Andy Rutkowski
Visualization Librarian at USC Libraries
GIS and Spatial Sciences
at USC Libraries
Andy Rutkowski
arutkows@usc.edu
bit.ly/sscislides
Contact me for a research consultation:
arutkows@usc.edu
email for an appointment
Research flows and data life cycle
1. research question / proposal
2. review of literature / data
3. offer an answer (report, essay, map etc.)
Life Cycle models:
DataOne - https://www.dataone.org/data-life-cycle
discover
analyze
clean
visualize
share
refine
Primary vs Secondary vs Teriatry sources
RESEARCH GUIDE:
Primary
direct, first-hand, closeness to an event or thing
Secondary
interpretation or analysis of a primary or secondary source. good way of getting back to a primary source.
Tertiary
overview, summary, encyclopedia, wikipedia, textbooks, etc.
Primary: Census data extracted from cenus website
Secondary: Article or book that discusses and uses that census data
Tertiary: Wikepedia entry for the US Census
Literature
filters
filters
filters
Use advanced search to narrow / broaden your results
Click on full text
and get the article from a database.
Depending on which one you choose your article may or may not contain diagrams and images. Important for spatial research!
sharing options!
Sign in and save!
Google Scholar
change settings in order to link to USC Libraries
- click on library links
- search for university of southern california
- check off University of Southern California - Find it @ USC
- save
if you selected USC you will see the Find it @ USC link for available articles
Data
Thoughts on Finding Data
-
Topic of interest?
-
Ideal dataset(s)?
-
Source of dataset(s)?
-
Spatial Scale?
-
Temporal Scale?
-
Primary or Secondary data?
-
Raster or Vector data model?
-
Analytic procedures?
Access to USC subscription databases and other data sources
Courses - access core geospatial datasets online
your data is only as good as the metadata
- where did you get it
- how it was collected
- dates
- coverage
- etc
Practice good metadata
- describe the data that you download in a text document
- write out any relevant information about it
- if you change your data say what you did
- name your data files something meaningful
- with each change update filenames and offer description
Citation
Ask a Librarian
Using the USC Libraries for GIS Research
By Andy Rutkowski
Using the USC Libraries for GIS Research
This slide deck provides information about how to use USC Libraries for doing GIS and spatial research. Information here will be updated regularly to reflect new resources and tools. Current as of 10/2/2017.
