Lab Syllabus

GEO 2470

Introduction to GIS (Geographic Information Systems)

Hybrid Course

Fall 2008

Synonym 25699

Contact Information

Instructor: Dr. Mary Beth Booth, OD

Office: Room 2145, Building 2000

Northridge Campus

E-mail: mbooth@austincc.edu

Telephone: 512-223-4023

Office Hours:

Required Textbook/Materials

USB Drive (aka thumb drive, pen drive, flash drive, etc). This drive should have at least 1GB of storage.

Ormsby, Tim et al. 2004. Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press. Second Edition. NOTE: You MUST use the second addition. The software has changed significantly from the First Edition.

Required Technology for the Hybrid course

A computer with the following minimum specifications:

Platform: PC-Intel

Operating system: Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

Processor: 1.6 GHz

Memory/RAM: 1 GB minimum (2 GB recommended)

DVD-ROM Drive

Disk space: 2.4 GB

Reliable Internet access and a working email address ("working" also means that your mailbox is not full.)

Grading for Lab Only

Lab Project 1 25 points

Lab project 2 25 points

Lab project 3 50 points

Chapter Exercises 30 points

Total Points Available 130 points

Students with Special Needs

Each ACC campus offers support services for students with documented physical or psychological disabilities. Students with disabilities must request reasonable accommodations through the office for Students with Disabilities on the campus where they expect to take the majority of their classes. Students are encouraged to do this three weeks before the start of the semester.

Academic Integrity

Students enrolled in this class are responsible for observing the policy on academic integrity described in the 2006-2007 ACC Student Handbook.

Acts prohibited by the college for which discipline may be administered include scholastic dishonesty, including but not limited to cheating on an exam or quiz, plagiarizing, and unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing outside work. Academic work submitted by students shall be the result of their thought, research, or self-expression. Academic work is defined as, but not limited to tests, quizzes, whether taken electronically or on paper; projects, either individual or group; classroom presentations, and homework.

If a student commits any of the above actions, the instructor may seek disciplinary action in the form of an academic penalty (which may include a course grade of 'F'). Such disciplinary action will be at the discretion of the instructor.

Chapter Exercises

For 15 of the textbook chapters, you will turn in the completed textbook lab exercise. Each chapter’s exercise will be worth a total of 2 points.

Lab Projects

There will be three lab projects due throughout the semester. These lab projects will use the skills acquired from the previous lab exercises. You will be given a one-year student copy of the ArcGIS software to complete the lab exercises and projects. The textbook comes with a data DVD that contains all the data you will need to complete the textbook exercises.

Lab Schedule (Subject to change at the instructor’s discretion)

Week(s) of	Chapters	Subject
August 25 – Sept 8	3 - 7	Exploring ArcMap;  Exploring ArcCatalog; Symbolizing features and rasters; Classifying features and rasters; Labeling features
Sept 15		Lab Project 1
Sept 22 – October 13	8 - 13	Querying data; Joining and relating tables; Selecting features by location; Preparing data for analysis; Analyzing spatial data; Projecting data in ArcMap
October 20 - 27		Lab Project 2
Nov 3 - 17	14 - 19	Building geodatabases; Creating features; Editing features and attributes; Geocoding addresses; Making maps quickly; Making maps for presentation
Nov 24 and Dec 1		Lab Project 3
Dec 8		Project 3 Presentations