Midterms and Finals

The midterm and final will both be group projects. They are based on the same project proposal that you will submit for your first Group Assignment due at the start of Week 3. Think of the midterm as a midpoint status report of what will eventually become your final project. In rare cases, you may decide to change your topic from your midterm to your final, but understand that doing so will require a monumental effort on the groups’ part to reframe your research, find new datasets, and reproduce relevant material. It is highly recommended that you carefully examine the validity and “doability” of your project before embarking into it.

A note of advice: your project is only as good as your data can take you. Heed the expression, “garbage in, garbage out.”

Midterms (20% of your final grade)

There are three deliverables for the mid-term project.

1. Update your project proposal and resubmit. Follow the same guidelines as posted in your Group Assignment #1.
2. Create a new Jupyter Notebook. Make sure to mix in markdown cells and code cells so that the notebook tells a cohesive narrative. Your notebook should:
   • state the research question
   • identify data sources
   • conduct data exploration
   • data analysis
     • produce at least three charts
     • one chart can be a “bad” chart, with a second chart that improves upon it
   • map visualization
     • produce at least one static map and one interactive map
     • the maps must have at least one data overlay
   • in the last cell of the notebook, list each group member and describe the division of labor, and what each member’s contribution was to the project
3. Present your project to the class

Final Project (30% of your final grade)

Overview

The final project is a cumulative and applied group assignment that requires you to collectively use the skills you developed over the entire quarter. You will develop an interesting research question then answer it using the data analysis, statistics, and visualization methods you have learned in this course.

Instructions

This is an extension of your mid-term project. To review:

1. Develop an urban research question that interests your group.
2. Collect data from two or more different sources, including but not limited to: census bureau, local data portals, FTP servers, or directly from an organization.
3. Clean, organize, merge, and process the data using pandas/geopandas into a nice analyzable format.
4. Conduct a statistical analysis. This shall include, at a minimum, a set of descriptive statistics, some exploratory analysis. Optionally, include spatial autocorrelation analysis, point analysis, or a model, such as a multiple regression model.
5. Create 3 or more static data visualizations, such as scatter plots, bar charts, line graphs, etc.
6. Create 3 or more maps, including at least 1 choropleth map and 1 point map.

Create a website (using ESRI Story Maps, Google Sites, Word Press, or alternative) telling the story of your analysis in 1500+ words (not including tables, figures, captions, or references). Incorporate the visualizations and analytical results into your narrative. Organize it into five sections: 1, introduction (provide an overview of your entire project); 2, background (explain the context, prior work, and motivation leading to your research question). 3, methods (explain your data and your analytical process). 4, results (lay out your findings and visuals). 5, discussion (circle back to your research question and what your analysis tells you about it, what is the big picture and how are these findings useful?). At the top of the site, include your names, the date, your project title. At the end of the paper, describe each group member’s contribution to this final project (one sentence each).