Canadian GIS

The Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) has been providing Geomatics related education to students dating back to 1948 when it was known as the Nova Scotia Land Survey Institute.The school has changed names and programs over the years but they continues to offer a wide range of Geomatic disciplines to meet the changing need of industry.

The COGS program boosts that over 90% of their graduates find employment in related areas of their field based on post graduate survey and communication that they maintain with their alumni after the program has ended. COGS also offers a few other variations of GIS programs including a two year Diploma in Geographic Sciences designed for students that do not have a University degree, a GIS for Business program where GIS is utilized for solving business related problems.

Social media is a method for online networking interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing and marketing techniques. Traditionally people have always gained information, education and news through electronic and print media. Web based social services make it possible to connect people that share common interests and activities across political, economic, and geographic borders.

CanadianGIS.com has been active with several social media web-based technologies for marketing, interactive communication and networking opportunities with others in the geomatics industry.I have provided some basic information below on ways that I have been social networking with other GIS professionals and encourage you to try some of these as well.

Follow On Twitter: @canadiangis 10,000+ followers @tedmackinnon 11,000+ followers

Join our GIS group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Canadian-GIS-4150297 500+ members

The one year GIS Certificate program at Niagara on the Lake Campus includes a thesis project that students work on for the whole term while working along side with employers to help design and implement real world GIS projects.

Centered mostly on ESRI software and products, this program also provides experience in MapInfo, Manifold, AutoCAD Map 3D, ERDAS Imagine as well as various elements of programming. While the program can sometimes be demanding, students will be incredibly prepared to enter the workforce.

Find out more about Niagara College

Here we have an online interactive web mapping tool with NOAA American weather station information, there are a good number of Canadian ones as well. The Weather Service provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy.

Their operational server maintains a current database of meteorological and hydrological data, historical data, and written information generated by the NWS or other official sources.

The City of Terrace (British Columbia) hosted a public web mapping application that was developed on Autodesk MapGuide 6.5 technology. This site was used extensively by realtors, developers, the general public and internal staff to access maps, databases and reports related to geographic features.

The City now has a fully supported and integrated web based GIS system that facilitates quality decision making. With iVAULT, the City benefits from improved strategic and financial planning. It also provides reliable and meaningful access to the City’s spatial and attribute data.

The GIS folks at the City of Niagara Falls have done a great job with their efforts of supporting open government initiatives by providing Canadians with data sets to use in their own GIS software applications and also for providing the Falls Viewer for those that do not have access to GIS software. If you have a need for data in the Niagara Falls region or just want to play around with available data sets then I recommend that you take some time and check out the data sets and applications provided.