The GoldSim Contaminant Transport Module Online Course is Now Available!

Posted by Rick Kossik

Over the last two years I posted six excerpts from the Contaminant Transport Module Online Course. I had promised that it was under development and would eventually be posted in full. I posted the last of these excerpts a year ago and then went silent, so you may have wondered "what happened?". With the exception of the last excerpt, these were from the (early) conceptual parts of the Course. The remainder of the Course is "hands-on" and procedural and would not have necessarily worked well in a blog format. Hence, the silence. Well, FINALLY (after 2 years of effort) the full Course is now available. In this post, I briefly provide an overview of what you can expect.

This free, self-paced Course is intended to provide you with an introduction to the GoldSim Contaminant Transport Module. Due to the level of detail provided, it should be of interest not only to people who are new to GoldSim, but also those who are already familiar with the Contaminant Transport Module. The Course covers not only how to use the Module, but also necessarily discusses basic contaminant transport concepts. The Course assumes that you are already familiar with the basic GoldSim framework (as described in detail in the Introduction to GoldSim Course.

If you work straight through (which is not necessarily recommended), the Course will likely take no less than 40 hours to complete (and if you tend be very methodical and spend time exploring the Help system as you take the Course, it could take longer). 

The Course is organized into Units and Lessons (134 Lessons in 12 Units) so you can easily take the Course at your own pace (and the site will remember where you last left off). The ideal pace is probably to spend perhaps just a couple hours per day with the Course and spread it out over several weeks or a month. This then provides you with an opportunity to give some considered thought to the information that was presented, and prevent “information overload”. On the other hand, if you are already very familiar with contaminant transport modeling (and/or have a strong quantitative background), you may want to approach the Course in a more intensive manner and cover the material more rapidly.

This is a “hands-on” Course. That is, while you are taking it, you are expected to simultaneously use the software. As a result, if possible, it is recommended that you use a large (or high resolution) screen with this Course on one side of the screen and GoldSim on the other, an extended desktop (e.g., using two monitors) or perhaps two computers (a computer for the software and a tablet for the Course). Throughout the Course, we use nearly 60 simple Exercises and Examples to help you learn how to use the software. In order for this Course to be effective at all, it is critical that you work through these Exercises and Examples.

You can find the Course here.  Enjoy!