Geographic Information Systems

Although ESRI's ArcGIS software suite is a commonly used software package for Geographic Information System (GIS) users and is available to University of Oregon students and faculty, the software is proprietary and thus may not be available to you if you graduate from UO or if you are not associated with the university. Fortunately, there are also open-source (also called open access) Geographic Information System software options available that you can download from the world wide web. While these programs do not have the same immediate technical support that come with proprietary software like ESRI's ArcGIS, many tutorials and explanations of troubleshooting problems for open-source software are often available by searching the world wide web. The links below connect to websites where you can learn more about and download open-source GIS software, although it is not an exhaustive list of all open-source GIS software options.