Which of the following are components of Geographic Information System (GIS)? 1. Data 2. Hardware 3. Software 4. People Select the answer using the code given below.
- (a)1 and 4 only
- (b)2 and 3 only
- (c)1, 2 and 3 only
- (d)1, 2, 3 and 4
Correct — D, 1, 2, 3 and 4. Every standard definition of a geographic information system counts five components, and the four printed here are among them. Hardware is the machine the system runs on, from a field receiver to a server. Software is the package that stores, queries and displays spatial data. Data is what the system exists for, and is normally the most expensive part of any installation. People are the fifth requirement in every textbook list and the reason it exists: a system without trained analysts to build the layers, judge the results and act on them produces maps that nobody uses. The component the question leaves out is methods or procedures — the rules and workflows the organisation follows.
- (a)1 and 4 only — Data and people are components, but so are hardware and software. A geographic information system is a computing system before it is anything else.
- (b)2 and 3 only — Reduces the system to a machine and a program. Without data there is nothing to analyse, and without people there is nobody to decide what analysis is worth doing.
- (c)1, 2 and 3 only — The tempting answer for anyone who thinks of a geographic information system as software. People are listed as a component in every standard definition, precisely because the same data and the same package produce very different results in different hands.
A geographic information system captures, stores, analyses and displays data tied to locations on the Earth. Its components are conventionally given as five: hardware, software, data, people and methods. The last two are what separate it from a mapping package — a workable system carries trained staff and agreed procedures for how layers are built, updated, checked and shared.
The question is really about whether a candidate has learned the definition or only the technology. Data is usually the costliest component of a real deployment, and people the one most often underestimated, which is why textbooks are emphatic about including them. In Indian practice the point is visible in Bhuvan and in the state spatial data infrastructures, where the technical layers exist but the value depends on departments having staff and procedures to keep them current.
- The five components of a geographic information system are hardware, software, data, people and methods or procedures.
- Data is normally the most expensive component of an operational deployment.
- People are a component in every standard definition, not an optional extra.
- Methods or procedures — the agreed rules and workflows — is the component this question leaves out.
- Bhuvan, run by the Indian Space Research Organisation, is India's national geoportal.
Four of the five are printed. People is the one candidates drop, and dropping it is what produces the wrong answer here.
- Treating a geographic information system as software alone.
- Forgetting the fifth component, methods or procedures, when the question asks for all of them.
- Assuming an 'only' option must be right because it looks more precise.
A definition item where the omitted component is the one candidates never think of, so the printed list is complete as far as it goes.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of these is NOT usually listed as a component of a geographic information system?
- (a)Hardware
- (b)People
- (c)Methods
- (d)Weather
Answer(d) Weather — the five components are hardware, software, data, people and methods.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Bhuvan, India's national geoportal, is operated by
- (a)the Survey of India
- (b)the Indian Space Research Organisation
- (c)the National Informatics Centre
- (d)the India Meteorological Department
Answer(b) the Indian Space Research Organisation — it serves Indian remote sensing imagery and thematic layers.