Introduction
In recognition of the importance of Geographic Information System (GIS), GIS CENTER FOR MAPPING AND GEOSPATIAL SERVICES (GCMGSS) organized a training workshop for students to capacitate anyone who need to improve or interesting GIS specially students from Universities on the potentials and application of these tools. As an introductory course, it was intended to develop a level of skills adequate for entry level GIS analysts and to provide the capacity for the trainees to continue development reasonably on their own without direct supervision through to the advanced course scheduled in June this year.
Location of the workshop
The training workshop was held at The GIS Center for Mapping and Geospatial Services (GCMGSS) Mogadishu Somalia from 03 to 08 March 2021.
Opening
The training workshop was opened by Director General in his opening speech, Director began the session at 9 o’clock by welcoming all participants and explained the aims of this workshop to them and gave a brief about importance of GIS for student other participants need to enhance their knowledge in these application ArcGIS.
PURPOSE OF COURSE
The purpose of the training was to introduce the participants to basic GIS skills to enable them carryout data management and basic analysis of GIS. The course aimed at introducing the participants to GIS software and provide them with background information on how professionals carry out and use day-to-day GIS technology. The goals of the course were to:
- Exploring GIS concepts
- Displaying data, Querying database
- Working with spatial data
- Working with tables
- Editing Data, Working with georeferenced data
- Working with layers and maps
- Displaying locations from tabular data
- Automating data, Editing the database schema
- Editing spatial and attribute data
- Presenting data
Attendance
Participants to the training workshops were from different background ranging from environment, Statistics, Researchers and as well as university. The total participants for the training workshop were 18.
CLOSURE OF WORKSHOP
In summary, Mr. Director expressed his satisfaction on the results of the workshop. He also thanked the trainers for their availability and their effort. He expressed his gratitude to Mr. Abukar, the coordinator of this workshop, for a good unfolding of this training, and thanked the participants for their contributions. He also thanked all those who took part in the organization of this workshop. He reminded participants that other workshops particularly on data bases would take place soon and hoped that they would all participate in these workshops, given the direct connection between this workshop and the latter. He also commented on the social interest of workshops to participants because, beyond training, they help participants to establish good relationships and to make the acquaintance of others. Lastly, he reminded all participants not to hesitate to get into touch with him.
The trainers thanked the participants for their contributions. Furthermore, they encouraged them to repeat all the exercises that they had done during the workshop, to check how well they had understood the modules they had been taught. Participants were asked what they thought about the workshop and provide criticism and suggestions to improve future workshops in this regard. They expressed their satisfaction with the workshop while noting some shortcomings and giving the following recommendations:
- Increase duration of the workshop because time was not enough to assimilate modules that trainers taught.
- Have complete versions of GIS software to use all functions they contain.
- An advance course in GIS and RS should be organized as a follow-up to the introductory course.