Introducing Geographic Information Systems with ArcGIS: A Workbook Approach to Learning GIS, 3rd Edition

Understanding the File Structure for the Exercises

You will be working primarily with two major folders or directories. The first of these folders will be IGIS-Arc. It will contain the data for the exercises. It will start off as, and will remain, a direct copy of the IGIS-Arc folder that is on the DVD in the back of the book. If you are in class, operating off a network, your instructor will probably have put this folder somewhere in the network file structure. If you are using this book on your own, you should load the IGIS-Arc folder that is on the DVD directly onto your local hard drive. In either case, the IGIS-Arc folder should be protected so that changes cannot be made to it.

____ 2. Locate or create the IGIS-Arc folder. It may be in the root folder of a hard drive on your computer, or it may be several levels down in a hierarchy. Whenever it is referred to in this textbook, it will be represented as:

[___]IGIS-Arc

The symbols [___] might represent something as simple as C:\ or it might be a long path such as:

U:\ABCNet\GIS_Students\GIS401

Write the path you will associate with the symbol [___] below:

[___] means _________________________________________________________.

You will use a second folder to store the work that you do. It will be specifically yours; your initials will be made part of the folder name. For example, if your name were John W. Stephenson, the folder would be called IGIS-Arc_JWS. In the next step, you will create this folder.

____ 3. Decide ...