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COMP817 – GeoComputation
Semester 2, 2019
Project Assessment Outline
This project is a group project assignment with at least two students per group. All work submitted
must be entirely your own. This project assesses your ability to:
1. Select alternative methods for solving problem in the geospatial domain with technologies appropriate
for the design and development of geospatial systems.
2. Demonstrate skills in geospatial analysis, programming, and/or modelling.
Project Plan (Introduction, Methodology and Topic reference list) worth 10%, Project Milestones
worth 30% and Project Oral Presentation weights 10% of your final grade. The individual Project Final
Report is worth 50% of your final grade for GeoComputation.
The deliverables for your project include:
• Final Project Report
• Any Artefacts produced such as software, GIS Projects, and new or cleaned datasets
• Evidence of data preparation
• ArcGIS Project (including all maps, data files or database etc.),
• R or MATLAB code (either as a script or as a text file or screenshots),
• R or MATLAB generated Graphs (as image files)
• Weka results files, etc.
Project Report – Basic Structure
Your final report must include the following sections and information. The word count gives you an
indication of the expected length for each section.
Title Page
• Paper Code, Name and Semester (COMP817 – GeoComputation, Semester 2, 2019)
• Your Project Title
• Your Name
• Your Student ID
Table of Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Project plan:
Introduction (200-300 words)
Provide statement of the problem (or problem statement) outlining the problem that the study
addresses. The statement of the problem should briefly address the question: What is the problem
that the research will address?
Your introduction must describe:
 The aim of your work – what were you trying to achieve?
 The research questions you attempted to answer
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Project plan : Background (1000 words)
This section must include a systematic literature review in the relevant field(s).
 Focus only on work which is directly related to what you are doing.
 Because GIS applications tend to be multidisciplinary it is not unusual to have to
research the domain you are working in.
e.g. In a project that attempts to predict occurrences of disease in grape vines, you would
need to research grape diseases, environmental factors, and any GIS or
Computational/Mathematical approaches that may have been used in the past to predict
occurrences of grape disease.
If possible, except for seminal references, your citations should be from the last seven years. Citations
should be from reputable sources such as textbooks, journal and conference articles. Where you are
referencing data sources – for example weather data from NIWA appropriate acknowledgement of the
data source is required as specified by the license or agreement for use of the data. In general websites
such as Wikipedia are not considered to be appropriate or reliable sources.
Milestone 1 Part One : Case Study – Area and Data (500 words)
This section of your report must discuss the case study area and any features which you
consider to be relevant to the analysis and modelling task.
For example:
 Is your site near major roads or industrial sites which may influence the data value?
 Are there any geographical features which might influence the data value?
– Examine where the originally collected using maps
– Relevant meta data (e.g. projections used for map data)
– Any limitations in the data (e.g. missing data, incomplete data)
Milestone 1 Part Two : Individual plan will be provided for each group.
Milestone 2: Individual plan will be provided for each group.
Milestone 3: Individual plan will be provided for each group.
Method (1000 words)
This section must detail (discuss and describe) any methods you used to:
 Prepare your data for analysis
 Explore and understand your data
 Conduct your analysis
 Evaluate your analysis
If any of your methods are drawn from prior work, published protocols or instructions, cite the
sources here.
In addition to this section, you must also include a detailed process log in Appendix B. Read
WorkingOnGISProjects.docx by David Arctur, available on AUTonline, to see what a process log
might look like.
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Results
 Show what you came up with, the maps you made or the results of analysis.
 This is most effectively done using maps, tables and graphics, with brief summaries in
text.
 Don’t explain or interpret anything here, just present the results and show what happened in
a way that can be read easily.
 For figures and maps, use the form (Fig. 3) or (Map 3) to refer to and label maps, graphs,
photos, and any non-tabular graphic. Use (Table 3) for tables. All figures and tables
should have a caption that makes the figure self-explanatory.
 Figures of the maps produced must be included
Discussion (500 words)
 Discuss the resolution, precision, scale and accuracy of the data and/or maps
 How confident are you in your findings?
 Were there any surprises?
 What are some possible explanations for results that didn’t come out as you expected?
Conclusion (200-300 words)
What do your results say in terms of your original questions or aim – what “story” does it tell, and
what opportunities are there for further research?
References
It’s important to ensure that your text represents your original work, and that you cite the sources
of others' ideas.
 Text quoted verbatim from other sources must be set apart in quotation marks and
accompanied by a complete citation.
 If you use images, maps, figures or tables from other sources, cite the source and ensure that
use is permitted.
 For more information on avoiding plagiarism, visit the library site:
http://aut.ac.nz.libguides.com/apa6th
Appendix
Appendix A: Reflection (200-300 words)
The ability to reflect and analyze your own performance on tasks and to learn from those
experiences is important professionally in any workplace. If you can do this you are what is called a
reflective practitioner.
This section requires you to briefly reflect on your project experience and identify one thing which
you did well, one thing which you wish you had done differently and how would you do that thing
differently next time.
Appendix B: Milestone Documents
Include copies of the three milestone documents delivered as part of the assessment
Appendix C: Process Log
Read WorkingOnGISProjects.docx by David Arctur, available on AUTonline, to see what a process
log should look like.
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Appendix D: Weka Results Files
Save your Weka results files and append them in this section
Submission of Report & Artefacts
Your individual project report must be submitted as a PDF document. It and all relevant artefacts
(placed in an appropriate folder structure) must be submitted together a single ZIP file, using the
link provided on AUTonline.
Grading Rubric
Factors that determine your grade will include considerations such as:
 Cartographic quality
o Symbolization
o Projection, Coordinate System & Scale
o Disclosure about precision and accuracy
o How well the map communicates cartographically
 Data modelling and management
o A clean, complete, well-organized data folder
o Analysis methods fully documented
 Robust Analysis & modelling methods
o Did you consider data distribution in your methods? (e.g. use boosting or
bagging if using skewed data – or use appropriate binning methods for class
labels when undertaking classification)
o Did you use appropriate methods to evaluate and is your evaluation correct?
 Reproducibility
o How well did you document your process?
o Could another researcher duplicate your work?
o Given your database, and your map document, could another researcher pick up
where you left off or do a similar project using another case study area?
 Complexity of the task you undertook – good projects may have:
o Simple maps with complex data
o Complex map layouts and simple data
o A balance between the above
 Validity of conclusions
o Do your conclusions consider the limitations inherent in your project and
methods?
o Have you:
– Provided convincing evidence to support your conclusions?
– Linked spatial and non-spatial statistics geospatial/geographical features of the
case study are to explain aspects of the PM10 data?
 Report quality and presentation
o Neat and concise reporting
o Good organisation of content
o Uses the sections outlined in this document
o Free from spelling and grammatical errors