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Course material for the course ‘Automating GIS processes’ at the University of Helsinki, Finland

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# Automating GIS-processes

This repository contains the source files for the course [Automating GIS
processes II](https://studies.helsinki.fi/courses/?searchText=GEOG-329-2) at the
[University of Helsinki](https://helsinki.fi/). While the course is taught as an
on-site lab course for students of the Masters’ programme in geography there,
anybody interested in learning **how to use Python to automate the handling and
analysis of geographic information** is welcome to follow the course content at
[autogis-site.readthedocs.io](https://autogis-site.readthedocs.io/).

## License and terms of usage

We hope that the teaching material provided here is helpful to other teachers
and learners. Thus, we share all the lessons openly, as well as the source code
and sample data.

**Teaching material and code snippets are licensed** under the **Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence** and the **GNU GPLv3
license**, respectively.

**Read more about the license and terms of usage
[here](https://autogis-site.readthedocs.io/en/latest/course-info/license.html)**.

## Browser based programming environment

The instructions in this course provide a programming environment that allows
anyone to immediately try and run all sample code directly in the browser. This
functionality is realised using [Binder](https://mybinder.org/) and the
[CSC](https://csc.fi/)’s [Notebooks](https://notebooks.csc.fi/) (the latter are
available to students and staff at Finnish universities, only).

## Instructions for updating the University of Helsinki course each year

There a few tasks that need to be done to prepare this course for being taught
each autumn. Even without updating any of the content, reserve at minimum a
few days to get everything set up.

1. Before you do anything else, make sure to **tag the previous year’s course
   content**, so that readthedocs provides a yearly version.
   This can (and should) have been done at the end of last autumn’s course,
   but please double-check:

```
    git clone git@github.com:Automating-GIS-processes/site
    cd site
    git tag -a 2022  # <- CHANGE THE YEAR!
    git push --tags
    ```

2. **Update the Python environment** (ensure stable versions throughout the lifetime
   of the course and of the course page’s version for the current year)
    - Update the pinned versions in **pip**’s `requirements.txt` (rtd uses pip!):
        ```
        # create a new virtual environment and activate it
        python -m venv --clear .virtualenv
        source .virtualenv/bin/activate

# install using the _unpinned_ docs/requirements.in.txt
        pip install -r docs/requirements.in.txt

# save a pinned docs/requirement.txt
        pip freeze --local -r docs/requirements.in.txt > docs/requirements.txt

# deactivate the virtual environment
        deactivate
        ```
    - Update **conda**’s `environment.yml` in a similar way:
        - First, make sure [`environment.in.yml`](ci/environment.in.yml) pins
          Python (the interpreter itself) to the [lastest major version available
          from conda-forge](https://anaconda.org/conda-forge/python). For
          instance, in autumn 2022, the version listed is `3.10.6`; accordingly,
          the respective line in the environment file should read `- python=3.10`.
        - Then use the following commands (they’re analogue to the pip workflow,
          above):
            ```
            # remove a possibly existing stale environment
            conda env remove --name=autogis

# install a new environment using the _unpinned_
            # ci/environment.in.yml
            conda env create --file=environment.in.yml

# save a pinned vi/environment.yml
            # (removing the ‘prefix:’ line because it hard-codes
            # your system’s path)
            conda env export --no-builds --name autogis \
            | grep -Ev '^prefix:' \
            > environment.yml
            ```

**Note**, that Python’s release schedule typically foresees a new Python
      version around the time of the start of the course. For instance, 2022,
      Python 3.11 was released 7 days before the course started. Most likely
      you want to stick with the previous version, as some of the packages
      might not have been updated in time.

3. **Update the docker image** for the *CSC Notebooks*, and upload it to CSC’s registry.
   Create a *CSC Notebooks* ‘workspace’ and ‘application’ using the docker image.
   [Follow the instructions in the `Automating-GIS-processes/csc-notebook-dockerfile`
   repository](https://github.com/Automating-GIS-processes/csc-notebook-dockerfile)

4. **Set up Slack**: Create a new Slack instance, e.g.,
   ‘Automating-GIS-processes-2023’, and set up the channel structure such as in
   previous years: `#general` and `#random` exist by default, create `#week1`
   through `#week7`, as well as `#final-assignments`; create `#instructors` to
   coordinate with the student tutors. *I (@christophfink) will leave the 2022
   version around, drop me a line and I’ll add you there so you can see for what
   we used Slack*.

5. **Set up GitHub classroom**: register for GitHub Education
   (https://classroom.github.com), create a new organisation for this year’s
   exercise repository templates (see
   [Automating-GIS-processes-2022](https://github.com/Automating-GIS-processes-2022),
   and add the exercise repositories there, one by one, as the course advances.
   For each exercise, create a classroom, and update the links in the respective
   `docs/lesson-X/exercise-X.md` files.

6. **Update the course details** defined in [`conf.py`](docs/conf.py). Things that
   change every year are set up as ‘substitutions’, variables that are replaced
   throughout all documents. Edit them to reflect this year’s course’s details
   (as of October 2022, this block is starting [at line 42 of
   `conf.py`](docs/conf.py#L42)):

```
    # The following are the main things that need to be updated every year
    # These variables are replaced throughout the course documents
    # (see the comment for the first item for an example)
    myst_substitutions = {
        "year": "2022",  # use {{year}} in markdown files to replace it with the current value
        "starting_date": "Tuesday, 1 November 2022",
        "lectures_weekday_time_location": "Tuesday, 15:15-16:45, Exactum C222",
        "work_sessions_weekday_time_location": "Friday, 12:15-16:00, Physicum A113+A114 (GIS lab)",
        ...
    }
    ```

## Contact

This course was conceived and designed by Henrikki Tenkanen, and has been
taught, maintained and improved over the years by Vuokko Heikinheimo and Håvard
Wallin Aagesen. Currently (autumn term 2022), Christoph Fink is the responsible
teacher.

You can find contact information on the [course
website](https://autogis-site.readthedocs.io/en/latest/course-info/general-information.html).

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