1.7 Software

There are three key applications we’ll be using this semester in addition to the services listed previously: ArcGIS Pro, RStudio and GitHub Desktop. Both RStudio and GitHub Desktop are open-source applications that can be downloaded and used without cost.

1.7.1 ArcGIS Pro

The primary tool we will use for mapping and geoprocessing is ArcGIS Pro. This is only available for Windows computers, and is available in our lab. If you have a Windows computer and would like to install it locally, I can help facilitate free access to this software. Otherwise, you will need to plan to spend some time in the lab each week that we are using ArcGIS Pro for assignments. Please do not purchase access to ArcGIS Pro!

1.7.2 R and RStudio

The primary tool we will use for data manipulation and preparation is the programming language R. R is open-source, freely available, and highly extensible analysis environment. We’ll use RStudio as the “front end” for our analyses. RStudio makes it easier to write R code and to produce well documented analyses. Like the R programming language itself, RStudio is freely available.

1.7.3 GitHub Desktop

You will need another free application called GitHub Desktop. This program allows you to easily copy data from GitHub onto your computer. It also makes it easy to upload files like labs and problem sets to GitHub. If you have already used Git via the command line, you can continue to do so without utilizing GitHub Desktop.