BayGeo's R for GIS - Part 2

Dive deeper into complex geospatial challenges, enhancing your proficiency with R, the versatile and open-source statistical package relied upon by geospatial professionals.

This certificate will focus on R, a free and open-source statistical package used by an increasing number of geospatial practitioners. This certificate will cover intermediate-level skills for working with spatial data in R, including importing and exporting spatial data, geoprocessing, attribute queries and summaries, and spatial queries and joins. Workshop materials will focus mainly on tidyverse packages, sf, and tmap. Basic mapping will be covered but this is not a cartography workshop. Examples of working with raster data will be shown but not in depth.

All classes will be held on Zoom. An external monitor is highly recommended so you can view the instructor's screen share on one monitor, and work on RStudio on the other.

Throughout the workshop, we will see how to use ChatGPT to get starter code and troubleshoot error messages. All participants are strongly encouraged to sign-up for a free ChatGPT account if you don't already have one (start at https://chat.openai.com).

Prerequisites

Some prior experience with R is expected, such as "BayGeo's R for GIS (Part 1)" class. Some basic knowledge of GIS is also assumed. Contact the instructor if you're unsure if this class is right for you.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the certificate, students will be able to:

• Import vector spatial data into R.
• Do basic data geospatial manipulations including projections and format conversions.
• Query spatial objects using attribute values and spatial relationships.
• Perform common geoprocessing tasks.

Emphasis will be placed on developing personal "cookbooks" of code recipes, and learning how to approach tasks you've never done before. Students who have their own data or a project they want to make progress on are highly encouraged to work on it during the course; the instructor will be available outside of class for additional consultation and help with projects.

Lesson Plan

Class 1: Spatial Data Classses and Importing Vector Data

• How R fits into your geospatial toolbox

• Spatial data classes

• Importing vector data

• Basic plotting

Class 2: Spatial Data Manipulations and Visualization

• Common manipulations for sf Objects

• Converting data formats

• Visualization with tmap

Class 3: R & ArcGIS, Attribute Queries, and Automation

• Connecting R & ArcGIS

• Working with attribute tables

• Text manipulations

• Automation and batch processing

Class 4: Geoprocessing & Spatial Queries

• Geoprocessing functions
• Working with lists
• Spatial queries
• Processing chains

Software

The hands-on exercises will be conducted using RStudio in the cloud (i.e., in a browser). All participants are expected to sign-up for a free account on Posit Cloud before the first class. Short homework assignments will be assigned to complete between classes.

Participants who have compelling reasons to use RStudio desktop (i.e., on your laptop) and are comfortable installing packages and troubleshooting setup issues are welcome to do, but setup support will be limited to outside class time.

Details

Location: In person / online
Instructor: Andy Lyons
Continuing Education Units: 1
Cost: $333 ($200 for BayGeo members, USF students or alumni)

Your Instructor

Andy Lyons - our "R" guru - works with the University of California as Program Coordinator for the Informatics and GIS Statewide Program within the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In this role, he supports a wide range of GIS and data science projects in agriculture, natural resources, and climate change. He earned his PhD at UC Berkeley in Environmental Science Policy and Management and has taught classes at Berkeley, Stanford, and Davis in spatial analysis with open source software, drone photogrammetry, GIS, environmental problem solving, population modeling, cryptography, African studies, social justice, and sustainability. Outside of work, Andy can often be found hiking the hills of the East Bay.

Image

The University of San Francisco Geospatial Analysis Lab and BayGeo’s GIS Education Center, a geospatial non-profit organization in the San Francisco Bay Area, have designed a geospatial certificate program to offer a skill-based curriculum that addresses the industry's latest technologies.