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Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

This Subject Guide provides you with many GIS resources which can enable you to successfully use GIS for your research and coursework.

ESRI ArcGIS

The Kelvin Smith Library purchases an annual Educational Site License for university wide usage of ESRI ArcGIS software for teaching and research purposes. This software may be installed from the CWRU Software Center onto Windows computers only for use by our faculty, staff, and students. 

ArcGIS is also available on computers located in the Freedman Center (FC) at the Kelvin Smith Library.  The advantage to working on your project on FC computers is that you will have direct access to geospatial data stored on the library's data server which can be used in your GIS project.

ArcGIS Pro is the industry standard proprietary software package that includes 2D and 3D mapping, database management, data analysis and visualization, and many more features. ArcGIS Pro also integrates smoothly with your content on ArcGIS Online, allowing for easy access to web-based content on your local machine as well as creating a simple pipeline to publish and share maps online that were built in your ArcGIS Pro platform

 

Please note: ArcGIS software can only run on Windows OS.

 

 

Installing and licensing ArcGIS Pro:

To use ArcGIS Pro software on a Windows computer for the first time, you must set up a license or the software will not work.  To do this, follow these instructions on your Windows machine:

  1. Begin by downloading and installing the software from softwarecenter.case.edu
  2. Once installed on your machine, run the program  “ArcGIS Pro."
  3. If needed, click the settings/gear icon and navigate to "Licensing."
  4. At the bottom/left of the screen, click "Configure your licensing options."  If this option is not visible, go to Settings>Licensing>Configure your licensing options.
  5. In the licensing dialog box that appears, choose "Named User License" from the dropdown.
  6. Choose to sign in via ArcGIS Online and click "OK."
  7. In the prompts that follow, sign into our ArcGIS Online organization using your CWRU Network ID and passphrase.
    1. Choose to sign into ArcGIS Online via your ArcGIS Organization's URL.
    2. Enter "cwru" into the url so that the full address reads "cwru.maps.arcgis.com", click the "Remember this URL" box,  and proceed.
    3. Click the "CWRU SSO Login" option, and complete signing in with your CWRU Network ID and passphrase.
    4. If this is your first time signing into ArcGIS Online, your account will automatically be created using these credentials.
  8. This should complete the authorization process. If needed, restart ArcGIS Pro to ensure the licensing changes have taken effect.
  9. Make some maps!

QGIS

A popular, free, and open-source alternative to ESRI ArcGIS is QGIS. Unlike ESRI's products, QGIS is designed to run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It may be freely downloaded at www.qgis.org.

Training

If you are uncertain which GIS product to use or what training path to follow, please email freedmancenter@case.edu so that we may discuss what is best suited to your needs.

​Esri offers web-based training classes. Please refer to the ESRI Course Catalog for the complete list of courses and course descriptions.  If you are new to GIS, we recommend starting with Getting Started with GIS.

You will need to sign in to your ESRI account using the same credentials you use for ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online.

QGIS offers a free training manual through QGIS.org.

Two books, Learning QGIS and Becoming a QGIS Power User, are also recommended.