GISC 6387 GIS Workshop

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GISC 6387 GIS Workshop

• Dr. Stuart Murchison
• UT-Dallas Summer Session

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Assignments Academic Calendar

• It is important to have ideas for your project
  ready for the first class meeting!
• May 28 (Thurs) (GR 3.606) Discussion of project
  proposals - presenting your initial idea.
• June11 (Thurs) (GR 3.606) Detailed proposals due
  via e-mail, if tentatively approved previously.
• June 16/17 (Tues/Wed)(GR3.602) Mid-term
  presentations (must attend two sessions)
• July 28/29 (Tues/Wed) (GR3.602) Final
  presentations (must attend two sessions)
• Aug 3 (Mon., 9 am) Evaluations of Presentations
  (by e-mail, on or before)
• Aug 3 (Mon, 9 am)(GR3.130) All Project
  deliverables due on or before (my office)

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Goal of the GIS Workshop

• Each student independently designs and conducts a
  GIS-based project
• develops and demonstrates his/her competence in
  using GIS techniques in a substantive application
  area
• Project plan
• Due within the first two weeks of the semester
• Midterm progress report
• and comments/suggestions on other students
  projects in your session
• Final in-class project presentation, together
  with web-enabled final report
• and evaluation of all other students projects

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Project Plan /Proposal Format

• Written report
• Word Document
• Margins
• 1 inch top and bottom
• 1.25 inches left and right
• Page Numbers are the only thing that should
  appear outside the margin
• Font
• Times New Roman
• 12 point font
• Left Justified
• Double Spaced

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Project Plan /Proposal Format

• Page Numbers bottom center (in the footer)
• Maps / Diagrams / Tables at the end of the
  document
• English
• Concise writing style
• Correct English spelling and grammer
• Web Pages
• More flexible
• However, all of the elements must be present
• Internal references must be relative (not
  absolute)
• Multiple pages are almost mandatory

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Project Plan /Proposal Content

• Title Page (Page 1)
• Introduction (Page 2)
• Problem Statement (Page3)
• Literature Review (Page 4)
• Data Description (Page 5)
• Methods for Analysis (Page 6)
• Results (Page 7)
• Conclusions and Future research (Page 8)
• References (Page 9)
• Schedule (Page 10)
• PLEASE EXACTLY FOLLOW THIS FORMAT WITH THESE
  SPECIFIC PAGE NUMBERS

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Title Page (Page 1)

• Concise Title
• Specific, unambiguous and descriptive of the
  research
• Contain easily identifiable key words for
  electronic search
• Use words not symbols, formulae, subscripts,
  superscripts, or Greek letters
• The title should represent a summary of the
  research but not be overly lengthy (30 word
  maximum)
• Your full legal name
• University of Texas at Dallas
• GIS Workshop Summer 2008
• Date Submitted
• Abstract
• Concise description (one or two paragraphs)
  summarizing the entire report

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Introduction (Page 2)

• The Introduction section serves several purposes
• It establishes the topic area in which the
  research is conducted
• It provides a clear understanding of the general
  subject and research
• It allows for a discussion of the motivation for
  undertaking the research
• It provides a clear statement of the thesis,
  hypothesis, or problem
• It gives an indication of how the research
  problems will be addressed
• It provides an opportunity to briefly outline the
  rest of the document
• It is critical that this section capture the
  interest of the reader
• Write a clear statement of the thesis or research
  problem
• Avoid stating details of the research that will
  be covered later
• Give only a broad overview of the methods you
  will be using
• I do not expect the Introduction page to be
  finished for the proposal
• Concentrate on the other sections first Write a
  draft of the Intro. As the last thing before
  turning in the proposal It will change over the
  course of the project

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Problem Statement (Page 3)

• Expands on the clear thesis from the Introduction
  section
• The thesis should be clearly stated again
• Each element of the thesis should be clearly
  explained
• All terms used in the thesis statement should be
  defined (especially those that are specific to a
  particular discipline)
• The Problem Statement section
• Must explain why the research question has been
  chosen
• Must explain how the research question is
  significant
• Must identify clear objectives and goals that
  addressing the problem will meet
• The Problem Statement section allows the audience
  to know the impetus for the research and provides
  a guide
• It gives the audience a clearer idea of the
  purpose of each section of scientific argument

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Literature Review (Page 4)

• The Literature Review section is an essential
  element of any scientific research
• It is imperative that you explain the state of
  the existing body of knowledge
• You cannot assert that an original contribution
  has been made without a review
• The Literature Review should be a critical
  analysis of the published body of knowledge in
  the research area. This is accomplished through
• Classification of published work
• Comparisons of research projects
• Summaries of prior work
• The Literature Review section provides
• A context within which the research falls
• A justification of the importance of the project
• A demonstration of the level of expert knowledge
• The Literature Review section should contain at
  least three subsections
• A historical review
• A review of the state of the art
• A justification of the significance of the
  research based on existing literature
• ALL REFERENCES CITED IN THE LITERATURE REVIEW (OR
  ELSEWHERE IN THE MANUSCRIPT) MUST BE LISTED IN
  THE REFERENCES SECTION AT THE END OF THE DOCUMENT

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Data Description (Page 5)

• Explain in detail the material that you will use
  to conduct the research
• Survey data (such as data from the U.S. Census
  Bureau of the Census or from an EDM or Laser)
• Image data (such as remotely sensed data from
  satellites or other platforms)
• Vector data (such as points, lines, polygons,
  geodatabases used in GIS layers), and many other
  sources
• A complete and accurate description of the data
• A review of the metadata (the data about the
  data)
• How the data were collected (what was the method
  of collection)
• When the data were collected ( on a single date
  or over a period of time)
• Where the data were collected (this is
  Geospatial after all!)
• Why were the data collected (what research
  questions were the data originally meant to
  address?)
• Describe the individual or agency that collected
  the data
• In many cases it is reasonable to state the
  format of the data
• Provide a summary description of the data set
• It may be appropriate to provide a table
  containing the data items that are available
• A brief data dictionary that lists the fields
  in a data set and a description of each field
  with a set of allowed values
• Describe what elements of the data were most
  widely used during the research
• Describe why this data is sufficient to address
  the research questions
• Describe any pre-processing of the data (such as
  address matching or transformations)
• List all of the data sources in the References
  section

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Methods or Analysis (Page 6)

• Presents the specific process that will be used
• How will the data be used to answer the research
  question
• Explain how the problem was studied
• What algorithms were used with the data
• What statistical procedures were applied
• What if any simplifying assumptions were
  made
• The steps in any complex procedures should be
  explained
• Perhaps with a flow chart
• The steps in procedures should generally be
  ordered chronologically
• Enough detail should be provided such that
  another researcher can replicate the results of
  the experiment
• Whenever possible give specific quantities
  (distances, weights, concentrations) of values
  that were used in the procedures

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Results (Page 7)

• The Results section describes the observations
  made during the research process
• These observations should be the results of the
  analytical procedures described in the previous
  section
• All significant results should be reported
• The most important results should be reported
  first
• Simple results should be presented before complex
  results
• Do not simply repeat tables of output data,
  instead select results that are representative of
  the research findings
• This section will obviously be less developed at
  the proposal stage.
• However you should be able to describe your
  EXPECTED results

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Conclusions and Future Research (Page 8)

• There are three primary objectives for the
  Conclusions section
• Conclusions
• Concise statements of your interpretations of the
  significance of the research
• The conclusions must address the research
  question(s)
• Explain if the goals and objectives have been
  met, and if not, why not
• Summary of Contributions
• Describe the new contributions that this research
  has made to Geospatial Science
• The claims made here must be substantiated by the
  research results
• Refer to the work of others to make comparisons
• Future Research
• Guide future researchers to additional research
  questions
• Anticipate what some of the more pressing new
  research questions will be
• Suggestions for improving the work described in
  the report
• Suggestions for expanding the research
• This section will be underdeveloped at this stage
  although you may find some notes from your
  literature review

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References (Page 9)

• APA Style http//owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resour
  ce/560/01/
• Chicago Style http//writing.colostate.edu/guides/
  researchsources/documentation/cms_author/
• Author Date Style http//www.lib.monash.edu.au/tut
  orials/citing/harvard.html
• How to cite
• Parenthetic citations in the text
• Charlotte and Emily Bronte were polar opposites,
  not only in their personalities but in their
  sources of inspiration for writing (Taylor, 1990)
• According to Irene Taylor (1990), the
  personalities of Charlotte..
• Full Citations in the reference section
• Cruise, T., Kidman, N. (1995) Morphological
  differences between American and Brazilian Pig
  Latin constructions. Piggiotica, 13, 946-987

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Schedule (Page 10)

• Bullet list
• Table
• At least one entry per week
• Be as specific as possible
• Tell us what you are going to do and when you are
  going to do it
• SUMMARY
• Word Document attached to email in the format
  given above
• EXACTLY 10 pages (with page numbers)
• No more than one page for each section
• Introduction, results, and Conclusions sections
  may be less developed
• This format will hold for your reports, web
  pages, and presentations
• Start your powerpoint presentations as well (9
  slides no schedule in presentation)

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Midterm Presentations should

• explain your project and its objectives
• summarize key relevant literature and/or describe
  similar projects already conducted
• describes the data and methodology that you are
  using to meet your objectives
• detail progress and successes to date
• discuss problems encountered and how they have
  been or will be overcome
• provide preliminary results/outputs, if
  available.
• overview work still needed to complete the
  project.

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The final in-class presentation

• Should be modeled as a report to your project
  sponsor (the person footing the bill your
  BOSS!) which
• explains the project and its objectives
• summarizes relevant literature and/or similar
  existing projects
• describes the data and analysis used to meet
  these objectives
• discusses problems encountered and how they were
  overcome
• presents and summarizes results and outputs
• draws final conclusions based on project
  objectives

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The final deliverables must include

• a report documenting the project
• as a Word document with all graphics and
  supporting materials internal to  that document
• or, as a WWW site with all file references
  relative to the internal file structure of the
  CD,
• any  GIS data sets, computer programs, ArcGIS
  scripts or databases resulting from the project.
  
•   Students with superior projects will be urged
  to make a presentation at the South Central Arc
  Users Group conference (usually in February).
• All projects will be placed on the UTD GIS web
  site unless there are proprietary issues.

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Evaulation of Presentations

• You must also submit, via e-mail to me
• comments and suggestions on all students midterm
  presentations
• Identification information will be removed and
  the comments distributed to all class members
• an evaluation of final student presentations.
• identify and rank order the five strongest
  reports (1strongest) and briefly justify their
  selection and
• identify and rank order the five weakest reports
  (1weakest) and briefly justify their selection.
• (In other words, identify the people you would,
  and would not, hire to do your GIS project!)
• Multiple presentation sessions will likely be
  scheduled. You are required to attend at least
  two. Ranks should combine presentations in both
  sessions.

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Project Types

• GIS data set generation
• Often conducted for some organization (city,
  etc.) for the purpose of representing and
  describing features of the real world which are
  relevant to that organizations mission
• For the GIS Workshop must go beyond repetitive
  grunt work to include some innovative element
• involves unique challenges and thus not commonly
  collected
• data collection automation
• analysis of resulting data
• GIS technology exploration and/or tool
  development
• In depth exploration of an existing technology,
  including implementation
• what it does, how it works, how and when you use
  it
• Developing a better technology
• Automation or software tool development
• Spatial Analysis
• Describing spatial patterns and understanding
  the underlying processes
• Normally approached by
• advancing hypotheses derived from the literature
  of existing research,
• designing a project to test them, which is
  mindful of the pitfalls of spatial analysis
  (see spatanal.ppt from GISC 6382)

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All requirements set out here are based onThe
Components of An Analysisas discussed in GISC
6382 and 6384

• Objective, which explains the purpose of the
  analysis and explains why it is significant,
  possibly including
• Hypotheses, which are potential explanations
  which you intend to test
• Literature Review, which identifies the key
  pieces of existing research relevant to the
  project and the hypotheses you have advanced
• Data Sources, which identify and explain the
  data used.
• Analysis and Methodology, which explains the
  methodology applied to the data.
• Results and Discussion, which describes your main
  research findings, whether or not your hypotheses
  were upheld, and any potential problems with your
  interpretation of the results
• Conclusions, which discusses the implications of
  your finding relative to your initial project
  objective.
• References, which provides standard format
  citations for all resources drawn upon for the
  project.
• See http//www.utdallas.edu/briggs/poec6382/spa
  tanal.ppt
• For even more detail, go to
• http//www.utdallas.edu/briggs/poec6389/gisc6389_
  contents.doc

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Literature Reviews

• All research and analysis should build upon the
  existing base of knowledge
• It is imperative that you identify the existing
  state of knowledge in order to
• Establish appropriate objectives
• Advance meaningful hypotheses
• Select and use legitimate methodologies
• This is accomplished by reviewing the existing
  literature
• On scientific knowledge published in refereed
  journals
• On best practices by other organizations

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Doing a Literature Review

• Doing a standard Google search is not
  sufficient! Instead, use Google Scholar
• http//scholar.google.com/
• If you access Google Scholar from on-campus via
  the UTD Library web page at
• http//www.utdallas.edu/library/
• it will give you automatic access to materials
  subscribed to by UTD library (very clever!)
• For information on how to configure Google
  Scholar to access UTD library materials from
  off-campus, go to
• http//www.utdallas.edu/library/howto/GoogleSchola
  rPage.htm
• This site also gives guidelines on when to use
  bibliographic databases in place of Google
  Scholar
• Databases available at UTD for literature
  searches, covering both citations and complete
  text, can be found at
• http//www.utdallas.edu/library/collections/dbases
  .htm
• The single most commonly used bibliographic
  database is probably Web of Science at
• http//www.utdallas.edu/library/collections/dbUZ.h
  tm
• Or directly at
• http//isi10.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi?DestAppW
  OSFuncFrame

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How to Format Citations

• It is important that you learn to use the correct
  format when citing literature
• Doing a copy/paste of a URL, which may be gone
  tomorrow, is not sufficient!
• The Chicago Manual of Style is the accepted norm.
• The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago University
  of Chicago Press, 15th ed., 2003
• Or replicate the format used by any mainline GIS
  journal
• A nice summary is available at
• http//www.libs.uga.edu/ref/chicago.html
• Or , http//library.osu.edu/sites/guides/chicagogd
  .php
• Use it!!!!
• For presentations, include the full citation on
  slides where you reference the item,  in addition
  to having them in your list of references at the
  end.  A person  reading can "flip to the end" to
  check a reference, but the listener cannot do
  that with a presentation!

You must format citations according to the
Chicago Manual of Style or similar!
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And now to your projects.