87.504 Syllabus F09
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Syllabus -- Fall 2009
Instructor: Alex Brown
- (978) 934-3199 desk, (617) 308-9456 mobile
- Web: http://gis.uml.edu/abrown2
- Email: alexander_brown@uml.edu
Office: OH521 rear
- 5-6 PM before class, or
- By appointment
- (978) 934-4352 -- no voicemail (sorry); please use numbers above
Web page for this course:
- This page: http://gis.uml.edu/eeas87.504
- Courseware: http://gis.uml.edu/moodle
- User Name: student
- Password: student
- Courseware login: your Moodle account, see this page.
- Choose: IntroGIS
INTRODUCTION TO COURSE
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is an applied technical subject dealing with recent and emerging technology for management and manipulation of spatial information, especially for decision support and planning. It is one of the most interdisciplinary areas of computer technology, with applications in many fields. This course will cover the elements of geospatial information, and applications to important problems in several fields, focusing on:
- environmental, earth, and atmospheric sciences;
- transportation engineering and other civil engineering;
- public policy, decision support and planning.
Examples will be drawn from current topics in environmental and energy policy, as well as natural resource management. Our approach will emphasize the variety of spatial data available today and its many applications, its structure as digital information, and the fundamental concepts and methods of spatial data acquisition, management, analysis, and presentation, including common tools and methods for data management, such as geocoding, digitizing and image registration for data entry; and map algebra and statistical model functions for analysis. A wide variety of software tools will be introduced, including ESRI ArcGIS 9.2, the most widely used professional GIS software system.
Topics covered include:
- Fundamental concepts
- Spatial information basics, esp. coordinate systems
- Data models, objects, and topology
- Vector models
- Raster models
- Attribute data
- Sources of spatial data
- Data editing and input
- Data quality
- Basic tools for analysis
- Spatial analysis for decision support
- Queries, map algebra, statistical operations (including spreadsheets)
- Surfaces, interpolation, and terrain analysis
- Networks and segmentation
- Spatial process modeling
- Cartography and modes of presentation and use
- Spatial information presentation as visual communication
- Map, chart, poster, other printed forms
- Electronic presentation and publication; metadata
- Electronic exploration and interaction; web mapservers
- End use objectives, fitness criteria, and quality measurement
No computer science background is required other than strong skills and experience as a technical user of PC systems; but mathematics through solid geometry, trigonometry, algebra, and statistics are extremely valuable.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
The goal of this course is to provide the student with a perspective on tools and methods used in GIS practice, and with the ability to use these tools and methods for effective visual communication. The objective of this course is mastery of basic concepts of GIS systems, and mastery of basic GIS operations in ArcGIS and other GIS software systems. However, this mastery alone is of little value without some framework of application. GIS is a tool for exploration and discovery, and analysis and presentation, in many fields. Students are expected to bring or find areas of specific application interest. The final requirement for this course is a presentation in visual form, of a problem in the student's field, using these tools and methods.
At the successful completion of this course, students will have met the following course objectives:
- Understand and identify:
- Spatial information basics, esp. coordinate systems
- Data models, objects, and topology
- Sources of spatial data; data editing and input; data quality
- Attribute data management and metadata
- Understand and use basic tools for modeling and analysis
- Surfaces, interpolation, and terrain analysis
- Built feature models including networks and segmentation
- Natural and manmade spatial process modeling
- Queries, map algebra, statistical operations (including spreadsheets)
- Spatial analysis for decision support
- Understand cartography principles, and modes of presentation and use of maps
- Spatial information presentation and publication as visual communication
- Visual requirements and standard symbology in student's field
- End use objectives, fitness criteria, and quality measurement
- Labels, legends and metadata
- Map, chart, poster, other printed forms
- Electronic presentation, exploration, interaction, and publication of spatial information
- Experience in graphic presentation of a spatial topic of interest to you
- Spatial information presentation and publication as visual communication
COURSE MEETINGS
Monday evenings 6-9PM in the OH521 GIS lab. Each session will consist of lectures and demonstrations, a break, and a lab session. The lab provides 16 PCs with appropriate software installed; it is accessible to registered students during normal school hours using the cardlock on the door, when the room is not in use by another class. Meeting dates are:
- Monday 9/14
- Monday 9/21
- Monday 9/28
- Monday 10/5
- Wednesday 10/14
- Monday 10/19
- Monday 10/26 Midterm Exam
- Monday 11/2
- Monday 11/9
- Monday 11/16
- Monday 11/23
- Monday 11/30
- Monday 12/7
- Monday 12/14
Follow this link for 87.504 detailed schedule.
REQUIRED TEXT
Paul Bolstad (http://paulbolstad.net):
GIS Fundamentals: A First Text on Geographic Information Systems, 3rd edition
Second Edition is now available for $38.75 at the bookstore, and www.atlasbooks.com.
ISBN: 978-0-9717647-2-9
LCCN: 2005901634
GIS Fundamentals is a complete, readable, inexpensive, and widely adopted textbook for introductory GIS courses.
OTHER COURSE MATERIALS
Because mastery of this software depends on practice, a student copy of the software for personal computer use is very strongly recommended. Several free GIS software packages will be available in the lab for classroom and personal use. A one-year student license for ArcGIS 9.2 is available free to registered students through the UMass campus-wide license.
For auditors and others, ESRI provides an evaluation copy of ArcGIS 9 with an introductory textbook in the visual style: Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop: The Basics of ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo (Getting to Know series) (Paperback) by Robert Burke, Eileen Napoleon, Tim Ormsby. Publisher: ESRI Press; Second Book and CD-ROM edition (June 1, 2004). ISBN: 158948083X. About $60. The 180 day evaluation software is specially licensed but otherwise unrestricted. A commercial user's license for ArcGIS costs far more, so these student licenses are a good value.
Although some GIS software is available for MacOS and Linux systems, ArcGIS and most other professional GIS products are intended for Windows PCs, and students should have access to one outside the lab to use the ArcGIS student license. GIS tools are large, complex software systems that require considerable computer horsepower for ease of use. New computers are now extremely powerful at falling prices, but any recent Windows XP system should do, if it has a reasonably fast processor (1GHz CPU or better), a moderately high-resolution screen (1024x768), adequate memory (512MB or more, preferably 1GB), and disk storage of 40GB or more. Most laptop displays are not large enough even if resolution is high; I would recommend an external monitor for desktop use of a laptop. Used high resolution 21" glass monitors are now becoming available very cheaply as they are being replaced with flat panel displays. GIS work can be visually and physically demanding, so eyesight correction and workplace ergonomics may become important to you.
GRADING PROCEDURES
Your performance in this course will be graded primarily on the basis of successful use of these tools and methods in your own field of interest, not on textbook exercises. During the course, you must complete a total of seven assignments. These will often be a combination of exercises, and applications to your own field. You are expected to submit each of the assignments by the posted due dates; I will hand them back with comments and a grade. You may wish to revise assignments based on the feedback you were given. Revised assignments will be regraded and the second grade will replace the first for that assignment.
The objective of most work in GIS is effective visual communication. The final deliverable for this course is a project in which GIS methods and data are applied to a topic in your field, and results are prepared for presentation; an opportunity to present this work to each other, or to publish an interactive web map, will be provided at the end of the term. (All projects must be approved by me on Monday, Oct. 19.) Successful exploration and visual communication of spatial information is the goal. Collaboration is encouraged, if you share interests with other students, and your project is ambitious enough for two or more participants. In such cases, separate contributions must be clearly identified, and may be graded separately to some extent, although success of the group effort will far outweigh individual contributions in grading.
Grade allocation is as follows. I may give additional unannounced quizzes and brief exercises, scored or unscored, during the course, and may change this grade allocation as appropriate (and noted below).
- Seven assignments: 10% each, total 70%
- Final project: 30%
- For more information on the final project please follow this link.
Although some assignments are necessarily graded based on judgements you and I together will make of your work, your final grade will be on a straight scale with number grades; there is no curve here. Numerical scoring of the final project and other assignments involving creative or nonuniform content will be done using this rubric, in discussion with you. Your final course grade will be determined as follows: 90-100%=A; 80-89.9=B; 70-79.9=C; 60-69.9=D; below 60% is an F. I reserve the right to alter these grade cutoffs.
Alex 22:47, 14 January 2009 (EST) -- Change to increment-grading:
100 A+ 95 A 90 A-/B+ 85 B 80 B-/C+ 75 C 70 C-/D+ 65 D 60 D- <60 F
ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY
You are encouraged, and possibly even required, to complete many assignments collaboratively. Thus, many of the traditional concerns about academic honesty are not relevant here. However, the collaborative nature of much of the work in this course does require that clear guidelines about collaboration be set. When an assignment is done individually, you may consult any people you wish during the thinking and planning phases of the assignment. At the point at which you begin to write, your work is expected to be your own. When an assignment is done collaboratively, I must be notified by email of your intentions, and all group members are expected to contribute approximately equally to the planning, execution, and reporting of the work. The inclusion of your name on a piece of submitted work is interpreted as your certification that you did your fair share of the group work.
When making use of external sources such as books, published papers, web resources, etc., you are expected to cite sources of data, software, ideas and information that are not your own, and to enclose in quotation marks and properly attribute any material that you take verbatim from other sources. Such quotations should generally be brief, a few sentences at most.
Consult UML's academic policies for additional details.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you have medical information to share with the instructor, please make an appointment as soon as possible. I will make every effort to provide for individual needs. Please note that this course is inherently unsuitable for persons with severe visual disability.
