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Resources & Tools
New tools now available for developers and potential users
GeoConnections’ GeoSkills program recently produced two new CGDI resources to help people learn about and use the CGDI:
- For those who want a general overview of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), GeoSkills developed an online training course.
- For those keen to delve even deeper into the CGDI’s mechanics, GeoSkills updated the existing CGDI technical manual and changed its title to “CGDI Developers’ Guide.”
Online training provides excellent overview of CGDI
The online training will appeal to people who want a solid overview of the CGDI. Participants will learn about the CGDI’s various components and their functions, as well as the all-important standards and specifications that anchor the CGDI. Among its topics, the course covers registering data sources, describing geospatial data resources, publishing geospatial data, and using visualization technologies such as Web Map Service and Web Feature Service.
Who would benefit from this training? Anyone needing a general technical overview of the CGDI would be an ideal candidate—university and college students, government workers implementing geospatial services, business persons looking for opportunities in geomatics, managers wanting to know more about the CGDI—the list is extensive.
Designed to take a day to complete, the course is divided into nine modules that correspond to the CGDI’s different elements. Some people may want to tackle all the modules in one day, but others may want to spread their time over a week or two. The modular structure and the online availability give participants exactly this kind of flexibility.
CGDI Developers’ Guide: A technical journey to the centre of the CGDI
Those who want more in-depth information about the CGDI can consult the newly published CGDI Developers’ Guide, an updated technical manual that informs readers how to make geospatial data and services more visible and accessible on the CGDI. Intended for web developers with various levels of geomatics expertise, as well as managers and other users, the Guide explains how to build applications with CGDI-endorsed standards and specifications. It contains four sections and several appendices, each of which describes different aspects of the CGDI and how it can benefit data suppliers and users:
- Section 1 explains the CGDI,
- Section 2 focuses on discovering geospatial resources,
- Section 3 emphasizes searching other databases and making a database searchable, and
- Section 4 concentrates on using CGDI web resources.
This comprehensive guide contains up-to-date information at the time of its publishing. Readers are encouraged to send comments about the Guide to the GeoSkills program at info@geoconnections.org.
To access both the online training course and the CGDI Developers’ Guide (available in both PDF and HTML formats and in French and English), please go to “Key Documents” under the “Publications” section of the GeoConnections web site.