Do-It-Yourself Geo Apps

All of the MOOC courses are very good but this one, Do-It-Yourself Geo Apps I would recommend as a starter for people who have not done any yet. All of the exercises are both easy to follow and yet challenging in their suggestion to do create something yourself. The StoryMaps module being early on gives you an opportunity to achieve something immediately. The Survey and Dashboard activity introduces dashboards in a straightforward way that makes constructing your own easy to follow from the notes. Dashboards are no commonplace and all GIS specialists should know how to set them up. The App Studio takes you beyond your laptop or desktop into the area of smartphones apps. Having worked through that several ideas of how to use it productively will come to you. The final session on programming, while it is only a 'teaser', has many links to finding out about the scripting languages and explains how using html, css, and JavaScript can enhance your skills to go beyond just working 'out of the box'.

A very successful, easily followed and yet challenging introduction to ARCGIS Online.

One of the strong points of all MOOC courses is the Forum. If you get lost, feel overchallenged or simply want to demonstrate your successful creations there are always willing course members there to offer suggestions, appreciate your work or, in fact, ask for help themselves.

Highly recommended.

I had done a similar course a few years ago and think ESRI have done an incredible job making it even simpler for a "end-user" like me to create attractive apps quickly...I've been able to show colleagues what's possible with GIS using real-life examples from our world which makes it easier for them to appreciate the potential.

And then there was the opportunity to dip a toe into coding! Well, I always knew there was a lot of work going on behind the scenes to create robust slick tools for us to use but I'll never look at a web page the same way again! Thank you very much for putting the link to the CSS tutorial site...I am ridiculously excited about the idea of learning a new language at my age - takes me back to my youth when everyone's computer started up with the c prompt and I could have hours of fun programming it to repeat a line of text down the page! We have to input our recruitment adverts into an HTML form, I'm going to see whether adding CSS works when I put one in next week (shh, don't tell HR!).

Looking forward to the next course, in the meantime, I'll be having a good look around the Developers resources (though I feel a fraud for being a user rather than developer, this course has given me a glimpse of another world)

Thanks again

This course has really given me much insight into the potential of GIS. My experience gain after completing this course is about how information can be visually be presented for good public engagement and that includes helping get the information down to the non-GIS expect, what I call
"the creation of equity in GIS" and making apps which help make community smarter and data-driven. As a GIS analyst, thanks to Esri I have always thought of reaching a larger audience with the maps I create in a smarter way. This dream gets shattered when I think of not being a developer to create all these cool apps but through this course and the hardworking team of Esri, I had the opportunity to get expose to some web maps, web apps and even create my own app which is a native app, on top of all these cool opportunities the ArcGIS developers platform has also been made available to learn more. Thanks to Esri and the instructors of this course I see myself to be on my way to the next stage of my GIS carer. Esri is indeed GIS.