FREC 682 Spatial Analysis
FINAL PROJECT
Your final assignment is to write a GIS research project proposal.
Pick any natural resource management issue or topic for which
GIS would be useful. Your proposal should include the following
components:
- Background: What is the history of the problem? What is
the current public policy context? What is the current situation?
What makes this problem worth researching? How important is
the spatial context of the problem, and what makes it suitable
for analysis with a GIS?
-
Literature Review: Summarize prior research on this topic
or related topics, including any that used GIS. Review the strengths
and limitations of some representative prior studies.
-
Hypotheses: What specific questions are you trying to answer?
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Data: What data will you need? Which are already available
in digital form? How will you obtain and incorporate into your
GIS any necessary data that are not already in digital form?
How will your data be structured--as raster or vector?
-
Methods: What procedures will you use to do the analysis? Be specific.
What are the strengths of these methods? What are their weaknesses?
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Anticipated Results: What do you expect to find?
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Policy Applications: How might your research results be
used to improve public policies related to this problem?
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Budget: Assuming you are starting with no computer equipment
or software, include a project budget specifying anticipated costs
of hardware, software, labor and other needs.
Specify total hours required for the job at $25-35/hour. You can use the
UD Computer Warehouse pricelist for hardware prices. Check out
the 1996 GIS World Sourcebook or any recent issue of GIS
World for GIS software options; you may have to call one or
two vendors for pricing
info.
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Timeframe: include a project schedule.
course syllabus