Project Description

The final project constitutes a significant component of your mark in this course. For this reason, it is important to decide on your project topic as soon as you can.  Given the potential scope and workload involved in the project, it is recommended that you work in a team.

It will be important that everyone fully participates in a project. A formal (online) report will have to be produced, with the maps, tables, etc. prepared to professional standards. The report must also include citations to published papers that provide background and rationale for the methods used in conducting the spatial analysis. You should read this document that provides a very useful overview on how to prepare projects and prepare project presentations (taken from this MIT OpenCourseWare site: A workshop on GIS).

Part of your mark will be determined through a peer-evaluation process. Each student will be expected to provide a mark for themselves, plus all of the other project team members, at the end of the project.

Possible projects

We will talk about possible project topics during the first few weeks of the term.

A number of very useful reference documents can be found here--the Biosciences GIS Facility at the University of Alberta. You can use the UBC Library's Abacus system to look for spatial data.

A page that describes how to add random numbers to an attribute table using the field calculator.

Software that might be useful in your projects:

• BioMedware (especially SpaceStat)--you can download a free trial version, and there are some tutorials to help you learn how to use the software.
• GeoDa spatia data analysis software.
• R's Task View: Analysis of Spatial Data. A very good overview of the various spatial data methods available in R.
• SpaceTimeWorks.
• STARS: Space-Time Anallysis of Regional Systems (download here).
• A review of space-time software used for disease surveillance.

Some projects ideas from ESRI's ArcUser magazine (and elsewhere):

• Calculating the walkability index
• Modeling emergency services
• Modeling social vulnerabilty
• Modeling the relationship between food, energy, and environmental impacts
• Hydrologic analysis and 3D GIS improve flood response
• Identifying food deserts in Lansing, Michigan
• Effective growth management
• NACJD's Resources and data available for crime analysis

Some of the members of the 2005 class at work on their projects.