArcGIS Collector introduces Esri’s mobile data collection app that allows users to utilize the ArcGIS Online platform to capture feature’s locations and enter associated information in the field. For more information on the ArcGIS Collector training, check out this previous blog post.

Each course contains a combination of lessons to introduce material, demos to display the topics reviewed, and self-paced guided exercises to work through concepts.

While the exercises were developed for State of Maryland employees with ArcGIS Online for Maryland organizational accounts, the slides and demos are freely available. If you are a State of Maryland employee or contractor, please fill out this form to request access to ArcGIS Online. If you are a Towson University student or employee, please contact GISHelp@towson.edu to request access to Towson University’s ArcGIS Online organization.

Training Documents for ArcGIS Pro

Self-paced training documents were updated for ArcGIS Pro, including step-by-step instructions on topics such as joining data and creating map layouts. These documents are freely available. If you are a State of Maryland employee or contractor, please visit MD iMAP’s Software page for more information on accessing ArcGIS Pro. If you are a Towson University student or employee, please contact GISHelp@towson.edu to request access.

While online courses don’t offer a way to interact with attendees to hear about the exciting GIS projects they are working on, it’s a way to keep the GIS community connected, learning, and developing their skills during this strange time.