6 EC
Semester 2, period 4
5132GEIS6Y
The goal of the course is to provide students with the fundamental skills needed to understand Geographical Information Systems and carry out a wide variety of spatial analyses that have wide applicability across both natural and social sciences. As part of the social sciences ‘gamma-track’ of the program, the applications discussed in the lab will, however, draw from examples in the social sciences, such as from the fields of human geography, urban planning, or development studies.
In the first part of the course, vector GIS will be used. In this type of GIS, the geographic features are represented by discrete objects defined by one or more coordinate pairs, specifically point, line, or area features. In the second part of the course, we will turn our attention to raster-oriented GIS-procedures. In a raster GIS, a raster image, or grid, is laid over the entire study area. Each raster cell contains information on the area it covers, such as the number of inhabitants or the prevalent land-use type.
From this year (2023-24), the software used in this course is ESRI's ArcGIS Pro. Over the course of 11 GIS lab sessions, students practice their GIS skills with guidance from the instructors. Students are also expected to work independently outside of contact hours to keep up with the exercises and assigned reading.
The required readings are available on Canvas and consist of key chapters from the following book: Heywood Ian, Sarah Cornelius & Steve Carver (2011), An Introduction to Geographical Information Systems, 4th edition, Harlow (U.K), Pearson Education Ltd.
The required chapters are:
We will also use two practical readers – one on Vector GIS and one on Raster GIS . The readers can be downloaded via Canvas. For ease of use during the lab, it is recommended (but not required) that students print out these documents.
The software used in this course is ESRI's ArcGIS Pro. Students will receive a license code (valid for one year) to install and use this software on their laptop. Information on how to set up your computer will be made available via Canvas before the start of the course.
IMPORTANT: The classes are ‘laptop classes’ and everyone must have their own computer to work with. These laptops must be capable of running the ArcGIS and you must be prepared with the software installed and operational on your laptop before the lab sessions. As a general rule, Apple computers do not support ArcGIS (see additional information on Canvas).
The course consists of 11 computer labs, each lasting three hours.
The class is structured in the first hour with a presentation of the topic and explanation of the work, following with the practical work will be carried out on the computers and completion of the exercise and ending with the assigned exercise completed.
Any questions about the GIS topic or exersacies can be asked in the same class to the assistant..
Sometimes, it may not be possible to complete all exercises of a session before the end of each class.
But you are required to complete all tasks of a session on your own time and have them completed before the beginning of the following session.
Activity |
Hours |
|
Computer labs |
33 |
|
Take-home Assignment |
25 |
|
Self-study |
110 |
|
Total |
168 |
(6 EC x 28 uur) |
Programme's requirements concerning attendance (OER-B):
Additional requirements for this course:
Item and weight | Details |
Final grade | |
50% Tentamen digitaal | Must be ≥ 5.5 |
30% GIS Assignment | |
20% Checkpoints | Must be ≥ 5.5 |
Lab Checkpoints
Each of the 11 sessions includes two 'checkpoints', i.e. exercises for which you need to show the results to the lecturer.
Take-home Assignment
The assignment requires you to work in pairs, and solve a research problem through a GIS analysis. Further details will be provided via Canvas.
Final Exam
The final exam consists of multiple-choice and/or open questions related to the readings and lab sessions.
The final grade of the course is a weighted average of the lab checkpoints (20%), (take-home) GIS assignment (30%) and final exam (50%). To pass the exam you need:
please contact your teacher
For both the take-home assignment and final exam, students wishing to inspect their work and/or receive additional feedback can contact the course coordinator within two weeks of receiving their grade.
Checkpoints: students can collaborate to solve the exercises during the lab sessions, but each needs to show the checkpoints individually, on their laptop. Feedback is given orally and on a rolling basis.
Take-home assignment: students work in groups to solve a spatial problem using GIS and write a short report about their analysis. The results are graded (1-10); written feedback will also be provided.
Exam: students need to answer a series of questions (multiple-choice and/or open) regarding the course readings and GIS lab contents.
The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl
Week |
Topic |
Learning Activities & Milestones |
1 |
Getting Started with ArcGIS |
Lecture + Lab 1 |
|
Basics of ArcGIS Pro |
Lab 2 + Chapter 1 |
2 |
Aggregation, spatial selection, join |
Lab 3 |
|
Adding geography |
Lab 4 + Chapter 2 |
3 |
Overlay and buffers |
Lab 5 |
|
Geometrical networks |
Lab 6 + Chapter 3 |
4 |
Hotspots, Model Builder, projections |
Lab 7 |
|
Introduction to raster GIS |
Lab 8 + Chapter 6 + Deadline for vector checkpoints |
5 |
Rasterization, vectorization and raster analyses |
Lab 9 + Publication of take-home GIS assignment |
|
Raster problem-solving: cholera in London |
Lab 10 |
6 |
Working with satellite images |
Lab 11 + Deadline for take-home GIS assignment |
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