Introduction to Graduation Project PLNC 5201

Course description:

This course covers the student's choice of dissertation topic in urban planning, including for example land use, urban revitalization, urban rehabilitation, urban renewal, urban regeneration, urban heritage or urban restoration.Introduce students to the practice of conducting original social, policy, and planning research in an urban context, and through a series of applied exercises, covering the following topics: research conceptualization and design, logic models, survey and ethnographic research, urban policy analysis and evaluation.The project provides a basic introduction to 1)census and economic data collection, processing, and its analysis; 2) surveys forecasting and modeling techniques in planning; 3) demonstrates the uses of real-time urban data and analytics; and 4) provides a socio-economic-political context for the smart cities movement, focusing on data ethics and governance.A study analysis about the importance of the chosen topic and its role in advancing scientific research in this field of urban planning, its originality and research design criteria for, example, the chosen topic, the research problem and also its key question or hypothesis.Iintroduces students to the academic writing that is well adopted to the universal standrard.

Course Aims:

This course aims to:
  • Focus on particular discipline chosen within the field of urban planning.
  • Develop students’ skill in research methods for planning, including problem definition, observation, key informant interviewing, causal modeling, survey design and overall design of research in urban planning, as well as memorandum writing and presentation skills. 
  • Enhance students’ work whithin a team that involves workinbg with clients on actual research problems and learn professional skills as well as practical ways of conducting usable research.
  • Acquaint students with the techniques of project feasibility using case studies, analysis of project proposals and overall project compatibility assessment. 
  • Analyse case studies that will be based on a variety of public and private sector developments, in central city and suburb locations.

Course outcomes:

The student after his study of this course is able to:
  • This course will teach students systematic approaches to collecting, analyzing, modeling, and interpreting quantitative data used to inform robust research, and, ultimately, urban planning practice and policymaking. 
  • This contributes to the urban studies major's objective of introducing students to "conceptual tools, analytical methods, and theoretical frameworks to understand urban environments, such as economic analysis, social science theory, and visualization technologies," with the objective of training undergraduates for a future career or further graduate study in the field of urban studies and planning.