GIS Education Center

What has happened to make GIS the essential tool for economic development analysis?

Simply put, more data are available and more sophisticated techniques are available to analyze the data.  In this workshop you will learn how GIS is essential to economic development analysis; we believe that all meaningful economic development analysis now will involve some GIS methods and tools. You will see how GIS is a tool that promotes collaboration across people with diverse expertise and is a powerful tool for community outreach and support. 

Workshop Session Learning Objectives:

• The juxtaposition of two themes: problems and methods. The workshop focuses on the “cusp” between the initiated and the uninitiated – people who have problems to solve, but are not aware of all the tools that are available to solve those problems.

• Provide a broad overview of economic development analysis and GIS tools and methods used to carry out economic development analysis.

• Demonstrate applications of GIS to economic development analysis and have students execute examples of these applications in ArcGIS 10.

Topics Include:

• Site Selection
• Zoning
• Fiscal Impacts
• GIS tools to measure concentration (ie hotspot analysis)
• What are common economic development polices that would benefit from GIS-based analysis?
• How were economic development policies analyzed before GIS?  What has changed?
• Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) within GIS for economic development analysis
• Applications of regression beyond OLS
• Raster Analysis in GIS

• Site selection
• Zoning
• Fiscal impacts
• Externalities

• The best practices of GIS

• ArcCatalog to preview/manage data
• Use file geodatabases, not shapefiles
• Geoprocessing and ModelBuilder
• Understanding differences between raster and vector data

• Important GIS tools:

• Table Join
• Spatial Join
• Geocoding
• Selection by attributes
• Symbolizing quantitative data
• Buffering features
• Intersecting features

• How are industries categorized using NAICS codes?
• What is an “index”?  Examples of economic concentration indexes

• Using GIS tools to measure concentration

• Standard Distance
• Average Nearest Neighbor
• Global Moran’s I
• Global Hotspot Analysis

• What is “regression”?
• What are common economic development polices that would benefit from GIS-based analysis?
• How were economic development policies analyzed before GIS?  What has changed?
• Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) within GIS for economic development analysis
• Applications of regression beyond OLS
• Raster Analysis in GIS

(2) Students need to possess an intermediate-level knowledge of the Windows XP operating system. This includes creating new files and folders, copy and paste, transferring data between computers using a flash drive, and other basic desktop functionality. Familiarity with creating and managing new worksheets in Excel and working with a wide range of file types (e.g. TXT, CSV, XLS) is helpful but not required.

(3) Additional skills expected: storing, copying and management of multiple data types; managing multiple windows and applications; and the discipline to save work frequently.

(4) A strong motivation to learn, explore and have fun with computer applications is essential.  This workshop will require a significant amount of independent work and relies heavily on student initiative.

(5) An openness to working with other students in the class as a shared learning experience in order to complete assignments, build contacts in the professional GIS world and to support relatively new GIS learners.

Organization
The structure of each class will generally consist of a short lecture followed by 2 - 2.5 hours of hands-on lab time and a short break halfway through the class period. Homework, quizzes, and readings are assigned in order to reinforce GIS concepts and techniques.

Textbook
No textbook is required for this workshop.

Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (ESRI) suite of GIS software, especially ArcGIS 10, has become the industry standard and is used by most government agencies and private firms engaged in geospatial analysis. This five-session workshop is designed for those students interested in gaining intermediate-level skills in the use of ArcGIS 10.  The format will be a combination of lecture and hands-on exercises during which students will explore GIS concepts and applications.  The primary objective of the workshop is for students to acquire a set of core GIS skills sought by today's employers.  In so doing, students will use real-world vector and raster geospatial data from a variety of sources, including the City and County of San Francisco.   

The five-week workshop will focus on:

• Geocoding addresses using ArcGIS 10 Address Locators
• Georeferencing non-spatial raster imagery to spatially-accurate vector base maps - we call it “new life for old maps”
• Geoprocessing using ArcToolbox tools such as Buffer, Clip and Union; visualizing workflows using Model Builder
• Exploring ArcGIS Extensions, including Spatial Analyst and 3D Analyst
• Obtaining vector and raster data sets from web-based data portals such as USGS Seamless Server
• Exploring the ArcGIS 10 Image Analysis functions
• Application of GIS skills to collaboratively develop an approach and techniques for a site suitability project

(1) This workshop requires that students possess basic ArcGIS skills; the GIS Quick Start class would meet this requirement.

(2) Besides a familiarity with ArcGIS, students need to possess an intermediate-level knowledge of the Windows XP operating system and Excel.  This includes creating new files and folders, creating and managing new worksheets in Excel, familiarity with a wide range of file types (e.g. TXT, CSV, XLS, SHP, DBF) and transferring data between computers using a flash drive, or a web-based file transfer service (e.g. www.YousendIt.com) or a CD/DVD.

(3) Additional skills expected: storing, copying and management of multiple data types; managing multiple windows and applications; and the discipline to save work frequently.

(4) A strong motivation to learn, explore and have fun with computer applications is essential.  This workshop will require a significant amount of independent work and relies heavily on student initiative.

(5) An openness to working with other students in the class as a shared learning experience in order to complete assignments, build contacts in the professional GIS world and to support relatively new GIS learners.

Organization
The structure of each class will generally consist of a short lecture followed by 2 - 2.5 hours of hands-on lab time.  The instructor will open up as much class time as feasible in order to work individually with students and support their learning goals.  Homework assignments and readings may be distributed in order to reinforce GIS concepts and techniques.

Textbook
No textbook is required for this workshop.

Students will learn how to use the applications to solve questions such as:
• Find all sex offenders within 2000 feet of schools
• Where is the best location to open a new store?
• Identify census tracks with high income and high home ownership
• Display the number of accidents at each intersection by direction
• Where might disease spread too?

The five week workshop will focus on the following:
• Understanding the setup of a GIS project
• Understanding GIS file formats
• spatial queries
• symbology
• Basic editing techniques
• Creating new datasets

At completion of this workshop a student should expect to be able to work comfortably with GIS project files, join tabular/spreadsheet data with spatial layers, create new spatial layers using queries and geoprocessing tools, symbolize map features, and publish a map. These skills may be applicable for entry-level GIS positions or internships.

(2) Students need to possess an intermediate-level knowledge of the Windows XP operating system. This includes creating new files and folders, copy and paste, transferring data between computers using a flash drive, and other basic desktop functionality. Familiarity with creating and managing new worksheets in Excel and working with a wide range of file types (e.g. TXT, CSV, XLS) is helpful but not required.

(3) Additional skills expected: storing, copying and management of multiple data types; managing multiple windows and applications; and the discipline to save work frequently.

(4) A strong motivation to learn, explore and have fun with computer applications is essential.  This workshop will require a significant amount of independent work and relies heavily on student initiative.

(5) An openness to working with other students in the class as a shared learning experience in order to complete assignments, build contacts in the professional GIS world and to support relatively new GIS learners.

Organization
The structure of each class will generally consist of a short lecture followed by 2 - 2.5 hours of hands-on lab time and a short break halfway through the class period. Homework, quizzes, and readings are assigned in order to reinforce GIS concepts and techniques.

Textbook
No textbook is required for this workshop. However, it is recommended students purchase 'Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop'. The book should be used as a self-study resource for reviewing fundamental ArcGIS concepts and tools. The textbook provides an excellent foundation and is also recommended in many of our other GIS workshops. This book is not available in our Campus bookstore.

Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop, For ArcGIS 10
By Robert Burke
Available through: Amazon | Borders

Make sure your copy comes with an evaluation CD. (Note: be wary when ordering from online retailers as evaluation CD's may be faulty or not included).

Students will learn how to use the applications to solve questions such as:
• Find all sex offenders within 2000 feet of schools
• Where is the best location to open a new store?
• Identify census tracks with high income and high home ownership
• Display the number of accidents at each intersection by direction
• Where might disease spread too?

The five week workshop will focus on the following:
• Understanding the setup of a GIS project
• Understanding GIS file formats
• spatial queries
• symbology
• Basic editing techniques
• Creating new datasets

At completion of this workshop a student should expect to be able to work comfortably with GIS project files, join tabular/spreadsheet data with spatial layers, create new spatial layers using queries and geoprocessing tools, symbolize map features, and publish a map. These skills may be applicable for entry-level GIS positions or internships.

(2) Students need to possess an intermediate-level knowledge of the Windows XP operating system. This includes creating new files and folders, copy and paste, transferring data between computers using a flash drive, and other basic desktop functionality. Familiarity with creating and managing new worksheets in Excel and working with a wide range of file types (e.g. TXT, CSV, XLS) is helpful but not required.

(3) Additional skills expected: storing, copying and management of multiple data types; managing multiple windows and applications; and the discipline to save work frequently.

(4) A strong motivation to learn, explore and have fun with computer applications is essential.  This workshop will require a significant amount of independent work and relies heavily on student initiative.

(5) An openness to working with other students in the class as a shared learning experience in order to complete assignments, build contacts in the professional GIS world and to support relatively new GIS learners.

Organization
The structure of each class will generally consist of a short lecture followed by 2 - 2.5 hours of hands-on lab time and a short break halfway through the class period. Homework, quizzes, and readings are assigned in order to reinforce GIS concepts and techniques.

Textbook
No textbook is required for this workshop. However, it is recommended students purchase 'Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop'. The book should be used as a self-study resource for reviewing fundamental ArcGIS concepts and tools. The textbook provides an excellent foundation and is also recommended in many of our other GIS workshops. This book is not available in our Campus bookstore.

Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop, For ArcGIS 10
By Robert Burke
Available through: Amazon | Borders

Make sure your copy comes with an evaluation CD. (Note: be wary when ordering from online retailers as evaluation CD's may be faulty or not included).