Syllabus

Overview

Welcome! This course is a continuation of UBC Geography’s Introduction to GIScience (GEOS 270). You should be familiar with the material covered in that course. Some of the topics that we will cover in this course include more advanced discussions on spatial interpolation, error and uncertainty, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and multi-objective decision making. You will gain advanced knowledge of GIScience by taking this course. GIScience often involves using particular GIS packages or frameworks, but neither is reducible to the other. If you wish to become more proficient in a particular GIS package, we can always provide more advice and you can check out options on Further Training under the Resources page. Regardless, the conceptual frameworks and technical skills presented in this course will complement the knowledge gained by taking GEOS 270, GEOS 370, GEOS 372, GEOS 373 and GEOS 374, GEOS 472, and GEOS 479.

Course material has been placed on this website and on Canvas for you to use and will be updated during the course. Best practices: before lecture meetings, read the associated notes and go into background and enrichment materials linked to each day within the schedule. Attend lecture and engage! Afterwards, review the slides and go back to other materials as needed. Note that a course textbook has been recommended for use as both background and enrichment this term, but is available online through the UBC libraries (see below).

Your success in this class and as someone who works with (and someday perhaps help transform) GIS also depend on keeping up-to-date with materials and communities and new ideas on the web (including communities of practice, whether local meetups via Zoom or discussions on GIS Stack Exchange or finding new software on GitHub).

Instructor: Hojat Yazdanpanah
Office: Geography 215C
Lab: Geography 121
Office Hours: See Canvas.
Secure messaging: Via UBC Canvas