POEC 6387 Geographic Information Systems Workshop

Summer, 2001

Thursday 6:00-10:00 PM

Instructor: Dr. Fang Qiu

Email: ffqiu@utdallas.edu

Phone: 972-883-4134

Office: GR 3.203

Office Hour: Monday 5:00-6:00 PM

Course Purpose

The GIS Workshop consists of an independent project designed and conducted by the student. Projects will develop and demonstrate competence in using GIS techniques in a substantive application to his/her field of interest. The projects will be identified by the student and approved by the instructor during the first two weeks of class. From the second week onward, students are expected to work independently, using the university computer labs or facilities off-site as needed to complete their chosen project. After the first two weeks, the class will meet periodically for students to discuss project progress and demonstrate provisional results to the class. Most of the time required for completing the students’ projects will be outside of regular scheduled class hours – students should expect to spend approximately 12 – 15 hours per week in order to complete a significant project.

Course Grading

The grade for the class will be based on three considerations: (1) the quality of the project and level of effort and sophistication required for its execution, (2) the student’s presentations in class during the semester, and (3) the final project deliverable.

A project plan is required within the first two weeks of the semester. This should detail the student’s proposed project, including its scope and objectives; what software will be used; what data will be used and its sources; what processing, programming, and analysis will be done; and what the final deliverables will be. It is particularly important to ensure that the data required for the project be available in an appropriate form within the time constraints.

The final deliverable must include: (1) a hard-copy report documenting the project (which may be brief if the student elects to provide most information on the Web site), (2) any map, aml, avenue, VB script or database resulting from the project (which should be placed on the Web site, unless there are proprietary issues), and (3) a World Wide Web page(s) at UTD describing the project. Students with superior projects will be strongly urged to develop a poster for presentation at the South Central Arc Users Group conference in late October, or make a presentation at a North Central Texas GIS group meeting.

You must also submit an evaluation of all the final presentations. This should: (1) identify and rank order the five strongest reports and briefly justify their selection and (2) identify and rank order the five weakest reports and briefly justify their selection. (In other words, identify the people you would and would not ‘hire to do a GIS project.’!)

Tentative Schedule:

· May 24&31 Discussion of project proposals--your initial idea.

· June 11 Detailed proposals due.

· July 5 & 12 Mid-term presentations.

· August 8 & 9 Final presentations (note change in date in date from earlier course schedule!)

· August 13 Final Project and Presentation Evaluations due (Monday, by 9:00am)

The project is intended to demonstrate your ability to independently conduct work in GIS. While guidance will be available (send me e-mail), it is important that you develop your own problem solving skills.

"Incompletes" will only be given under exceptional circumstances such as serious illness. The last day to drop the course is July 6. After that date, a course grade will be assigned which can only be changed by re-taking the course. A list of potential projects is attached.