Contact: Brian Muller
Telephone: 303-556-5967
E-mail: brian.muller@ucdenver.edu

The College of Architecture and Planning offers a certificate in geospatial information science through participating departments. The emphasis of this certificate is on applications of GIS in urban and environmental planning and design fields. The certificate is available to any student earning one of our graduate degrees; to students earning cognate degrees, for example in the School of Public Affairs, College of Engineering and Applied Science or from the Department of Geography; and to nondegree students who have already earned such a degree.

Certificate Requirements

1. A minimum of 18 semester hours (with at least 12 related planning and design hours to be earned in residence at UC Denver or University of Colorado at Boulder);
    
2. A minimum B (3.0) average and a minimum grade of B- (2.7) in any course, as outlined in the certificate curriculum:

• One required introductory class: Introduction to GIS (both theory and methods) (3 semester hours)
• At least three additional courses in GIS or remote sensing methods to be approved in advance by the GIS committee (9 semester hours). Such courses may include:
  • Cartography (Boulder and Denver, geography)
  • GIS Analysis (Denver, civil engineering)
  • GIS II (Boulder, geography)
  • Advanced GIS Workshops (Boulder and Denver, multiple departments)
  • GIS Management (Denver, civil engineering)
  • Quantitative Methods in Geography (Boulder, geography)
  • Remote Sensing (Boulder and Denver, multiple departments)
• Applications Option 1: Studio or thesis project involving application of planning and design GIS-based methods to be approved by the faculty GIS committee (6 semester hours)
• Applications Option 2: Internship or other work experience is strongly encouraged for all students and may at the discretion of the committee be substituted for other courses (6 semester hours)

It is not possible or desirable to specify every course that should count toward a certificate. CAP and other participating programs will continue to generate new GIS-related courses as the curriculum evolves, and CAP delivers much of its instruction through studio courses that vary in content each semester. A certificate program must include an ongoing structure for managing course requirements and determining when individual students have met them.