12 Credit Hours | Advisor: Rafael Moreno
The FOSS4G Certificate is designed for CU Denver students from multiple disciplines and geospatial working professionals. It provides the knowledge and skills for the effective use and development of FOSS4G solutions in diverse application contexts. Graduates from the certificate will be able to design and develop FOSS4G exclusive or hybrid (using FOSS4G and proprietary
software) geospatial information infrastructures and applications capable of better addressing specific socioeconomic, technological, institutional, and financial contexts where GISc&T is used to support planning and decision making.
Required Courses:
GEOG 4091/5091: Open Source Software for Geospatial Applications. This course exposes students to the diversity of FOSS4G solutions that exist for each of the elements of geospatial information infrastructure. Students acquire the necessary hands-on skills to effectively use one FOSS4G to address the needs of each of the levels of a geospatial information infrastructure.
GEOG 4092/5092: GIS programming and automation. Students learn programming principles and techniques to automate processes and customize a geographic information system (GIS), and to integrate and coordinate the functions of diverse geospatial software (e.g. a database management system with a GIS).
CVEN 5385: GIS Relational Databases. Students learn the principles and techniques to design a spatial database and perform multiple analyses and functions in a FOSS4G spatial database management system.
GEOG 4093/5093: FOSS4G systems integration lab. (New proposed course). This course functions as the capstone for the certificate. It concentrates on applying all the knowledge and skills obtained in previous FOSS4G courses and adding more in the area of integration of geospatial information infrastructures based on FOSS4G. Students work on integrating systems from desktop to Web/Cloud-based applications.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Understand the connections and interactions of FOSS4G with the philosophy of Openness, the concept of interoperability, the distributed development of software, and distributed information systems.
2. Understand the importance and value of FOSS4G software in improving capabilities to better address specific socioeconomic, technological, institutional, and financial contexts where GISc&T is used to support planning and decision making.
3. Develop the necessary knowledge and skills in FOSS4G to design and develop a geospatial information infrastructure from desktop, database management systems (local and distributed), systems automation/customization, software integration, all the way to Web/Cloud-based applications and enterprise level solutions.
4. Acquire the knowledge and skills that will enable students to design and develop hybrid geospatial information infrastructures that make use of proprietary software and FOSS4G incorporating each of them in a combination that maximizes efficiency of the resulting geospatial information infrastructure.
5. For students taking the certificate at the graduate level, the requirements to fulfill the learning outcomes listed above will be higher and commensurate with the academic and professional background and maturity that is expected from a graduate student. Exams, labs, and term projects will have higher expectations and levels of complexity. Through extra readings, assignments, challenge tasks, and higher term project’s sophistication, graduate students will develop broader and deeper knowledge and skills than their undergraduate counterparts.