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GEOG 7: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Summer Session A, 2023

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to fundamental principles and concepts behind the use and application of geographic information systems (GIS). Students will learn how to think spatially, become familiar with information technology, and learn how to conduct data analysis with GIS techniques and software. Key concepts and ideas are reinforced through practical lab assignments and activities with GIS.

This course fulfills several GE requirements (see UCLA course catalog for details). There are no prerequisites for this course. The online course format requires a significant amount of independent work and time management.

Course Objectives

In completing this course, students will:

Develop, sharpen and reinforce your geographical knowledge and spatial awareness;

Demonstrate how a geographic perspective can complement, extend and be applied across the physical, biological, environmental and social sciences;

Learn about the research process, and in particular how research questions can be formulated, refined and answered with geographic information systems (GIS).

Required Textbook

Shin, M., J. Campbell and S. Burkhart. 2022. Essentials of Geographic Information Systems, Version 3.0. Washington, D.C. Flat World Knowledge. The required textbook can be purchased in various formats via the following link:

https://students.flatworldknowledge.com/course/2603172 (https://students.flatworldknowledge.com/course/2603172)

Course Delivery Method

All lectures for this course are delivered in an asynchronous fashion. Course content will be available to students online. Assignments will be introduced, discussed and worked on in regularly scheduled weekly lab sections. This permits students to learn and review course content in a flexible manner, and makes more effective use of lab time by having students engage in problem-solving activities. All course materials will be made available to each student via Canvas and the course website on a rolling basis (i.e., new content released each week).

Communications Protocol

Given the large number of students enrolled in the course, it is neither practical nor efficient to respond to questions via email. Therefore, the Discussion Forums on the course website will be the primary venue for almost ALL communication. To ensure that questions are answered in a timely manner and to benefit all students, the following communication protocols for the course have been established:

Post ALL questions related to the syllabus, course requirements, course organization, weekly assignments, and course content to the General Discussion Forum under the 'Communicate' module so that everyone can benefit;

Post questions about particular lab assignments under the 'Unit Q&A' discussion forum at the bottom of each respective unit.

Direct questions about lab access, student accounts, and technical problems in the computing labs to the help desk ([email protected]);

For questions about grading and labs, please contact me ASAP.

Making the Most of the Discussion Forum

An active forum will make the course a more effective and rewarding learning experience for everyone, and I will take note of regular contributors. I will monitor the Discussion Forum daily. Do not expect immediate responses in the evening or during weekends. Please allow up to 24 hours for a response, and if you know the answer to a posted question, please respond.

To facilitate collaborative learning, students are expected to contribute to the course Discussion Forum by both asking and answering questions. Forum posts should be specific and informative. Posts that contain questions that are ambiguous (e.g., “Help, I’m stuck!”) or where the answer is obvious (e.g., “What is this week’s deadline?”) may not receive a response. Any requests for others to complete any work (e.g., “What is the answer to X quiz question?”), or that include unconstructive remarks (e.g., “This week’s assignment $ux!”), will be also be ignored and may be removed.

Office Hours

I will hold student office hours on a weekly basis, and students are encouraged to regularly attend office hours. Due to the large number of students enrolled in the course, I reserve the right to assist multiple students simultaneously and/or limit individual office hour visits to 15 minutes if other students are waiting. For personal and confidential matters, scheduling an appointment is recommended. Email should only be used to schedule one-on-one meetings with me if you cannot attend regular office hours. Use “GEOG 7 meeting request” as the subject of the email. Include in your message at least two 30 minute time slots when you can meet and a brief (i.e., one or two sentences) description of the purpose of the meeting.

Grading and Evaluation Procedures

Syllabus quiz (5% of course grade): Under the ‘Unit 0: Preliminary Resources’ section on the course webpage there is a quiz about the syllabus to ensure that course requirements and expectations are understood. This quiz will count as 5% of your final course grade. You can take the syllabus quiz as many times as needed to get the score you want. To access the syllabus quiz, you must first complete the Plagiarism Quiz and Academic Integrity Agreement located under the 'Code of Conduct' section.

The syllabus quiz must be completed by Sunday at 11.55pm at the end of Week 1.

Weekly thematic forum participation (15% of course grade): A total of 15% of your final grade will be based upon your weekly participation in the thematic forum. A thematic forum will appear under each unit to which you must contribute a thoughtful response or comment. Unless otherwise specified, all forum postings must be at least 150 words, and written in complete sentences with correct grammar and spelling. Civil dialogue, debate and discussion are expected in all forums and postings. Any inflammatory or derogatory postings will not be tolerated, and all postings will be moderated for proper “netiquette”. Any attacks, flaming or inappropriate commentary or postings will be removed and result in no credit for this segment of the course.

Forum posting deadline for all lab sections is Sunday at 11:55PM.

Weekly quizzes (20% of course grade): You are also required to complete a weekly quiz. To gain access to the following week’s content and assignment, you must earn a score of 50% or better. A 90-minute waiting period is enforced between unsuccessful quiz attempts (i.e., <50%). You can take the weekly quiz as many times as needed to access to the following week's content. Your highest quiz score will be recorded and saved by Canvas each week, and will be used in the calculation of your final grade.

Note that after each quiz attempt, only your quiz score is visible. You will not see which questions you answered correctly or incorrectly. The rationale behind this policy is that if you do not know which question(s) you answered incorrectly, you must assume that all of the questions that you were not 100% sure about were wrong. This quiz reporting method encourages you to study and review content associated with questions that you were unsure about but may have guessed correctly, in addition to the ones that you did not know. It forces you to learn all the material. You only need to score 50% or above to access the following week’s content, but you can take the quiz as many times as you want to obtain the highest score desired.

If you miss the deadline for a quiz, you will receive a score of zero. You must also make arrangements with me to access the quiz, but still must score 50% or above to access the following week’s content. Note that you are not permitted to post any answers to the quiz on any of the forums.

The weekly quiz deadline for all lab sections is Sunday at 11:55pm.

Weekly assignments (60% of course grade): Students are required to complete a weekly assignment that complements course content. Weekly assignments are to be submitted via the Canvas website for the course. Grading rubrics will accompany each assignment.

Weekly assignment deadline for all lab sections is Sunday at 11:55pm.

Grading in GEOG 7 is NOT curved. Although the scores reported on Canvas are weighted as described above, it is your responsibility to know your grade and understand how it is calculated. There may be slight discrepancies in the scores you see on Canvas and your final score for the course if some graded activities are scored at the end of the quarter. Preliminary and in-progress grades will not be provided aside from the scores displayed on Canvas.

Grading Scheme

A standard plus/minus letter grading scheme is used to assign final course grades for all students who take GEOG 7 on a letter grading basis. Grades will be assigned according to the following score ranges (without rounding), with the percentages corresponding to final weighted grades following the evaluation procedures described in the section above:

A+   awarded at discretion of professor

A   93% to 100%

A-   90 to 92.99%

B+   87% to 89.99%

B   83% to 86.99%

B-   80% to 82.99%

C+   77% to 79.99%2023/6/26

C   73% to 76.99%

C-   70% to 72.99%

D+   67% to 69.99%

D   63% to 66.99%

D-   60% to 62.99%

F   0% to 59.99%

A student who enrolls in GEOG 7 on a pass/no-pass grading basis will earn a passing grade only if his/her final course grade is equivalent to a “C” or better.