Syllabus

Math 398: Advanced Research Investigations

Course Information

Term: Fall 2023

Instructor: Isaac Quintanilla Salinas

Contact: isaac.qs@csuci.edu

Office Location: BTE 2840

Office Hours:

OH Course R Programming Math/Stat Hour
Day MW Tue Thur
Location BT 1462 LRC BTE Courtyard
Time 4:30-6:00 PM 10-12 AM 12-1:30 PM

Or by Zoom appointment.

Lecture: Monday and Wednesday 12:00-1:15 PM in BT 1462

Course Description

Explore an interdisciplinary mathematical, statistical, or computational research question in independent groups. With faculty mentoring, students develop their own research plans drawing on multiple disciplines and the multiple approaches to research. Students will disseminate results through a research paper and presentations on campus. In addition, students will be encouraged to identify and apply to relevant summer research programs, internships, and scholarships.

Learning Outcomes

  • Learn the basic fundamentals of GIS and spatial analysis.
  • Develop programming skills to analyse geographical data.
  • Write the results of a statistical study and draw conclusion in reports.
  • Develop presentations for community stakeholders.

Textbook

Required Software

For this course, we will use R and RStudio. You will have access to them online, but you may download and install them on your computer.

Community Partner

This course will be working on answering question for the community partner Community Action of Ventura County. More information about the partner can be found here: https://ca-vc.org/.

Course Projects

You will be working in a group of 4-5 students to answer a questions that are of interest to the community partner. While there are questions of interest, your group will have free range in answering any question related to the project so long as the group can get data. The projects are listed below:

  1. Climate Change and Food Insecurity in Ventura County (CAVC)
  2. Identifying potential sites for distribution of infant products (diapers) in Ventura County (CAVC)
  3. Geographic distribution of unvaccination rates in Ventura County

Course Grading

Category Percentage
Project Plan 10%
Literature Review 10%
Draft of Data Analysis Project Code 10%
Weekly Reports 10%
Weekly Presentations 10%
Draft of Report 10%
Reflections 10%
Final Report 15%
Final Presentation 15%

At the end of the quarter, course grades will be assigned according to the following scale:

A+ 98 – 100 B+ 87 – <90 C+ 77 – <80 D+ 67 – <70
A 93 – <98 B 83 – <87 C 73 – <77 D 63 – <67 F < 60
A– 90 - <93 B- 80 – <83 C– 70 – <73 D– 60 – <63

All assignments are submitted as groups.

Literature Review

The literature review provides the base knowledge of the topic at hand. Your task will be to read peer-reviewed articles related to topic and craft an introduction explaining what is known. The literature review will serve as the basis to what questions you will ask for the analysis.

Mid-Semester Data Analysis Code

At the end of October, you will submit a working code draft that includes the final analysis of your code. This will include the publicly-available data, cleaning scripts, descriptive statistics scripts, advance models, and final model. You will obtain feedback for the group to finalize. Your code must be well-commented to receive credit.

Weekly Reports

Each Wednesday, you will provide a brief report documenting your plans and progress for the week. Your group will document what everyone is planning to code, read, and/or write. You will also report any challenges you faced in the previous week and how you will try to resolve them the upcoming week.

Weekly Presentations

Each Monday, your group will give a 10 minute presentation updating the class on your project’s progress. You will be presenting on anything related to your project such as: data sources, analysis, code, bugs, new ideas, challenges, and any other relevant information. Only 2 people from your group will present during the presentation. Each group member must present at least 3 times during the semester.

Reflections

There will be reflective assignments related to the class and project through out the course that will be completed individually.

Draft of Report

The Draft of Report will be a working draft of the final paper. The paper must contain an Abstract, Introduction, Methods, Data Description, Results, and Discussion sections. The paper must contain an Appendix containing detailed methods, extended tables, visuals, and code.

Final Presentation and Report

The final report and presentation will be the final product that your group will produce for the class. More information about the final presentation and report will come at a later date.

Extra Credit

There will be 3 extra credit opportunities worth a total of 10% of your overall grade. (There are no make-ups for missed extra credit assignments!) More information will be provided on the extra credit assignments on a later date. Information on the extra credit can be found here.

Class Schedule

The following outline may be subject to change. Any changes will be announced in class.

Week Topic Other
1: 8/21-8/25 Intro to Course/Data Science/Introduction to Projects
2: 8/28-9/1 Introduction to GIS/Spatial Data Science
3: 9/4-9/8 Literature Review/Developing a plan
4: 9/11-9/15 GIS Basics/Obtaining and/or generating data
5: 9/18-9/22 GIS Basics/Obtaining and/or generating data
6: 9/25-9/29 GIS Basics
7: 10/2-10/6 GIS Analysis
8: 10/9-10/13 GIS Analysis Lit Review Due
9: 10/16-10/20 Spatial Modelling
10: 10/23-10/27 Spatial Modelling
11: 10/30-11/3 Finalize Analysis Draft of Project Code is Due
12: 11/6-11/10 Finalize Analysis
13: 11/13-11/17 Writing Report
14: 11/20-11/24 Write Report Draft of Report is due
15: 11/27-12/1 Mock Presentation
16: 12/4-12/8 Final Report and Presentation Due Final Report Due

Schedule is subject to change based on community partner and needs of the course.

University Policies

  1. Academic Honesty:

    Please conduct yourself with honesty and integrity. Do not submit others’ work as your own. For assignments and quizzes that allow you to work with a group, only put your name on what the group submits if you genuinely contributed to the work. Work completely independently on exams, using only the materials that are indicated as allowed. Failure to observe academic honesty results in substantial penalties that can include failing the course.

  2. Disabilities:

    If you are a student with a disability requesting reasonable accommodations in this course, you need to contact Disability Accommodations and Support Services (DASS) located on the second floor of Arroyo Hall, via email accommodations@csuci.edu or call 805-437-3331. All requests for reasonable accommodations require registration with DASS in advance of need: https://www.csuci.edu/dass/students/apply-for-services.htm. Faculty, students and DASS will work together regarding classroom accommodations. You are encouraged to discuss approved.

  3. Emergency Procedure Notice to Students:

    CSUCI is following guidelines and public orders from the California Department of Public Health and Ventura County Public Health for the COVID-19 pandemic as it pertains to CSUCI students, employees and visitors on the campus. Students are expected to adhere to all health and safety requirements as noted on the University’s Spring 2023 Semester website or they may be subject to removal from the classroom.

Important note about a possible work stoppage during the semester

The California Faculty Association (the labor union of Lecturers, Professors, Coaches, Counselors, and Librarians across the 23 CSU campuses) is in a difficult contract dispute with California State University management. It is possible that we will call a strike or other work stoppage this term. I promise to promptly inform you of any schedule disruption. Our working conditions are your learning conditions; we seek to protect both. For further information go to www.CFAbargaining.org.