Geographical Information Systems

Geog 481/506                                                                                                  Tu Th 11:-12:20pm
Fall 2009                                                                                                          Fillmore 325

Instructor: Ling Bian                                                                                          TA:  Youngsang Kwon
Office: 120 Wilkeson                                                                                        Th: 12:30 - 1:50pm, W145
Office hours: Tu Th 12:30-2:00pm  or by appt.                                                  F:   2:00 - 3:20pm, W145

Purposes:
There is a spatial component to all activities on the planet. Everything happens somewhere and knowing why and how these things happen at where and how these things are related to each other are important for us to fully understand the spatial phenomena. This course provides a general introduction to geographic information systems that help study these spatial phenomena. The goal of the course is to help students understand the principles of geographic information systems (GIS) and their applications.

This is the introductory course of GIS out of a series of GIS courses offered in the Geography Department. The lecture is divided in four sections. The first introduces the basics of a GIS system. The second section discusses GIS data and sources of these data. The third section focuses on GIS analysis functions in order to extract spatial information from geographic data.  The fourth section covers GIS applications and related practical issues. GIS is useful to virtually any discipline that uses geographic information. The course should benefit students from a wide range of background.

Text:
Lo, C.P. and Yeung, A. K.W. 2002, 2007. Concepts and Techniques of Geographic Information Systems. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Labs:
A series of laboratory exercises are designed to help students familiarize with basic GIS operations. Detailed information is discussed at the lab sections.

Annotated Bibliography:
Each student is expected to review 10 GIS application articles and to develop an annotated bibliography for each article. At the end of the semester, students are expected to summarize these bibliographies and present the summary to the class.

Project Proposal:
Graduate students are required to develop a proposal for a project that uses GIS.

Grading System:
                                    Undergraduate     Graduate
Mid-term exam                 30%                    25%
Final exam                        30%                    25%
Lab exercises                    30%                    30%
Bibliography                     10%                    10%
Project Proposal                                          10%
Total                               100%                  100%
Note: Students will earn two identical grades for the lecture and the lab.

Tentative Schedule
I. GIS Systems
Sep    1            Course introduction
          3            Definition of GIS
          8            Coordinate systems
        10            Map projections (First bibliography due)  
        15            Data models and data structures
        17            Databases

II GIS Data         
        22            Remote sensing  
        24            GPS
        29            Digital elevation models
Oct    1            TIGER data 
          6            Natural resources data
          8            Natural resources data  
        13            Data quality
        15            Mid Term Exam
        20            Visualization      

III. GIS Analysis       
        22            GIS analysis and modeling
        27            GIS analysis and modeling
        29            Neogeography and the rise of Web 2.0 networking tools, Steve Russell
Nov   3            GIS analysis and modeling
          5            GIS software

IV. GIS Application
        10            Geography, geographers and the real world, Rich Quodomine
        12            GIS software (last bibliography due)
        17            Richard, Bonnie, Andre, Darren, Mike
        19            Dan K, Alex, Chris P, Dan S, Will
        24            Carolyn, Eric, Nikole, Anirudh, Glenn
Dec    1            Chris C, Andrea, Aaran, Christina, Nathan
          3            Shao-yang, Robert, Chris B, Stephanie, Nate
          8            Tanner, Jeremy, Jordan, Jiahao, Alan
Dec  10            Katherine, Jamie, Oliver, Brian, Conclusions (graduate students' proposal due)        
       
Final Exam:    Dec 21 (Monday) 3:30-6:30pm Fillmore 355

GIS Data
http://cugir.mannlib.cornell.edu/
http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/
http://seamless.usgs.gov/
http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/

What is plagiarism and how to avoid it:
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/asl/guides/plagiarism.html