Welcome to digital mapping!
February 11-12, 2026 – 09:15-16:00 – Room L505 (Akrinn, Kalvskinnet)
Instructor: Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia
This course, offered by the Faculty of Humanities at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, provides a practical introduction on how to apply Geographic Information Systems and its associated methods in the humanities and the social sciences.
Description
Geo-spatial information is crucially shaping our understanding of the world we live in. GIS tools are being rapidly adopted by local and national policy makers and the business sector. Likewise, not only the humanities and the social sciences need to explicitly consider the spatial dimension of economic and social processes, but thinking spatially facilitates the adoption of innovative research techniques. Scheduled over four three-hour lab sessions, this hands-on course provides a thorough overview of how to map spatial information and apply GIS tools in empirical studies using R, a free programming software widely used by practitioners in many different fields.
The course is taught intensively in four 3-hour sessions over two days (morning and afternoon sessions; 12 hours in total). Each session combines lectures and computer practicals. No previous background in computing or statistics is required.
Please follow the Instructions section to prepare for the course in advance. This involves downloading the course materials, installing R and RStudio and getting familiar with this software, as well as installing QGIS. It is also advisable to get some inspiration on how to use use maps and GIS tools on your own research by checking the blogposts and online visualisations listed here.