Final Project

Introduction and context

The final project is an opportunity to collect, process, analyze, and visualize spatial data of your own choosing. Using ArcGIS Pro, you’ll choose a topic and elaborate it in four registers: its topical register, its conceptual register, its technical register, and its graphical register. Each of these are explained in detail below.

Spread across about seven weeks of work, your final product will culminate in a large-format infographic (e.g., a poster) that describes the research question, data, and methods as well as the analysis and the results.

Examples of previous student projects can be found at Tufts GIS Expo Explorer. Try searching for terms like history when you thumb through the portal.

Four registers

1. Topical register (or, “The What”)

The topical register of your project is the empirical content. Maybe you’re interested in housing discrimination in the early twentieth century United States; maybe you want to explore changing place names in Asia Minor; or maybe you want to study representations of space and place in The Odyssey.

All of these would suffice as excellent starting points for a final project topic. Of course, your actual project will need to investigate something a bit more specific.

Once you have a sense of your general topic, you want to proceed towards a spatial research question. A sufficient final project topic must:

• proceed from a hypothesis
• elaborate a spatial research question
• make an argument
• be more nuanced and complex than simply plotting points on a map

Maybe this goes without saying, but: your final project must, in some way, deal with geospatial humanities. The project need not be historical in nature, but it should have something to do with the humanities as a set of disciplines; e.g., language, architecture, archaeology, literature, music, cinema, history, debate, classical texts, and so on.

If you have an idea that you aren’t sure will count as “geospatial humanities,” email Ian and Alicia as soon as possible so we can discuss it.

2. Conceptual register (or, “The So What”)

The conceptual register of your project is what hooks the empirical content into a theoretical framework. What is your theory of housing, home, and discrimination? What can we learn from changing place names in Asia Minor? Why does it matter to view places from The Odyssey on a map?

In other words, the conceptual register is the “so what” of your project. You should be able to explain why this matters to study, and more importantly, situate it within a wider intellectual history.

You don’t need to write a full-blown literature review, but you will need to submit a short “environmental scan,” which will sort of work like a literature review, but is meant to be less intimidating.

3. Technical register (or, “The How”)

The technical register refers to how you made the map. What datasets did you use? Vector, raster, or both? How much should we trust the data and your analysis of it? Did you make the data yourself, or did you find it somewhere? What kinds of tools and workflows did you use? Why did you select those ones?

Put another way, the technical register is your “how”—your methodology—and it should be clearly described in your final product.

4. Graphical register

Maybe this one’s obvious, but the graphical register refers to how you choose to display your final product. Your project should follow best practices of cartographic design, whether carefully followed or artfully broken. Design should always be in service of your overall argument—keep this in mind each step of the way as you lay out your final map.

To lay out your map, use Microsoft Publisher. Carolyn Talmadge has written some excellent resources on how to use Publisher.

Key dates and deliverables

Topic proposal: Due 03/26

Topic proposal (graded activity)

Final project draft map: Due 04/23

Draft final project map (graded assignment)

Final project poster: Due 05/6

We’ll meet at the usual time on Tuesday, 5/6.

In addition to bringing a physical 30"x40" poster, laid out following the instructions on Canvas, you should submit a copy to Canvas.

Both of these submission types must contain three main components: text, maps, and graphics.

1. Text must include:
   1. Discussion of your main spatial research question/s & themes
   2. Discussion of methodology/ies & workflow
   3. Discussion of findings/observations
   4. Discussion of limitations
   5. Discussion of data sources
2. Maps must include:
   1. A primary map that shows key parts of your analysis. As part of creating this map, you should have created
   2. Though it’s not required, I imagine you’ll need more than one map
   3. Refer to past posters in the Expo Explorer, as well as our list of “class favorites,” for inspiration
3. Graphics must include:
   1. 1-2 non-cartographic summaries of the data you used
   2. Doesn’t need to be super fancy—you could make this using Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets
   3. Bar chart, scatter plot, even as simple as a summary table

GIS expo on 5/7

This year’s GIS Poster Expo will take place on Tuesday, May 7 from 3-5pm in Aidekman Arts Center.

You may submit your project for inclusion the Expo using this form: http://go.tufts.edu/GISPosterForm

If you plan to participate in the Expo, your poster must be printed—with help from data lab assistants—by Tuesday, 5/6.