This course introduces ‘spatial data science’ or might also be considered a course in ‘advanced GIS’ which is what it was developed to be when it was Geog 315 at Victoria University of Wellington. Some remnants identifying materials as part of that course remain, but will be removed as I develop the material for use as training materials in ‘R spatial’.
There is a particular emphasis on open source tools and on approaches to doing geospatial analysis in code using R as these are becoming increasingly important in science and other workplace settings. The major assessment component of the class is a mini-project exercise which gives students an opportunity to explore methods and topics of interest to themselves, and also to develop confidence exploring and present results from the analysis of spatial data using a modern literate programming approach.
It is expected that students will have completed an introductory course in GIS and have some basic familiarity with spatial data and spatial data formats.