Overview

The course main project consists of 3 graded checkpoints:

1. Informal research ideas exploration: pre-prosal

This is your chance to informally consider your research interests and questions.

After you submit your initial ideas on Moodle, we’ll have an individual consultation to help you refine your ideas so that you are ready to create a research proposal.

2. Proposal

You’ll create a proposal, detailing the context of your research ideas, your data, and the spatial analytical techniques you plan to use.

3. Report

Here, you’ll create a report detailing the context of your project; your data, analyses, and results; and your interpretations/conclusions.

Grading

The grading breakdown for the main project is:

Component % of Total Due Date
Exploration and Consultation 15% February 18
Proposal 35% March 25
Report 50% May 12

Project Components

Pre-Proposal Exploration and Consultation: 15pts

In this section, you’ll informally describe your project ideas in a 1-page document. Your pre-proposal will consist of:

  • A description of your general project ideas and motivation.
    • It doesn’t have to be overly specific at this stage.
    • List any preliminary goals or questions you’d like to address.
    • Describe why you are interested in your proposed topic.
  • A description of the data you have (or would like to have)
    • You don’t have to list specific datasets, but you can if you already have them.
  • A general description of your study approach (if applicable)
    • Describe any ideas you have about general or specific analyses you’d like to perform.
      • Graphical, statistical, simulation, etc.

Your ideas don’t have to be solidified at this stage, we’ll have a chance to talk about your ideas during our consultation.

Proposal: 35pts

Your proposal is a concise 2-page document (excluding figures and tables).

Your proposal consists of the following sub-sections:

Introduction and background: 7pts

  • Describes the big-picture context of your project.
  • Should be approximately 3-4 paragraphs

Resarch questions/goals: 7pts

Include concise statements of:

  • Your research question/goal
  • Your null and alternative hypotheses (if applicable)

Data and proposed methods: 8pts

Your data description must include:

  • A table of the specific data sets you will use. For each dataset indicate:
    • Data type: vector, raster, other
    • Data source: U.S. Census, Mass GIS, etc.

Your proposed methods description must include

  • General approach:
    • Is your project descriptive, inferential, predictive, simulation, etc.?
    • Brief description of how your methods address your research question or goals.
    • The specific analyses you plan use.
      • Include the names of R packages and functions if possible.

Expected insights: 8 pts

If you articulated a research question, null, and alternative hypotheses describe:

  • What are the implications if you can reject your null hypothesis?
  • What if you are unable to reject your null?

For descriptive analyses, describe:

  • The patterns you expect to see and why.
  • What are the implications if you observe the expected patterns?
  • What could you conclude if you observe something different?
  • If you have no expected results, describe at least 2 possible outcomes.
    • Describe the implications of each outcome you listed.

Figures: 5pts

Include at least 1 figure

  • Figures do not count toward 2-page limit.
  • I recommend including a map!
  • Include plots or maps of any preliminary or supporting analyses you have performed (if applicable).

Report: 50pts

Your report will be in the form of a mini scientific paper consisting of the 4 traditional sections:

  • Introduction: 12pts
  • Methods: 12pts
  • Results: 12pts
  • Discussion: 14pts