Course Project Information

General comments

You will be expected to complete a course project in Advanced GIS. You can envision this project from two perspectives:

• First, it is an opportunity to address a geospatial task associated with your masters project (or any other research in which you are involved).
• Second, it's an opportunity to show off your ability to apply skills learned in this and other geospatial courses.

The best projects, then, are ones you benefit from and that demonstrate mastery of course materials. Of course, in evaluating your work, I'll be more interested in the latter. But... I fully encourage you to use this project as a component of your larger research interests. Furthermore, you're far more likely to delve deeper into a project if it's on a topic you enjoy or are engaged in.

What is an appropriate course project?

In previous years, a typical course project involved creating an interactive ArcGIS tool, often one that called a Python script, to facilitate a certain geospatial analysis. While this certainly remains a viable course project, the tools and technology have expanded such that I want to expand the possibilities of what you can submit.

What, then, constitutes an"appropriate" course project is a fairly open ended question, and one that can only be answered through checking with me so that we can ensure that the scope, design, and feasibility of your project is in line with those of your peers.

To ensure this happens, I require a number of 'check-ins' reporting the status of your project. This begins with a rough sketch of what you'd like to work on, which is then shaped into a more formal project proposal, a progress report, and finally your project submission. (These will be discussed in more detail later on...) I also strongly encourage you to schedule meetings with me at any point during the semester to chat about your project should you have any questions.

What exactly am I looking for? On what basis will you be graded?

Again, because course projects can take so many shapes and forms, my rubric for evaluating them is somewhat general. That said, the best projects:

• Address a clearly stated objective: what issue does your work address or what question does it answer?
• Implements a well designed, logical geoprocessing workflow
• Demonstrates proficiency in one or more concepts learned in class, i.e., goes beyond examples set forth in class to show you have mastered a concept and its applications.
• Displays its results in a clear and thoughtful format.
• Have a tidy, easy to follow presentation, one that reflects professionalism and competence.

I can't emphasize the last point enough, and strongly recommend hedging toward an easier project that is well packaged over a more ambitious one that either doesn't quite work or is difficult to follow. I would love for you to be able to show off your class project to a potential employer, but if it's a complicated mess, it may not help your job seeking chances.

Narrowing in on a course project idea

Some of you may not yet have a course project idea. Or you may have an idea, but aren't sure whether its scope is appropriate for this class. That's to be expected. As mentioned above, a proper course topic requires at least a few discussions with me.

However, I can't stress enough the importance of developing a project idea sooner versus later. Talk to me. Talk with other faculty. Find a topic that interests you and we can discuss ways to mold your ideas into a workable project. A well designed project is far more likely to succeed than one put together at the last moment. GIS is as much about time management as learning and applying technical skills.

To motivate you toward this end, I require the following submissions from you (check the Deliverables Calendar) for due dates)

• Initial project proposal

  This is to initiate the conversation about your course project. Jot down any idea(s) you have in mind for a course project. Try to be as specific as you can (but don't worry if you don't know):

  • What question will it answer?
  • What data might be required?
  • Can the workflow be done in ArcGIS or are other technologies needed?
  • What might the output look like? Are there key assumptions required to execute the analysis?

  Feel free to be ambitious. You may only have a vague idea of a project, but take some time and reflect what's required to get it done. The further you can get here, the more I can help and the easier things will be later on.

  Also, a big challenge is how to involve course concepts when you don't know what those concepts are. I can provide more specific feedback with respect to that the more specific you can be.

   

• Refined project proposal

  Mid way through the semester, you'll have had more time to clarify (or completely alter) your project topic. In this refined project proposal, you'll lay the blueprint for your work. Specifically, you'll address the questions asked in the initial project proposal, adding a schematic of the workflow involved and a list of any potential obstacle to successfully completing your project (e.g. will you actually get the data you need? can a certain analysis be done?)

  Again, I will review your comments and help you in any way I can. This is also another spot where I can evaluate the feasibility of your project and work with you do adjust if needed.

• Project status update(s)

  Towards the end of the term, I will ask you to report on progress since I provided feedback to your refined project proposal. No deduction will be made if the answer is 'none', but it will be taken into consideration if you failed to overcome an obstacle that could have easily been identified and beaten down in your final submission.

  You are also welcome to submit a draft of your project and I will provide comments and suggestions.

   

• Final submission

  This is your final submission. We will discuss the details of how and were your work gets submitted closer to the date

Final words

A reminder that I am here to help you, and I have a sincere interest in all of you banging out some amazing work. If you have any concerns at any point, don't hesitate to reach out to me or at TA. If you've been stuck on something for an inordinate amount of time, talk! Often a pair of fresh eyes can do wonders!

And lastly, don't procrastinate too much. We all do it, but spend a few hours a week on this and you'll be so much better off. Plus, there's little worse than facing a GIS problem with a deadline looming -- except for facing a scripting issue!