CEEn 414 - Civil Engineering Applications of GIS

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Overview

I want you to investigate applications of GIS in Civil and Environmental Engineering with an emphasis in your specialty area.  You will accomplish this through research and through completion of an additional on-line course which will also be used in your group project. You will combine this learning with that of your team to develop a project/application of your own design.

Applications Research

The project and term paper can be one of the best or worst experiences of the class. So that it will be a good experience you will want to get mobilized early on in order to have enough time to do a good job.  Each person must do his/her own paper, although I encourage you to help each other out by sharing ideas and discussion.

You will be required to submit a 1/2-1 page summary of two articles on applications of engineering each week.  I will call randomly on you at some point in the semester beginning the second week to take a few minutes to share one or more of your articles so be prepared at any point for me to do that. You can locate articles from ArcNews,  ArcUser, and other online resources found at www.esri.com (the News link or the Industries link will have a lot of information).  You can also do your own search on Google, or through Google Scholar.  If you plan now to do 2 articles a week then by the end of October you will have done 16 and have plenty of notes/information to write your paper from.

The 1/2 page summaries at the end of each module will also provide material you can use to develop your paper.

By mid-November you will have to turn in your draft 5-7 page paper summarizing what you have learned in GIS and how it is applied in Civil and Environmental Engineering.  This draft will be reviewed by a classmate and then the final draft due at the end of the semester.

You will add to completing your paper from your extra on-line course.  We will not have class time to work on this until after the draft is due, but you can start/complete your extra on-line course earlier than that, or get feedback on your draft without having included anything from your extra on-line course and then add to it as you finish your final draft.

Extra On-line course

In order to give you more in depth study into an area of GIS application you can choose to complete an exercise in one of the following:

1. Linear Referencing (Transportation)

2. Hazus - Hurricanes (Water Resources - disaster management)

3. Hazus - Riverine Flooding (Water Resources - disaster management)

4. Natural Resources Management (Water Resources)

5. Hazus - Earthquakes (Geotechnical)

6. Lidar Data (General)

7. 3D Analyst (General)

8. Propose your own topic (need 2-3 of you for a group)

This year there is a whole new list of available options for ArcGIS 10. You could pick any four of these:

1 - Getting Started with Geodatabase Topology (for ArcGIS 10)
2 - Deriving Rasters for Terrain Analysis Using ArcGIS 10
3 - 3D Analysis of Surfaces and Features Using ArcGIS 10
4 - 3D Visualization Techniques Using ArcGIS 10
5 - Creating 3D Data Using ArcGIS 10
6 - Displaying Raster Data Using ArcGIS 10
7 - Distance Analysis Using ArcGIS 10
8 - Exploring Spatial Patterns in Your Data Using ArcGIS 10
9 - Introduction to Surface Modeling Using ArcGIS 10
10 - Performing Spatial Interpolation Using ArcGIS 10
11 - Using Lidar Data in ArcGIS 10
12 - Organizing Raster Data Using ArcGIS 10
13 - Processing Raster Data Using ArcGIS 10
14 - Using Raster Data for Site Selection (for ArcGIS 10)

Team Project

You will be divided into teams of 2-4 that have each completed the same extra on line course (or at least have the same emphasis).  You will need to develop an application similar to what you worked through in the extra on-line course, but you must find and prepare the data on your own, using the on-line training as a guide of what to do with it.

You will make a summary presentation to the class of about 5-8 minutes and turn the presentation into me. 

Instructions for preparing your paper

Here are six suggestions to think about in writing your paper.  Use these suggestions as you prepare your own paper and as you review the paper of another student.  I will follow these same guidelines with roughly the weight given to each.

Ideas (50%)

Focus on clear, interesting, accurate information or details.  Support your ideas with appropriate references and or experimentation.  Your paper should have a focus and develop an important idea or point.  You should provide some kind of insight to your reader.

Organization (15%)

Make sure that your writing has effective beginnings and endings and a logical sequence of ideas.  Take a little time to make sure that your paper flows logically.

Word choice (10%)

Use language effectively so that your writing adds to the focus or point and effectively carries the intended message.  Avoid over use of words like "very."  Review your paper and make sure that the language is correct and powerful.  Don't be afraid to break out a thesaurus and search for new words which may carry more impact in your writing.

Grammar (10%)

This means that you should have effective sentence structure including: spelling, punctuation, paragraph division, and grammar.  Don't let these "easy" things detract from your paper.

Voice (5%)

Your paper should have a proper tone.  Your audience should be other engineers at about your same level (beginning) understanding of civil engineering processes/analysis and GIS.  I'm not too particularly about whether you use first person, third person, passive voice, etc. but be consistent and make sure that it fits with your intended message.

Convention (10%)

This is the miscellaneous item and to encourage creativity.  Your paper will be better if you are yourself and you try to make it interesting.  You can be effective by following some "template," but don't be afraid to get of the beaten path and use a little style.  Be sure that it contributes to your message and does not detract.