Geography 465 GIS Databases and Programming

Lecture/Lab: MW    2:30-4:20   SMI  401

Instructors:

Tim Nyerges, Professor

402 Smith Hall, 206.543.5296, nyerges@u.washington.edu

Office Hours: T 11:30-12:20 AM, W 10:30–11:20 AM, or by appointment

 

Teaching Assistant: Michalis Avraam, office hours and place to be announced.

 

Course Description:

Database management is the core technology in a GIS. This course explores the GIS data models, database development, and database management systems used in GIS.  Students receive hands-on experience with the Python programming language applicable to GIS database work, particularly related to extending current commercial GIS such as ArcGIS.

 

Learning Objectives:

- Students will learn the basics of geoprocessing using command line, dialog box, ModelBuilder, and Python Scripting interfaces to interact with geospatial databases. 

 

- Students will develop Python programming/scripting skills fundamental to advanced GIS data manipulation.

 

- Students will undertake lab exercises to learn about ArcGIS geoprocessing, focusing on the database management aspects of GIS, and making use of selected datasets.

 

Required reading materials

Mark Lutz 2008, Learning Python, 3rd edition, O’Reilly Media: Beijing.

Various ESRI .pdf’s available through the course web site or ESRI as noted in course schedule

Various lecture and handouts provided from time to time on course web site.

 

Course Grading

This course focuses assessment on the grading of lab exercises. There will be no exams. Graded exercise assignments will total to 400 points with the following point distribution.

Exercise 1 : 20 point

Exercise 2, 3, 4 : 40 points each

Exercise 5 and 6 : 60 points each

Exercise 7 final project: 100 points

Project Presentation: 40