A GIS novice taking on his/her first project is often discouraged by the number of moving parts. Some of us find it helpful to think of ourselves as project managers on a construction job. Our assignment is to build a geographic information system that meets a specific need.
A GIS Needs a Convenient and Secure Workspace – As with any building project we need to decide where our project will be located, prepare the worksite and bring together our tools and building materials. When we’re building a geographic information system, the project location is a digital workspace. CHECK IT OUT
Data Frame Factoids
The ArcGIS Data Frame and its Table of Contents are used display and manipulate spatial data in an ArcGIS work session. The Data Frame’s Data view is optimized for data display and manipulation. The Layout view is optimized for composing staitic maps..
Data Frame Coordinate System
The data frame coordinate system is one of several properties of the ArcMap Data Frame that are set by the user. Note that inexperienced users often confuse the data frame coordinate system (the mathematical model used to DISPLAY information in a printed or on-screen map) with the coordinate system used to store locational information in spatial databases.
The ArcGIS Data Frame
The ArcGIS Data Frame and its Table of Contents are used display
and manipulate spatial data in an ArcGIS work session. The Data
Frame’s Data view is optimized for data display and manipulation.
The Layout view is optimized for composing static maps.
- Data Frame Factoids – OGS HelpDocs
article - Specifying a coordinate system –
article from Esri on-line help