121-227 Spatial Informatics and GIS

All BSc students, except those enrolled in the BA/BSc combined course and the BASc course, can only receive credit at the 200-level for this subject.

Usually completion of 25 points of first year geography or approval of the subject coordinator.

This subject's focus will be on using a geographic information system (GIS) to understand modern technology's effect on people's geographical behaviour, along with the consequences this has for spatial planning. The technological developments that will be addressed include mobile telephones, global positioning systems, teleconferencing, electronic mail, micro weather forecasting, biometric scanning, genetic engineering, cyborgs, virtual reality, data mining, fuel cells, Internet blogs, mobile publishing and open source software. Students will conduct information-based, geographical analyses using the simpler functions within the ArcMap GIS package and its peripheral software. Topics addressed by the latter will include information sources, principles of cartography, remote sensing, data compression, exploratory analyses, neural clustering and census mapping. Tutorials will then give students an appreciation of what GIS can, and cannot achieve within society, business planning, research and government. Such appreciation will be quantified through a study of dynamic mental maps, spatial perception and GIS's relationship to disaster preparedness, sustainable development, freedom of assembly and the nature of work.

• a capacity for critical thought will be greatly improved through delving deeply into the opposing arguments that surround fundamental issues within the wider debate about the place of new technologies within modern societies;

• an ability to communicate in writing, to attend to detail more carefully and to think creatively in theoretical terms.

Written work totalling 4000 words comprising a 2-hour examination 60% (during the examination period), four small practical GIS assignments 20% (due during the first half of semester) and a tutorial paper written 20% (due at the end of semester).

• J van Dijk, The network society: social aspects of new media. Sage 1999.
• M I Wilson & K E Corey (eds), Information tectonics: space, place and technology in an electronic age. Chichester, Wiley 2000.
• M Castells, The rise of the network society. Blackwell 2000.