Aims

An appreciation of the basic quantitative and statistical methodologies which underpin Geomatics.

Outline Of Syllabus

Introduction to statistics and associated mathematical tools: Summary statistics of a data set, mean, standard derivation; Summary statistics of bivariate data, correlation; Spearman’s rank correlation; Probability; Binomial distribution; Population distributions, probability density functions; Mean and standard deviation of populations described by probability density functions; Errors in geomatic data. Normal distribution: mean and standard deviation, standard form, use of tables with applications to geomatics, standard error. Integration, partial differentiation, series expansions, introduction to matrices.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Lectures are the standard approach for introducing material. Indeed the old fashioned ‘talk and chalk’ with handouts is more beneficial as the thought process becomes more transparent. Small group teaching/tutorial activities are an essential means of assisting students to look a wide variety of practical problems and to overcome the mentality of 'rote’ learning without understanding.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The vast majority of factual and conceptual material, relating to all learning outcomes, is assessed within the unseen written exam. In addition, class tests reinforce the subject matter in a sequential manner as the module progresses, and encourage the students to become familiar with the subject matter in a module where later content relies on understanding and being competent with previous work. Summative assessment provides both the necessary measure for student progress up to that point and is used by the module leader for diagnostic assessment to identify any weaknesses.