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Hello,
 
I'm sorry about the cross-posting, but this is a fishing trip and I want
to cast the net as widely as possible.  If there is sufficient response,
I'll summarize and repost to the respective lists.  Maybe this is even a FAQ
on some lists.
 
I am thinking about designing a course on spatial data analysis for planning
students with an emphasis on social, economic, demographic, and perhaps
some environmental data.  Its relationship to spatial statistics would
be roughly the same as a course on data analysis' relationship to aspatial
statistics.  In other words, there would be more emphasis on organizing and
accessing data, simple exploratory and descriptive data analysis and
presentation, plus some dose of more conventional topics in spatial
statistics (e.g. spatial autocorrelation).  The course would be offered
primarily to second-semester graduate students in community planning who
have had one introductory statistics course and a course on research methods.
Since this might substitute for one of our current planning methods courses,
it might also have to spend some time on things like population projections,
census data, etc.
 
Does anyone out there teach a course like this?  Do any of you have
ideas or suggestions about such a course?  Two things of particular concern
are textbooks and software.  Can anyone suggest a textbook that would
be appropriate?  What about software with general purpose statistical
capabilities and the ability to make decent, presentation-quality analytical
maps?  One of the things I've learned the hard way is that any software
like this would have to be extremely user-friendly or else the software
becoms the focus of the course.  While bright, some of these students
have minimal computer experience, and I can't imagine using an algorithmic
package in this course: this rules out S+, SAS (even with ASSIST, SAS
GRAPH is way too complicated), and ARC/INFO.  Ideally, the software should
be cheap and run on fairly basic PC's (but this may be wishful thinking).
 
Please let me know what you think, and if there's sufficient response
I'll summarize and post to this list.  Thanks for your time.
 
Marsh Feldman                               Phone: 401/792-5953
Community Planning, 204 Rodman Hall           FAX: 401/792-4395
The University of Rhode Island           Internet: [log in to unmask]
Kingston, RI 02881-0815
 
"Marginality confers legitimacy on one's contrariness."