INSTRUCTORS
Professor James W. Harrington serves as the lead instructor.  His office is 303D Smith Hall;  telephone 206-616-3821;  electronic mail jwh@u.washington.edu.  His website is http://faculty.washington.edu/jwh .

TIMES  AND  PLACES
The class meets as a whole from 1:00 - 2:20 on Mondays and Fridays in 415 Smith Hall (the Geography Collaboratory).  Lab sections meet once a week (12:30 - 1:50 on Wednesdays, or 11:30 - 12:50 on Thursdays), in 401 Smith Hall (a.k.a. the Sherman Lab).
Professor Harrington's office hours (303D Smith Hall) are 2:30 - 4:00 on Mondays, and by appointment.
Mr. Dent's office hours are 2:30 - 3:20 on Mondays and Wednesdays in 401 Smith Hall, and 11:30 - noon on Mondays in 417 Smith Hall.

REQUIREMENTS
Class meetings and labs.  The class will meet as a whole in the Collaboratory.  The instructors (and occasional guests) will present material, ask questions, answer questions, and lead discussions.  These sessions will focus on concepts and principles, primarily (though not exclusively) in support of the lab assignments.

Readings.  We will be using an assortment of readings, accessible through a variety of means:

• University Bookstore (Clarke is listed as “required”;  Birkin et al., Hughes, Jones & Simmons, Longley and Clarke, and Taaffe et al. are listed as “optional”);
• electronic reserves through OUGL;
• print materials on reserve at OUGL;
• materials that will be linked to this syllabus;  and
• materials that may be distributed in class.

Mark Birkin, Graham Clarke, Martin Clarke, Alan Wilson.  1996.  Intelligent GIS: Location Decisions and Strategic Planning.
This book provides both general insights and specific applications.  Chapter 4 is on electronic reserve;  the book is on 24-hour reserve at OUGL.

Yue-Hong Chou.  1997. Exploring Spatial Analysis in GIS.
This is a very easy-to-read book, currently out of print.  Chapter 7 is on electronic reserve.

Nicholas Chrisman.  1997.  Exploring Geographic Information Systems.
(see the supporting site: http://faculty.washington.edu/chrisman/explor/index.html )
This book does a wonderful job of placing “GIS” in a systematic and conceptual context, and emphasizing the problems of representing the world in bits and bytes (as well as in lines and colors).  We will not assign material from this book, but any of you intending to be GIS specialists should read it.  We have placed a copy on reserve at OUGL.

Keith C. Clarke.  1999. Getting Started with Geographic Information Systems.(see the supporting site: http://www.prenhall.com/clarke )
We will read most chapters of this introductory book;  the others are useful as enrichment.  It was ordered for this course at the  University Bookstore;  we have placed a copy on (24-hour) reserve at OUGL.

Avijit Ghosh and Sara L. McLafferty.  1987.  Location Strategies for Retail and Service Firms.
This book is, sadly, out of print.  Chapter 3 is on electronic reserve;  the book is on 4-hour reserve at OUGL.

Arthur M. Hughes.  1995. The Complete Database Marketer: Second-Generation Strategies and Techniques for Tapping the Power of Your Customer Database (sec. ed.).
This book is written for the marketing professional.  It's commercially oriented, not explicitly geographic, and quite sophisticated.  It's on 4-hour reserve at OUGL.

Ken Jones and Jim Simmons.  1990.  The Retail Environment.
We have placed only one chapter from this book on electronic reserve (primarily for copyright reasons), but the entire book is very useful for those of you interested in marketing geography.  The book is on 4-hour reserve at OUGL.

Paul Longley and Graham Clarke.  1996.  GIS for Business and Service Planning.
We would like to have you read four chapters from this book;  all the chapters are useful.  It was ordered for this course at the  University Bookstore;  we have placed a copy on reserve at OUGL.

John Pickles, ed.  1995. Ground Truth: The Social Implications of Geographic Information Systems.
We are assigning only one chapter from this book, though all the chapters are very interesting.  That one chapter is on electronic reserve;  we have placed a copy of the book on reserve at OUGL.

Edward J. Taaffe, Howard L. Gauthier, and Morton E. O'Kelly.  1996.  Geography of Transportation, sec. ed.
This is a recent revision of a classic text.  Only one chapter from this book is on electronic reserve, though all of Part Two (Chapters 7-10) is useful.  The book is on 4-hour reserve at OUGL.

Lab assignments.  The course is organized into five units:  an introduction to the subject matter and the software,  three hands-on cases, and student-led (team) projects.  The lab sections will focus on these assignments, which will require additional student work (outside of classes and labs) on computers that are fitted with ArcView and the relevant extensions.  (In other words, most of you will need to find time each week to come to the Geography department labs).  Each of the cases will have a set of “deliverables”:  screen shots, answers to specific questions, and (much more importantly) a well-written report to your hypothetical supervisor or client (what was the problem at hand, how did you approach it, what did you find, and what concerns do you have about your findings).

Tests.  There will be two in-class tests (each with short-answer and short-essay components) on concepts, principles, and lab experiences.

Project.  Students should form teams of 3-4 to develop and produce a project, using data on the City of Seattle to develop a case similar to any of the three lab cases.  We will discuss this assignment in class and section;  students should individually propose projects by Friday 4 February, and propose team assignments (and identify likely data sources) by Friday 18 February.  The time that the University has scheduled for a final exam (plus 30 mintes:  2:30 - 5:00 p.m. Monday 13 March) will be devoted to team presentations.  The project (worth 15 of the 100 points for the course) will be graded on the basis of:  the group presentation; a team-written report (what was the case scenario, what data were available, what overall approach, what techniques, what findings); and individual self-assessments.
 

GRADING
Grades on tests and assignments.  Each test and assignment will be graded on a percentage basis.  Content, clarity, and format all count in the grading of the assignments.  Be especially careful about plagiarism:  more than three words in the order you read them somewhere else (including on the WWW, including the instructors' lecture notes) must be set off in quotation marks and given a full citation.

Final grades.  The final grade for the course will be calculated as follows.  Each graded item (participation, three tests and three assignments) can contribute up to a specified number of points toward the quarter’s total that can equal up to 100 points.  Each student’s final grade reflects the number of these 100 points the student has earned during the quarter.
  

Late assignments.  Tests must be taken on the scheduled day, except by prior arrangement with the instructor or ex post written communication with the instructor based on illness (in this latter circumstance, the instructor will need documentation of your illness or that of someone in your care;  this will be handled on a case-by-case basis).  Assignments received after 5:00 on the due date will be penalized by 20 percentage points (e.g., a two-day-late assignment that is judged to be 85% successful would receive 65% credit);  assignments 7 or more days after the due date will be penalized by 40 percentage points.  Because of the deadlines for grading, the instructors cannot accept any material after 5:00 p.m. Thursday 16 March.

Incomplete work.  [From the University Registrar's website]  A grade of “I” (Incomplete) is given only when the student has been in attendance and has done satisfactory work until within two weeks of the end of the quarter and has furnished proof satisfactory to the instructor that the work cannot be completed because of illness or other circumstances beyond the student's control. To obtain credit for the course, an undergraduate student must convert an Incomplete into a passing grade no later than the last day of the next quarter. The student should never reregister for the course as a means of removing the Incomplete. An Incomplete grade not made up by the end of the next quarter is converted to the grade of 0.0 by the Registrar unless the instructor has indicated, when assigning the Incomplete grade, that a grade other than 0.0 should be recorded if the incomplete work is not completed. The original Incomplete grade is not removed from the permanent record.

SCHEDULE

3-7 January:  Introduction

see PCWeek article about GIS
Characterizing economic uses of GIS (link to a PowerPoint presentation)
Longley and Clarke, Chapter 11
Keith Clarke, Chapters 1-5
Chapter 1:  What is GIS?
Chapter 2:  GIS's roots in cartography
Chapter 3:  Maps as numbers
Chapter 4:  Getting data into a GIS
Chapter 5:  What is where?  [database management in a GIS]
Introductory lab materials are due 14 January

see New York Times article about GIS
Chou, Chapter 7
Hughes, Chapter 2
Taaffe, Chapter 9
Harrington's notes on spatial interaction
First test, covering the materials through this block:  28 January
Case 1 materials are due 26-28 January (in lab section)

Birkin, Chapter 4
Ghosh and McLafferty, Chapter 3
Jones and Simmons, Chapter 11
Longley and Clarke, Chapter 2;  sections from Chapters 6 (122-137) and 8 (171-177)
     see Seattle Times article about locating Starbucks in ethnic-minority neighborhoods
Individual project proposals are due Friday 4 February.
Case 2 materials are due 9-11 February (in lab section)

geographic analysis in marketing and public-service planning
Clarke, Chapters 6, 7, and 10
Mennecke, in Journal of Geographic Information and Decision Analysis
Pickles, Chapter 7
28 Feb:  read pages 250-4 in Clarke, and Goodchild paper (to be distributed)
Group project proposals are due Friday 18 February.
Second test, covering the materials through this block:  3 March
Case 3 materials are due 23-25 February (in lab section)

Lecture and lab periods during 6-10 March will be devoted to student-team work on projects.
Teams will present their projects from 2:00 - 4:30 p.m., Monday 13 March, in the Collaboartory