instructions, especially for the course project, are very confusing and unclear. There's lots of typos across all the materials. The quizzes didn't feel like a reflection of the course content.

I'm having repeatedly license issues like many here, and we don't get an answer on how to fix it. I have written to Coursera support and I have not gotten any response.

The entire specialisation is designed to be done with ArcMap and not with ArcGIS Pro, so why are they still offering this course when the material has not been updated yet? I consider this a SCAM and they should either give us Arcmap licenses or refund our money, since it is not logical to do this course under these conditions...

This course is outdated and there are considerable issues with obtaining the software with the information provided. Even with the software the course focuses on the old version and not the new so the lessons do not match up. I ended up paying for ArcGIS and I will find a more updated class on Coursera or just use the free training available with my purchase. Given this is a tech class, they need to make sure the content is up to date whereas this was years behind.

After lesson 2 of week 2. Don't bother, they have yet to upload the materials you'd need to follow the course. Moreover, they don't have admin in the discussion to attend to the matter. Thirdly they are non-responsive via email and they also don't respond on their social media. I recommend the University of Toronto GIS program. They're organised and professional. Do better UCDavis.

This course in no way prepared me for the final assignment. Things were half explained, and the assignments leading up to the final assignment did not provide context for understanding what you were doing. This was a waste of time. The only thing I could do after the course was open ArcGIS and add some data- no geoprocessing.

not at all replying to the issues in discussion forums one of my friend posted a threat regarding peer 5 ago the mentor is not even replying this is ridiculous

I wasn't able to afford GIS software unfortunately so did not complete course

I never authorized to take this course and was charged anyway. Fraud!

Pesimo curso y malo.

This is a beginners course and at the start, I had very little experience with ArcGIS. This course gives you key information to get started with ArcGIS, like how to use the spatial joint, how to manipulate the attribute table and share data etc. The course information is very clear, keeps it relevant and you learn it in a very systematic order. In each week what you learn you get hands-on experiences with the practical assessment. I have done many courses at university face to face and this course is comparable to some of those courses. This course gave me the skills and confidence to make beautiful maps in ArcGIS.

The only part of this course I would change is the final peer review assessment instead of submitting it and get a mark. They should have a 4-step process, first, the student should submit the map and map document like normal. Second, the peer reviewer should get a document/form that goes through step by step what check and leaves feedback if done incorrectly. Third, Then the document/ form gets returned the student who goes through it and makes the changes or if they feel the changes are unfair comment why. Then the student should Submit the document/form with comments on the changes, with the final map and map document for marking. This is a bit more work but when each student while peer-reviewing and making changes they are learning what the did wrong. This makes it more of a learning process because few students in the discussion were confused where they went wrong.

In general, the course allowed me to receive "knowledge and not just "information":

a. The course has valuable content, is efficient and effective, is versatile and easy for the student to manage.

b. The teaching materials are available, as well as the versatility and correct use of them. In addition, it evaluates the quality of content and strategies to motivate students.

c. The digital platform is stable and highly functional, there is a correct integration of the digital contents and the navigability, access and design are user friendly.

Finally, a highlight of the learning platform is the "Code of Conduct" that allows for the creation of a healthy learning environment, respecting the criteria of courtesy (treating peers with respect), sensitivity (being kind, considerate and understanding when discussing issues of ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or controversial topics), publication of appropriate content (only content according to the "Code of Honor" or the "Terms of Service" is allowed) and reporting abuse.

The course is true to the coursera slogan: "Coursera provides universal access to the world’s best education, partnering with top universities and organizations to offer courses online".

I am an Architect-Planner by profession. Was looking for this course for quite sometime. I finally found it on Coursera. I had a great time learning Fundamentals of GIS. I had never before worked in Gis though I had a very little theoretical idea. But, at the end of this course, I was able to analyse and make my own map, something I had never done before with GIS. The lectures were to the point, with most of the details covered. The assignments for practice were very helpful too. This course comes with a very helpful reading materiaI and a year long licensed version of ArcGIS too. I had a great time in taking up the quizes, and the peer reviewed final assignment. I highly recommend this course. Last but not the least, thank you Nick Santos for teaching so well! got back to class almost after 8 years and had a great time! I am sure that this will help me taking up further studies in my field.

I'm beyond excited about completing this course and passing it with a high grade, I really did put everything I had into it. And I plan on doing the same with the rest of the courses in this specialisation.

I just believe I deserve the 1 point that I lost in the final graded assignment, as two peers of mine reviewed it and one of them graded something incorrectly, a peer chose the 2nd option in the rubrik for metadata, where I actually had everything required in it, and the other peer noticed that and therefore graded me the highest grade accordingly. But I'm aware it's such a small thing and the most important thing is that I know deep down that I understood everything in the course and I pretty much aced it, and I'm off to the second one in the specialisation!

The course was well designed and could convey the information very well. I loved the way that the instructor was teaching and assessing the students and now I can tell that I have an initial idea about the GIS.

The only thing that I didn't like about the course was peer-review grading way! What I realized is that students usually review other's assignments based on their own assignment because they think they have done everything correctly. So they don't really pay attention to the review questions and what is asked to do and I believe this is a weak point of peer-reviewing!

However, I believe the course was that wonderful that is definitely worth taking and I will recommend it to my friends for sure!

Thank you for providing this opportunity.

So far so good! I like the way the lectures and quizzes are presented. I am loving the instructor and his style. However, I have to go through the whole course before I could say how productive the course will be. Anyway, thanks a lot for the team!

Thanks a lot Nick Sanots, Coursera, UC Davis and all fellow learners. I was a week late and could not complete the final assignment in time. However, the course is great! The course is medium paced, and best even for newcomers and intermediates alike. The chapters presented in the course are very productive and vivid. I simply love the course. I don't feel there is any room for improvement. Its just perfect! I love this course. Looking forward for next session of this course and next course.

This was an excellent intro course. I took an in-person GIS for Natural Resource Managers course a year ago (also through UC Davis Extension), and I have been using ArcGIS occasionally since. This online course served as a great refresher and contained a lot of useful information that was new to me. I even felt like it was more helpful than the in-person course. And while this course is written to be useful to people from different professions all over the world, as a water quality professional in California I derived extra benefit from it being done by a watershed management lab in California that works with state and federal agencies. Thank you, I look forward to completing the Specialization and applying the new skills to my work!

An excellent course for beginners and professionals to understand dynamics of GIS. The course is well developed to understand the concepts and develop skill systematically. I appreciate the way course is designed without adding too much cognitive load and keep it simple, focused and practical. The assignments help you to develop maps from scratch and facilitate in completing final marked assignment. The maximum lecture video time is 13 minutes and the short duration keeps you engaged without losing your concentration. The quiz are really about the core concepts that you learn from instructor. The delivery of lectures is simple, focused and to the point. I must appreciate instructor and his team for developing such a great course.

I think this was a very well put together course. For me, person, who had never worked with ArcGIS, there was no problem to follow the lectures and understand everything. The lectures were well structured, everything was explained in detail, which was also the case for the assignments a and even if I forgot something, I just checked again the lecture material and it got clear. One other thing to mention, even if I was really interested in obtaining the knowledge of ArcGIS software in the beginning already, during this course I understood that there are so many other things I can achieve with GIS and the knowledge I can obtain here can be really useful in my future career, therefore this is definitely not my last course here!

I'm only done with week 1 of this course 'Fundamentals of GIS' and I divided the work load into two evenings. I'm a full time master student, but this way of learning is really great in combination with full-time work, study etc.

Even tho it's rather late right now and I'm tired, I'm really considering to take a few more modules. The structure and the content is so exciting and really drags me into the world of GIS.

The lecturer Nick Santos is really good, the pace is perfect and you are always able to go back to previous videos, documents or search the internet, ask your fellow students or the professor if something is bothering you or if you are just curious.

I HIGHLY recommend this course and the specialisation aswell.

this course is suitable for me, I recommended and appreciate my lecturer and all other Coursera teams. Because I covered with this course all my expectations, I got all quick overview of GIS and what's great about it, took a first look at ArcGIS and identify key elements in the interface, and define core geospatial concepts and terminology and also I discussed options for desktop GIS, the history of GIS and how it's used today, discussed resources and help that I can use, and lay out core skills that are relevant to you as a GIS analyst. You closed out by showing me how to get a copy of ArcGIS for this course, and with a tutorial on getting started in ArcGIS.

I have taken several online classes through Coursera, and this was the BEST CLASS I have ever taken. The instructor provided such great step-by-step explanations of every concept, the lectures were well thought out, and each unit built on the previous concepts extremely well. My level of engagement in this course was high in comparison to other online experiences I have had, and I attribute this almost entirely to Prof. Nick Santos - his lecture style was so personal that I almost felt like I was participating in person. I feel confident in my grasp of this material, and I'm really looking forward to completing all of the levels in this GIS Specialization.

I really liked this course - it's an introductory course but you get a real feel for the steps required to work through the whole process of GIS and by the end are able to navigate the software comfortably.

The fact you can get a license for ArcGIS is really great and means you are doing not just observing. ArcGIS is quite a computationally heavy package (for my laptop anyway) but you can usually follow the video lectures with it open and follow the commands which helps the learning experience.

The workload is just the right amount for an online course - not too much to do but enough to keep you busy.

I will be continuing on the specialisation.

I found this course immensely useful as a starting point for learning GIS and ArcGIS Pro software. Although the content was originally created for ArcGIS Desktop version, the supplementary videos linked to YouTube allow the student to navigate both the GIS concepts and ArcGIS Pro. Gaining a student license to the software is great, and Dr Nick Santos' videos are clear and easy to follow. I had some 'normal' setbacks downloading the software, activating the license and just navigating the course content, but they were all solvable and the forums were the key to finding solutions (and trying things multiple times). Thank you.

A great introduction to using ArcGIS software. You gain skills quickly through real-world, practical assignments. Nick is an excellent instructor who does a great job giving you just the right amount of detail you need to be successful. While you don't really gain a fundamental understanding of GIS software and the complex math/programming behind it, you will be able to use ArcGIS competently and confidently for most common tasks. Note that this review is really for the entire specialization as each course is fairly similar, and even the capstone contains a great recap of many of the lectures from the previous courses.

I've taken GIS courses before in college, but these were way more informative and way more interesting given the short period of time that he has to explain everything. I had some problems at the start because I am on a 2011 MacBook Pro, but I bought Parallels and it works perfectly fine with ArcMap. I tried to download Windows using Bootcamp, but it was a hassle (didn't switch to Windows when I wanted it to after restart or would just come up with an error screen) so I definitely think the Parallels investment is a go-to if you have an older Mac and want to continue with the rest of this Specialization.