About this course: In this project-based course, you will design and execute a complete GIS-based analysis – from identifying a concept, question or issue you wish to develop, all the way to final data products and maps that you can add to your portfolio. Your completed project will demonstrate your mastery of the content in the GIS Specialization and is broken up into four phases: Milestone 1: Project Proposal - Conceptualize and design your project in the abstract, and write a short proposal that includes the project description, expected data needs, timeline, and how you expect to complete it. Milestone 2: Workflow Design - Develop the analysis workflow for your project, which will typically involve creating at least one core algorithm for processing your data. The model need not be complex or complicated, but it should allow you to analyze spatial data for a new output or to create a new analytical map of some type. Milestone 3: Data Analysis – Obtain and preprocess data, run it through your models or other workflows in order to get your rough data products, and begin creating your final map products and/or analysis. Milestone 4: Web and Print Map Creation – Complete your project by submitting usable and attractive maps and your data and algorithm for peer review and feedback.
Who is this class for: This course is targeted at those who have taken the first four courses in the GIS specialization, or who have equivalent foundational GIS experience. We encourage you to audit or enroll in those courses before taking this course.
Created by: University of California, Davis
Taught by: Nick Santos, Geospatial Applications Researcher
Center for Watershed Sciences
| Basic Info | Course 5 of 5 in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Specialization |
| Commitment | 4-8 weeks of study in 4 milestones - each milestone should take 10-20 hours of effort. |
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Course Overview and Milestone 1: Project Proposal
In this milestone, you will have weeks 1 and 2 to build a project proposal that contains your research question or hypothesis, background information, potential data sources and methods, and your expected results. This proposal will lead you into future milestones by providing a guide to help keep your analysis on track. You will start by getting an overview of the entire project and the assignment for this first milestone. From there, you will learn about some sources for project ideas and data sources and look at an example project proposal.
4 videos, 7 readings
- Video: Course Overview
- Reading: Course Project Overview
- Reading: Getting Help in this Course
- Video: Project Proposal Overview
- Reading: Milestone 1 Assignment Preview
- Discussion Prompt: Data Sources and Repositories
- Reading: Finding Project Ideas
- Discussion Prompt: Share Your Project Ideas!
- Reading: Data Sources For Your Project
- Reading: Example Project Proposal
- Reading: Extra Practice: Make Your Project a Website
- Video: Vector-Based Suitability Analysis (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Classifying Imagery and Derived Products (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
WEEK 2
Milestone 1: Project Proposal Submission
In this module, you will continue to work through Milestone 1, your project proposal as outlined in the first week. You will then submit your proposal for peer review.
Graded: Milestone 1: Project Proposal
WEEK 3
Milestone 2: Planning Your Workflow
In this milestone, you will have week 3 to practice your algorithmic development. In the previous milestone, you posed a question you want to answer - now you'll develop a plan, your algorithm, for how to answer that question with GIS. In practice, this means you'll develop a ModelBuilder model that shows your planned analysis workflow, or some part of it. For those of you who are conducting an analysis that's not conducive to making a model, you can write out your series of steps instead. Regardless, by the end of this module, you'll have a plan for how to produce your results.
9 videos, 2 readings
- Video: Planning Your Workflow Overview
- Reading: Milestone 2 Assignment Preview
- Reading: Extra Practice: Data Analysis
- Video: What is ModelBuilder? (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Creating Toolboxes and Tools with ModelBuilder (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Setting Up a Larger Model (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Using Interface Tools as Geoprocessing Tools in ModelBuilder (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Feature Layers and Selections in Models (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Branching, Preconditions, and Viewing Progress Interactively (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Polishing Models for Reuse (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
- Video: Advanced Models and Exporting Models to Python (Review from Imagery, Automation, and Applications)
Graded: Milestone 2: Workflow
WEEK 4
Milestone 3: Data Analysis
For this milestone, you will have weeks 4, 5, and 6 to process your data according to the model you created in the previous milestone, reinforcing your data analysis concepts and practice. When you complete your analysis, you will add metadata to any resulting layers, and you will also write an assessment of what the results mean and how they answer your research question.
1 video, 2 readings
- Video: Data Analysis Overview
- Reading: Milestone 3 Assignment Preview
- Reading: Example Methods and Results Document
WEEK 5
Milestone 3: Data Analysis Continue
In this module, you will continue to work through Milestone 3, analyzing your data as outlined in the fourth week. Pay close attention to data quality issues and your metadata, as reviewed in this week's videos. You will have one more week to complete your data analysis.
3 videos
- Video: Assessing Data Quality and Uncertainty (Review from Data Formats, Design, & Quality)
- Video: Data Quality (Review from Data Formats, Design, & Quality)
- Video: Metadata (Review from Fundamentals of GIS)
WEEK 6
Milestone 3: Data Analysis Submission
In this module, you will continue to work through Milestone 3, analyzing your data as outlined in the fourth and fifth week. You will then submit your data analysis for peer review.
Graded: Milestone 3: Data Analysis
WEEK 7
Milestone 4: Creating Your Maps
In this module, you will have weeks 7 and 8 to hone your map-making skills, building at least two maps that visually interpret the results of your analysis. In making both a web map and a print-layout map, as well as through extra practice materials, you'll refine cartographic techniques that you previously learned as well as new ones to help you to better display information in map form. Should you choose to, you will also build a small website for your project by the time you complete this module.
6 videos, 2 readings
- Video: Creating Your Maps Overview
- Reading: Milestone 4 Assignment Preview
- Video: Uploading Rasters to ArcGIS Online
- Reading: Extra Practice: Cartography and Online Maps
- Video: Loading Layers in ArcGIS Online (Review from GIS Data Formats, Design, and Quality)
- Video: Applying Symbology in ArcGIS Online (Review from GIS Data Formats, Design, and Quality)
- Video: Map Annotations and Scaling in ArcGIS Online (Review from GIS Data Formats, Design, and Quality)
- Video: Saving and Sharing Maps with ArcGIS Online (Review from GIS Data Formats, Design, and Quality)
WEEK 8
Milestone 4: Creating Your Maps Submission
In this module, you will continue to work through Milestone 4, creating your maps as outlined in the seventh week. You will then submit your maps for peer review.
1 video, 1 reading
- Reading: Extra Practice: Make Your Project a Website
- Video: Course Summary
Graded: Creating Your Maps
FAQs
How It Works
Coursework
Each course is like an interactive textbook, featuring pre-recorded videos, quizzes and projects.
Help from Your Peers
Connect with thousands of other learners and debate ideas, discuss course material, and get help mastering concepts.
Certificates
Earn official recognition for your work, and share your success with friends, colleagues, and employers.
Creators
University of California, Davis
UC Davis, one of the nation’s top-ranked research universities, is a global leader in agriculture, veterinary medicine, sustainability, environmental and biological sciences, and technology. With four colleges and six professional schools, UC Davis and its students and alumni are known for their academic excellence, meaningful public service and profound international impact.
Pricing
| Audit | Purchase Course | |
|---|---|---|
| Access to course materials | Available | Available |
| Access to graded materials | Not available | Available |
| Receive a final grade | Not available | Available |
| Earn a shareable Course Certificate | Not available | Available |
Ratings and Reviews
This is an integrated project to go through the knowledge aquired during the entire specialization. I partaked in many MOOCs but this one in GIS has been one of the best I had never taken.
Great course- perfect synthesis of skills gained throughout the series.
A very good, in-depth course. Well written, clear objectives and courses. Nick Santos is a very good instructor. For me it was an introduction into GIS. I have two years of professional training as an Hydrographic Surveyor, but this really was all new to me and it was a pleasure to follow the courses.
Thanks to Nick Santos, my fellow students (for evaluating my work and giving me valuable feedback) and the Regents of Coursera.org. Without Coursera I would not have been able to change careers into GIS!
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I found this Project really useful. It was the opportunity to put in practice a lot of things that I learnt from the previous courses. Time allocated for it is appropriate. Through whole Specialization I appreciate cooperation and help from the peers and instructors. I appreciate also possibility to get Student License for ArcGIS Software.
Room for improvement: There would be very beneficial for us as course students to have a feedback from instructors. I understand that it would be significant effort for them and I believe it wouldn't be paid but, I think at least for this Capstone Project should be considered some professional assessment of the job we done. I appreciate feedback from my colleagues, too, but I am afraid most of us are not as competent as we should be to evaluate appropriately other's people Capstone Project work.
Final grade in my opinion at the scale from 1 to 10 is 9.