Course info

Description:
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are collections of software, hardware, processes and data used to obtain, manipulate, represent or analyze any kind of geographic information. Basically, this type of systems offers the possibility of working in detail over real geographic areas, not only from a database perspective but also with a user friendly graphical interface. GIS are currently being used in all kinds of societal and environmental planning contexts at national, regional and local levels or example concerning municipal planning, planning of infrastructures and energy distribution, transportation systems, protection of the natural environment, in sociology, medicine, biology, geography in general etc. The aim of this course is to introduce GIS to students from a practical perspective. A broad variety of students can access to and benefit from his course, especially those who work with real geographic scenarios in their research projects. Moreover, practical experience on GIS may become useful for the students' careers due the extensive industrial applications of such systems.
The course will consist of two periods. The lectures and the workshop will take place during two consecutive days, and about one month later the last day will cover the presentations of the mini-projects. Prior to the first course day all students must have carried out a self study of textbook B (see reference in the Key Literature section below) which is a project based tutorial on how to get started with the ArcGIS software, build geodatabases, perform analysis and share results.
Course structure:
• 1 day (8 hours) of lectures where the following key topics will be
covered:
a. Introduction to GIS and ArcGIS wrap up
b. Application of GIS in different research applications
i. Broadband mapping
ii. Broadband infrastructure planning
iii. Network analysis
iv . ...
• 1 day (8 hours) of workshop initiating the group project with the
assistance of the lectures.
• 0,5 days (4 hours) of group presentations
Mini-projects: Several project proposals will be prepared in relation to the field represented by the students. The project will be initialized the second day of the course and the lectures will be available to guide and help the students. It is expected
that the students complete their project on their own. The extra time required to finish the project would be between 25 and 30 hours per student. Additionally, students have the option of defining their own individual project related to their PhD work. In this case, students will have the chance of having advice from the lectures during the workshop on their specific fields. Groups: Groups of students will be formed trying to combine students from diverse fields in each of the groups. Report: 5-7 pages (2-3 for individual projects) reports describing the mini -project must be handed in before the last day of the course. Presentations: 30 minutes per group, 20 min. presentation + 10 min questions/comments. (10 min. in total for individual projects).
GIS tools and data: The presented GIS tools will be provided to the students before the course and they will be responsible to have it ready in their laptops by the beginning of the course. In addition, the required GIS data to complete the group mini-projects will be distributed.

Organizer: Associate Professor Jens M. Pedersen, Aalborg University, e-mail:jens@es.aau.dk.

Lecturers: Associate Professor Jens M. Pedersen, Associate Professor and Professor Thomas Balstrøm, Sune Djurhuus and Jose Gutierrez

ECTS: 3

Time: 22, 23 May and 10 June, 2014

Place: Aalborg University, Fredrik Bajers Vej 7B/2-107

Zip code: 9220

City: Aalborg

Number of seats: 20

Deadline: 8 May, 2014