Virtual Urban Map Discussion Paper

The project provides you an opportunity to develop and design a project based on spatial thinking and inquiry. It is intended to provide a deeper understanding of a GIS application through experiential learning and inquiry. While GIS application is not a required activity as part of this course, conceptualization of GIS as a means of data analysis and research-based inquiry is.

The project should investigate a particular research problem using a GIS as an original piece of work developed for this course. The project will be marked by a set of milestones from data collection, data management, data preprocessing, analysis and modeling, and result presentation. Students are encouraged to freely discuss their project ideas with the instructor and each other.

Project output

A typical project output is a map or series of maps. In some cases, you can also present other results: tabular calculations, correlation coefficients, graphs, etc. Because you are not required to make use of GIS tools as part of this course, please consider including either examples of other map outputs others have produced as examples of what you would anticipate as results, or tabular datasets to indicate what data you would incorporate with GIS analysis.

FOR YOUR INITIAL PROJECT PROPOSAL SUMMARY

In order to successfully complete the final project proposal, it is important to check in prior to your work on the final output. As an initial prospectus for your research project proposal, please submit the following information.

• What is your project’s title/topic?
• What question(s) do you try to answer or what problem(s) to tackle?
• What is your motivation for doing this project (why are you doing it, why is it important?)
• What is the anticipated product of your project?
• What data are you going to need?
• What GIS techniques/tools or statistical methods would be necessary for this research?
• What is your action plan? Walk through the steps you think you would need to take in order to complete your research.

Subsequent class discussions are meant as opportunities to inquire more about each other’s research project. This includes questions regarding motivation for choosing a given topic, advice about possible data sources and or methods, and sharing insights which might enhance each other’s projects.