Welcome

This is the echo-squad's repository for addressing geospatial problems in Advanced GIS (Fall 2021). This is a good website to star in your browser.

Quick Links

• Discussions
• Issues
• Website
• Weekly Reporting Wiki

Overview

I plan to utilize GitHub as our main repository for this course. If you have never used GitHub before, don't worry, I only plan to use a limited amount of GitHub's capabilities, namely: a place for sharing documents (Code), a place for tracking questions and answers (Issues), and place for group conversations (Discussions).

First, when you log in, you should see a welcome screen that includes a list of the repositories you have access to and the teams in which you are a member. Everyone in the Fall 2021 class is a member of the echo-squad team. This team is in charge of the advgis-echo repository, a cloud-based storage for documents (Code), issue tracking (Issues), discussions (Discussions), and a wiki (Wiki).

My plan is to use:

• the Code segment of this repository to communicate resources and instructions
• the Issues for tracking questions that need answers (e.g. how to's, demo's, tutorials, quick-fixes, yes/no's, etc.)
• the Discussions for communicating ideas; we have daily topics that you will contribute towards on a weekly basis
• the Wiki for something; I haven't thought of a use for it yet, but I might

Please familiarize yourself with this web interface. All textual elements (including comments and discussions) use Markdown syntax, so you can embellish your responses with bold, italic, strikethrough, as well as create ordered (numbered) and unordered lists, tables, and embed images or links. See Resources links below for more.

Getting Started

Web Resources

1. A good place to begin is the CGA website: https://cga-wm.github.io/
2. From this website, you can find "Advanced GIS" under "Courses"
3. Here, you can find a link to the updated syllabus

GitHub

1. Sign up for GitHub (or sign in if you already have an account)
2. Update your profile (avatar, real name, and description of you) under Settings --> public profile
3. Let your instructor know your account name to add you to our team
4. Check out our semester repository: https://github.com/cga-wm/advgis-echo
5. Familiarize yourself with markdown
   • Mastering Markdown - GitHub
   • Markdown Guide - Google Colab
   • Stackedit.io - In Browser Markdown Editor
     • Note: you can also copy and paste a web site into Stackedit.io and it automatically converts it to Markdown syntax for you.
6. Familiarize yourself with GitHub website
   • Code - where we share our files
   • Issues - where we ask and answer our questions

About

I know a lot you are concerned about time management and collaboration.

First, let's take a look at time management.

Open the Issues tab on our GitHub repository. We are one group trying to solve several geospatial problems. Your goal is to find the most efficient and effective way to solve these challenges. Through communication and collaboration, I expect that you will learn new methods and incorporate your own personal touches for devising creative solutions.

The first issue that I created is a checklist. I have made every effort and tried to create an outline that is both chronological and organized. Treat this as a roadmap, as I will use this as the template for your final evaluation.

Please copy the Markdown from the issue template that I have created, open a new issue, title it "Your GitHub username's Checklist," assign yourself as the responsible party, label it "Checklist."

Every issue has a unique number assigned to it---just like an OBJECT ID in a vector's attribute table. Your issue's number is also associated with a unique website address. The shortcut to referring to issues is using the hash (#) key followed by the unique issue number. This gives you a way to track and refer amongst issues in the GitHub issues tracker.

Each issue also has a comments section where you (and others) can provide feedback. You can tag members of our team by using the at-sign (@) followed by their GitHub username. This allows you notify people when you have a question for them. Please feel free to tag me on certain issues or discussions.

As you work through your checklist, please make comments to help describe what you did, when you did it, how long it took you, and any other references you might need. Feel free to link to other resources, websites, or tag other people or issues. And don't forget to include what you've completed in your weekly wiki report.