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TEACHING GEOG 385.02/GTECH 785.02 |
GIS SG course homepage |
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GISSG CLASS PROJECT
Class project is a major component
of the course. Its goal is to give you a chance to apply methods of analysis
and techniques learned in class to your own dataset. You will formulated the
research problem, find the appropriate data, import it into a GIS, analyze it,
and prepare a class presentation of the results as well as a written report.
Project is worth 25% of the grade.
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REQUIREMENTS TO THE CONTENT
Your project should meet the following requirements:
1. Address spatial aspects of social or environmental issues
2. Use one of the analytical techniques covered in class
3. Be focused and feasible
4. The results will be handed in as a written report
NOTE for graduate students:
You are encouraged to choose a topic relevant to your research and thesis. Use this time to do GIS-related work on your thesis.
PROJECT STATEMENT
Project statement is a brief description of your research problem and methods of analysis. At this point, we have not covered all analytical techniques. If you are not sure about the analytical part, write the statement that describe the problem that you would like to investigate using GIS; why solving this problem would benefit from GIS-based spatial analysis; what data you need for your analysis; and what you expect to find out.
If you know what kind of analysis is appropriate, include this into the description of the project.
Project statement is due at the end of September. It will be revised once or twice and is a basis of your project report.
REPORT
Your report should consist of the following parts:
1. Problem statement. Which aspect of this research problem would benefit from spatial analysis and GIS technologies?
2. Data requirements. What digital data you need for this research? What question does it help to answer?
3. Data collection. Description of data and data sources. Discuss sources and formats of your input data.
Indicate file and data format in
which the data is distributed as well as the georeferencing information.
Include names of agencies that supply the data and describe web sites from
which data was downloaded (e.g., Name of the site and nature of organization
that posts the data for downloads in addition to its URL (web address)).
4. Data integration. Describe how you imported the data into your GIS software (Idrisi32 or ArcView). How did you go about discrepancies in georeferencing if any? How did you solve issues of scale and resolution? Did you have to rasterize or vectorize your data? Issues of data quality?
5. Data analysis and findings. Describe your analytical procedures (and why they are appropriate) and your findings.
6. Discussion and conclusions. What are the advantages and limitations of your GIS analysis? What are implications of your findings for communities you studied or the issues you researched? Do you find any connections between your project and previous readings about GIS and society issues?
WRITING REQUIREMENTS (strictly followed):
Size: 8 pages maximum (12 points font size, double-spaced). All maps and tables must be numbered and discussed in text. Attach maps and tables to the end of your paper. Include only those maps that show your study area with initial data sets (where appropriate) and display results of your analysis (include intermediate results where appropriate). Please be very selective when choosing which maps should be included into the report. This report is a finished product and not a collection of draft maps and tables.
References: Make sure that you include all references both in text and in the end of the report. If you restate author's point, include reference to page number on which this point is discussed by the author (author, year, page number). If you use a direct quote, do not forget quotation marks and again include the page number on which this quote can be found. If your references are not properly specified, you will loose 10 points.
Writing style: Your essay has to be written in standard English and checked for spelling and grammar. If these requirements are not met, you will loose 10 points. If you need help with proof reading your essay, contact student services for help.
Writing a research document: Please remember that you are writing a research document. This document is not a diary that describes in detail your struggle with the data search, import, integration and analysis. These struggles are part of work with GIS and any serious project (even a class project) usually involves them. Your competency and mastery exercises are exception from the rule, and such struggles are the rule. As a result, make sure that you provide the reader with enough information about your data and research techniques but please do not include all file and folder names on your U: drive and time in hours and minutes that it took you to figure out what needs to be done to change projection information.
PRINTING AND SUBMITTING MAPS
If you have access to a color printer, print your maps in
color, number sequentially and attach to the end of the report.
If you do not have access to a color printer (this is in case of extreme emergency).
- print your maps in black and white (with greatest quality possible) and attach them to your project.
- insert your maps into an HTML file (as you learned in Intro to Mapping Sciences). Save this file and companion jpeg files in a folder with your name on your U: drive. Then copy this folder into Scratch\Gissg\Reports. In this way, I can write comments on your black and white maps and see your full color maps on the server.
ADDITIONAL LITERATURE
Your report should include articles covering GIS application
in your area of interest or relevant GIS issues (e.g., data quality, access of
information, etc.). Articles can be found in GIS-related journals in Hunter library or
in some cases downloaded from the web (see GIS and Society links). You
are welcome to use suggested readings for
class presentations in your projects.
Undergraduate students: You need to reference at least three
GIS articles related to your research problem.
Graduate students: You need to reference at least five GIS
articles related to your research problem
Teams including both undergraduate and graduate students should
reference at least five GIS articles related to your research problem.
In addition to GIS-related articles, you are welcome to include other geographic literature that discusses your project topic and provides background for your research.
Make sure that you include all references both in text and in the end of the essay. If you restate author's point, include reference to page number on which this point is discussed by the author (author, year, page number). If you use a direct quote, do not forget quotation marks and again include the page number on which this quote can be found.
DEADLINES
Project statement is due by the end of September.
Report is due 12/11 by