Summer Term 2009

This course will provide a practical, hands-on approach to conducting a field expedition with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems. The platform used will be ArcView and ArcPad by ESRI, and Microsoft Excel, but the techniques developed will be applicable to other software. Planning software is used to detrmine times-of-day for optimal data collection. Trimble GeoExplorer3 and Garmin GPS units will be used in conjunction with Windows CE compatible handheld PCs. I take a very database-oriented approach to this subject!

At the end of this class the successful student will know how to:

• design a database to take into the field
• link field data with spatial data
• determine accuracy needs (GPS)
• download basemap data from online resources
• merge basemap data and field-collected data
• use planning software for optimal field collection times

Grades will be based upon assignments and a final project that will be a formal report and database summarizing the results of the field work.

There will be a mixture of lecture and hands-on applications during the lecture periods scheduled in the GIS labs, an appropriate lab assignment will be handed out during the lecture period with time in class to work on it. Additional lab time will be available outside of class.

The following materials are available from various sources, and some people find them useful:

ESRI Press, 1999, Getting to Know ArcView

Letham, Lawrence, 2001, GPS Made Easy: using global positioning systems in the outdoors, Third Edition: Seattle, The    Mountaineers, 208 p.

ESRI Virtual Campus

ESRI, the makers of Arc* software, has a bunch of tutorials. You are generally allowed to take the first module of any course free. If you want access to the higher modules, let me know via email.

Other resources:

There are also plenty of introductory GIS texts in the PSU library, they can generally be found in the G70 section (for example Bonham-Carter is G70.2.B66 1994). I would recommend reading a few of the introductory chapters from a few of these books for some background.

A neat summary of simple GIS operations is the USGS GIS Research site. Another source of information is: The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) Core Curriculum. There are plenty of links there to other sources of info on the web, especially at the end of the Intro by Goodchild.

GPS: <

Grading

Final project = 30 points

For graduate students the final project will be worth 35% of the grade, and the assignments will be scaled accordingly.

Projects will be graded according to the following criteria:

Organization		20
Writing		10
Completeness (of proposal)		20
Application and Understanding		20
Map production/Aesthetics		10

 

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Page updated: June 20, 2005