This two-day course uses a series of accessible hands-on practical activities and short lectures to introduce participants to sophisticated spatial data analysis tools within a GIS. On day 1 we work with vector data (points, lines, polygons) to apply a range of spatial analytic and visualisation techniques used for applied research within the social sciences. On day 2 we also introduce network analysis and focus on measures of proximity and access, construction of service areas and the evaluation of facility or service locations. All activities are structured around a series of research questions which could be applied in many research contexts.
We use ESRIs ArcGIS industry standard proprietary GIS software, widely used by the research community and commercial sector. The data used relate to individuals, households and neighbourhoods (small areas) and a drawn from sources typically used within the social sciences (including census, survey and commercial data). We emphasise that the approaches, questions, challenges and operational decisions are generic to these kinds of geographic analyses.
The course runs over two days and is organised as follows:
Thursday 1st March – sessions will run from 11am until 5pm.
Friday 2nd March – sessions will run from 9am until 3pm.
Session 1: Refresh knowledge of spatial data and ArcGIS (handling spatial and attribute data, layering, select by attribute, select by location, creating thematic maps).
Session 2: Spatial analysis – aggregation, joins and relates, overlay and proximity, hot spot analysis.
Session 3: Network analysis – working with (road) networks in ArcGIS, calculating origin-destination matrices and measuring proximity.
Session 4: Evaluating access and determining ‘optimum’ locations.
Discussion / consultation session: There are opportunities for users to outline their own work and to ask for comments and ideas – participants are also welcome to bring along their own spatial data.
