GEOG 5103                                                                                                               Spring 2009

Graduate Project

Graduate students are required to complete a 12 – 15 page term paper (double spaced, excluding graphics; double-sided printing is encouraged) and make a presentation to the class at the end of the semester.  There are 2 term paper options:

Option 1: Literature Review

Complete a literature review about a specific application of GIS related to your research interests.  For example, one could focus on GIS in hydrology, archaeology, utilities, urban planning, and so on. This option is for graduate students who are beginning to investigate how they can use GIS in their research and would like to get a broad overview of how GIS is used in their field. The literature review paper should provide not only a description of how GIS is used in a given field, but should also provide a critical discussion or interpretation of the issues in using GIS in that field.  For example, if you choose to focus on GIS and hydrology, you should address the challenges facing the use of GIS in hydrology – which techniques are successful, which are not, and why? What are the limits of GIS for your research interest?

Option 2: GIS Application

Perform a GIS analysis with real data and meaningful results.  GIS should play an integral role in the analysis and not serve merely as a data management tool, although other analytical tools and approaches may also play a prominent role in the analysis (i.e. cartography, statistics, spatial analysis, etc.).  This option is for those students who have a specific research question in mind and are prepared to apply GIS to that research question.  For this project to be successful, you must have all of your data in a usable geographic form by the proposal due date.  This option is particularly challenging because you must define a research question and methodology that fully incorporate GIS and yet may also be completed within the confines of the semester.  To answer your research question, you will likely need to perform analyses not covered in this class.  A brief literature review is also required for this option, though it can focus more on methods.

Topic Proposal: due in-class on Thur, Feb 19

You must submit a one page proposal describing your proposed topic, justification (why study this topic), hypotheses (if appropriate), specific methods, and data (if appropriate; this should include what data model(s) you will use and what your unit of analysis is).  Depending on your topic, you may want to read ahead in the textbook to help with your proposal.  I will return the proposal to you with comments and may ask you to turn in a revised proposal.

Presentation: in-class on Tue, Apr 28 & Thur Apr 30

The presentation should be about 10 minutes (depending on the number of graduate students), including time for questions.  Please email me your presentation (e.g. Powerpoint file) by 9pm the day before you present so that I can load all presentations on my laptop.

Final paper: due to my mailbox by Fri, May 1, 5 pm

See above for length limitations.  The term project is worth almost 1/3 of your total course grade. The proposal is worth 10%, the presentation is worth 10%, and the paper is worth 80%.