2018 QUARTER 03

PD-03 - Development environments for geospatial applications
  • Develop a geospatial application using the most appropriate environment
  • Compare and contrast the relative merits of available environments for geospatial applications, including desktop software scripting (e.g., VBA), graphical modeling tools, geospatial components in standard environments, and “from-scratch” development in standard environments
DM-20 - Discrete entities
  • Discuss the human predilection to conceptualize geographic phenomena in terms of discrete entities
  • Compare and contrast differing epistemological and metaphysical viewpoints on the “reality” of geographic entities
  • Identify the types of features that need to be modeled in a particular GIS application or procedure
  • Identify phenomena that are difficult or impossible to conceptualize in terms of entities
  • Describe the difficulties in modeling entities with ill-defined edges
  • Describe the difficulties inherent in extending the “tabletop” metaphor of objects to the geographic environment
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of GIS data models for representing the identity, existence, and lifespan of entities
  • Justify or refute the conception of fields (e.g., temperature, density) as spatially-intensive attributes of (sometimes amorphous and anonymous) entities
  • Model “gray area” phenomena, such as categorical coverages (a.k.a. discrete fields), in terms of objects
  • Evaluate the influence of scale on the conceptualization of entities
  • Describe the perceptual processes (e.g., edge detection) that aid cognitive objectification
  • Describe particular entities in terms of space, time, and properties
FC-14 - Distance, Length, and Direction
  • Describe several different measures of distance between two points (e.g., Euclidean, Manhattan, network distance, spherical)
  • Explain how different measures of distance can be used to calculate the spatial weights matrix
  • Explain why estimating the fractal dimension of a sinuous line has important implications for the measurement of its length
  • Explain how fractal dimension can be used in practical applications of GIS
  • Explain the differences in the calculated distance between the same two places when data used are in different projections
  • Outline the implications of differences in distance calculations on real world applications of GIS, such as routing and determining boundary lengths and service areas
  • Estimate the fractal dimension of a sinuous line
  • Describe operations that can be performed on qualitative representations of direction
  • Explain any differences in the measured direction between two places when the data are presented in a GIS in different projections
  • Compute the mean of directional data
  • Compare and contrast how direction is determined and stated in raster and vector data
  • Define “direction” and its measurement in different angular measures
KE-13 - Economics and the role of information
  • Discuss the general role of information in economics
  • Describe the role of economics in the use of geospatial information
GS-09 - Enforcing control
  • Describe defenses against various claims of copyright infringement
  • Discuss ways in which copyright infringements may be remedied
  • Identify types of copyright infringement
GS-13 - Epistemological critiques


FC-02 - Epistemology
  • Explain the notions of model and representation in science
  • Identify the epistemological assumptions underlying the work of colleagues
  • Justify the epistemological frameworks with which you agree
  • Recognize the influences of epistemology on GIS practices
FC-25 - Error
DM-32 - Error-based uncertainty
  • Recognize expressions of uncertainty in language
  • Evaluate the causes of uncertainty in geospatial data
  • Describe a stochastic error model for a natural phenomenon
  • Differentiate uncertainty in geospatial situations from vagueness
DM-22 - Events and processes
  • Compare and contrast the concepts of continuants (entities) and occurrents (events)
  • Describe the “actor” role that entities and fields play in events and processes
  • Discuss the difficulty of integrating process models into GIS software based on the entity and field views, and methods used to do so
  • Apply or develop formal systems for describing continuous spatio-temporal processes
  • Evaluate the assertion that “events and processes are the same thing, but viewed at different temporal scales”
  • Describe particular events or processes in terms of identity, categories, attributes, and locations
  • Compare and contrast the concepts of event and process