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Near the end of the semester students design unique projects in which they rate 22,000 towns and cities in the U.S. on the basis of their own criteria. They end up with their own determiniation of which is the best place to visit, best place to live, or best place to avoid, etc. The project swings into action many of the fundamental skills learned earlier in the term.

G&ES 391

Research with GIS has been taught Spring terms in the Department of Geography

Weekly assignments are completed in an adjacent room which houses the department's cartography laboratory. That room is outfitted with 10 networked computers and periheral equipment specific to this and other courses offered by G&ES. Students may also work at home, with the 100-day trial program which comes with the textbook (Win XP, 2000).

What is A Geographic Information System?

A GIS program integrates cartography and data analysis. A map is made up of many points, line segments, and area polygons. Each of these objects is associated in a GIS to a row of a common spreadsheet. The program keeps track of where the information is in relation to other objects on the map. In other words it knows that a point representing a school is within a polygon representing a planning district. The district adjacent to that one is also known, and the distance between the school and the nearest highway is known as well.

This facilitates spatial analysis which is not possible otherwise. A GIS can tell us how many Asian households are within 5 road miles of a grocery store. It can design efficient routes for waste haulers. It can identify areas which are most vulnerable to urban sprawl. Or it can help identify where the new fire station or coffee shop should be built.

Who may take Research With GIS?

Anyone may take the course who has already had the one prerequisite: Computer Cartography (G&ES 377), which is offered Fall and Summer 1A terms or GIS Across Disciplines (G&ES 291), which is offered Spring terms. Approval of the instructor will do as well. Both undergraduate and graduate students are welcome -- graduate credit requires completing an extra assignment (see syllabus). Enrollment is limited to 20 students, so it is a good idea to register as early as possible.

What will you learn?

Students in G&ES 391 can expect to learn how to access, map and analyze large data sets -- both spatial layers and attribute information -- from public sources. This sometimes means format conversion or other preparations. Students will address match and learn other ways to "geocode" data which is not yet mapped, but for which spatial information exists (e.g. zip code, or street address). They will practice digitizing both on screen and by way of digitizing tablet. They will perform spatial transformations such as overlay and buffering. Students will also do some numeric analyis on selected data with simple but powerful tools. They will learn how to select subsets of data in many different ways, and to export that selected information to be used outside of the GIS, or as a new layer within it. Of course they will learn to make maps and reports.

The last third of the class students will design (with help) their own project by which they rate 22,000 census places in the continental U.S. to determine where their own "best" place is. This project calls into play many of the skills learned in the first portion of the class.

What other courses are offered?

Students interested in technical GeoSpatial skills may also be interested in Interactive Cartography, which focuses on maps delivered on line. Hyperlinked maps, zoomable images, 360 degree panoramas, Google hacks, 3D objects, scalable maps, rollovers, menu/frames, interactive cartograms, and scalable vector graphics are among the topics covered. Students who have had GIS before taking Interactive Cartography will be able to put their ArcGIS skills to good use for interactive map content.

A good background for 391 -- although it's not required -- is G&ES 291: GIS Across Disciplines. This is affectionately called "GIS Without Tears" and will introduce students to the concepts, structure, approach, and utility of GIS -- with a small amout of hands-on experience. It can be taken after 391, but it's better the other way around.

A new course has been designed -- GIS II -- to follow G&ES 391 which will be called GIS I. This two-course sequence will simply make it possible to cover the material we would like to cover in G&ES 391. The field (and technology) has grown to justify that. The department offers Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing. We also have Aerial Photograph Interpretation. Good students may elect to take on an independent study or participate in the variety of on-going GIS projects. In addition, an internship called Internship in GIS has been proposed. This will offer students the chance to take on real-world work in the field in an individually-arranged internship.