MDL Tutorials
This guide is primarily designed to help users unfamiliar with the CANSIM database to find and download data through CHASS.
Please note that a University of Toronto IP address is required to access CHASS.
Note: CANSIM data may also be accessed through the Statistics Canada website. Tutorial available here.
This guide is primarily designed to help users unfamiliar with the CANSIM database find and download data.
Note: This guide outlines how to search for CANSIM data on the Statistics Canada website. University of Toronto faculty, staff, and students may also download CANSIM series for free via CHASS. You will need to be using a UofT IP address to access CHASS.
Learn the basics of GIS with open source software, QGIS (https://qgis.org). This tutorial/workshop is made up of three modules.
- Module 1. Getting started
- Module 2. Making a map using layouts
- Module 3. Manipulating geospatial datasets
Download the datasets used for this workshop at this location: https://maps.library.utoronto.ca/workshops/QGIS/2022/QGIS.zip
Note that while the examples shown in this tutorial were captured using the windows version of QGIS, all modules and operations can be completed using the linux or mac OS version of QGIS.
Created by Marcel Fortin, GIS and Map Librarian, in January 2021, this 4-part video tutorial will teach you how to format, edit, and map spatial data using ArcGIS Online.
The following slide deck is Part 1 of an introduction to ArcGIS Online.
The following slide deck will guide you through Part 2 of the ArcGIS Online workshop. Part 2 covers topics such as choropleth mapping, spatial analytic tools, and linking ArcGIS Pro to ArcGIS Online.
ArcGIS Online is a web-based mapping software that allows you to build, share, and access interactive web maps.
This tutorial will help you install ArcGIS PRO on your Windows operating system. Please request a license code before beginning the installation process. If you are a Mac user, please read this page about running Windows in OS X before requesting a code.
The following slide deck walks you through the basics of learning about ArcGIS Pro's main tools, viewing and manipulating datasets and basemaps, and exporting a basic map view.
Learn to create a map project which will include a legend, scale bar, an inset map, a title and a north arrow.
The following slide deck will walk you through Module 3 of the ArcGIS Pro tutorial. This module will teach you how to add and format vector and raster data layers to your project, as well as how to geocode data.
The following slide deck is for Module 4 of the ArcGIS Pro tutorial. This module helps the user apply knowledge and skills learned in previous 3 modules in solving a real life spatial problem.
The following slide deck is for Module 5 of the ArcGIS Pro workshop. This module will teach you how to manipulate and analyze raster data in ArcGIS Pro.
The following slide deck is for Module 6 of the ArcGIS Pro tutorial. This module will teach you how to do basic data cleaning and converting to prepare data to be used in ArcGIS Pro. This module will also present a real life problem of doing spatial analysis using public health data.
This tutorial will use 7 modules to teach you the basics of ArcGIS Pro. These modules will cover topics such as adding, manipulating, analyzing, and mapping vector and raster data.
ArcGIS Pro is a desktop GIS software developed by Esri and is intended to replace ArcMap.
ESRI ArcGIS StoryMaps online workshop videos, January 2021
The following slide deck is a tutorial on ArcGIS StoryMaps. This tutorial will teach you the basics of ArcGIS StoryMaps, how they can be used, and how you can make your own StoryMap.
ArcGIS StoryMaps is an online storytelling tool that allows users to craft and publish powerful narratives using maps.
The following PDF contains an article that elaborates on citation rules for machine-readable data in Canadian historical journals.
Additionally, if using ESRI products (e.g. ArcGIS Online) or ESRI data, please consult this guide on How to Cite ArcGIS Maps and Data.
This guide shows the user how to use Spyder to load and clean data for further analysis.
Stata is a good tool for cleaning and manipulating data, regardless of the software you intend to use for analysis. This workshop is suitable for both first time data-cleaners and for those familiar with data cleaning.
This tutorial covers two methods for clipping raster datasets from ArcMap.
FME (File Manipulation Engine) is a powerful software package that allows users to quickly convert spatial and non-spatial datasets into other formats to facilitate sharing and interoperability. One of its components, FME Quick Translator, is an easy-to-use utility that provides a straightforward translation workflow via a simple graphical user interface. This guide demonstrates how to use FME Universal Translator to convert geospatial data from one format to another using an older file format (ArcInfo Coverage, .e00) as an example.
This tutorial will demonstrate how to convert geospatial datasets saved as shapefiles into AutoCAD format.
This tutorial will teach you how to import, clean, and analyze public health data using R.
This is a beginner’s guide to creating a point layer in ArcGIS 10.2 using the latitude and longitude of the locations you wish to display. The first part of this guide will walk you through creating an Excel file of coordinates found in decimal degrees that are set up and ready to be imported into ArcGIS. How to locate coordinates online will also be discussed. This guide will then walk you through bringing your data into ArcGIS and creating your point layer on top of a base layer of countries.
This tutorial provides an opportunity to learn data visualization skills using a common data visualization tool, Tableau Desktop. People often say that they learn better when using data that resonates with them, so we are using COVID-19 data in this tutorial, as this topic is touching many people’s lives right now.
Digital elevation models (DEMs) are geospatial datasets that contain elevation values sampled according to a regularly spaced rectangular grid. They can be used in terrain analysis, 3D visualizations, and hydrological modelling, among other applications. DEMs can be stored in several different formats; however, conversion into a raster dataset is often required for many processes. This tutorial explains how to derive contours from DEMs using ArcMap and ArcScene.
The guide in this PDF will teach the user how to generate contours using DEM files in Global Mapper.
This guide is suitable for new Tableau users looking for information on producing popular data visualizations in Tableau, such as bar graphs, line graphs, scatterplots, tree maps, and dashboards. If you are looking for more general data visualization tips, please see the Map and Data Library's Data Visualization Guide. You can find instructions on installing and acquiring a free academic license for Tableau here. If you are running Tableau on a Mac, please note that there may be some variation between the Windows version used to design this guide and the program as it appears on a Mac.
The data used in this guide are public datasets retrieved from the World Bank’s Open Data repository, the United Nation's Open Data Population Division, and the full text of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet available through MIT's website, with a frequency table generated through Voyant Tools. You can find more information regarding the data sources used in this guide in the subsection entitled "10. Data Sources".
This tutorial was created using Tableau Desktop version 2020.2.
Data Visualization is a broad term that basically involves anything that uses graphical or pictorial representations of data for exploration, sense-making, and communication. Data visualization allows you and your audience to identify patterns, trends, exceptions, and relationships. It has broad applicability from conveying abstract concepts or ideas to highly complex scientific data.
This page will highlight the resources we offer on data visualization and using Tableau Desktop. Tableau Desktop is a commercial program used to create data visualizations and interactive dashboards.
If you need to uninstall and reinstall your authorized copy of ArcGIS (for example, if you are reformatting your hard drive or switching to a new computer or you have entered your eva code in once and it did not authorize) please follow these instructions before uninstalling the software.
This tutorial introduces Gale's Digital Scholar Lab (DSL), a digital humanities tool. In this tutorial, you will learn how to:
- Build a collection of texts, including uploading your own materials
- Clean texts
- Run analytical tools on texts and visualize the results
- Download the data, graphs, and other visualizations produced through this tool
- Download the scanned texts in your collection, so that you can use them in other programs
- Find additional training and resources
Note: Gale periodically updates the Digital Scholar Lab, so some features of this tutorial might not always match the latest interface. This tutorial was last updated in July 2022.
Return to the main Gale Digital Scholar Lab tutorial
Here are some ways to dig deeper into the archival and instructional materials in the Digital Scholar Lab.
Return to the main Gale Digital Scholar Lab tutorial
This tutorial demonstrates how to use the Digital Scholar Lab's six analysis tools.
Return to the main Gale Digital Scholar Lab tutorial
This tutorial demonstrates how to use and customize the Digital Scholar Lab's cleaning configurations.
Return to the main Gale Digital Scholar Lab tutorial
This tutorial shows you how to create a collection in the Digital Scholar Lab, both by searching Gale Primary Sources and by uploading your own texts.
Return to the main Gale Digital Scholar Lab tutorial
This tutorial demonstrates how to export documents and metadata from the Digital Scholar Lab.
National Resources Canada (NRCAN) produced a portal called GeoGratis for allowing access to, and downloads of, their high-quality, free, and publicly available maps and geospatial data. This tutorial guides you in navigating their Product Index to find data on a specific location, and it is easily adaptable for other locations or desired data products.
This tutorial demonstrates how to load SDA data for use in Stata.
This tutorial goes over how to download, install, and license ArcGIS Pro with your UTORid.
In the case you need to acquire detailed city data to produce a large-scale map and we don’t have what you’re looking for in our data inventory, there is a chance that the user-contributed maps of OpenStreetMap.org may do the trick. You can export data from OpenStreetMap and open it in ArcGIS to use it in your own maps.
You may have noticed that many GIS datasets contain information about a geographic extent that is larger than your area of interest. Your research may involve analysis of data related to a single municipality in Ontario, yet you have only been able to locate a dataset showing all municipalities located within the province. Alternatively, you may be interested in only displaying a selection of features on your completed map, such as the Canadian cities you have selected as case studies for your research. This tutorial will demonstrate how to extract just the features you need from larger datasets, saving them to new files that you can then use to map and analyze your data.
The CHASS Canadian Census Analyser allows members of the University of Toronto research community to generate custom tables from the Census of Canada (1961-2016) and the National Household Survey (2011). This tutorial provides an example of extracting and downloading data from CHASS.
This tutorial demonstrates how to find paper maps and atlases in the University of Toronto Libraries catalogue, then locate them in Map & Data Library's fifth floor collection.