Curriculum – Dual Master Degree in Information Management and Community Planning (CPIM)

INFM 600: Information Environments (3) – An exploration of various models and methodologies used to capture and deploy internal and external information and knowledge in a number of settings; organizational analysis in terms of information creation, flow, sharing, conservation, and application to problem solving; internal and external influences on the management of information and knowledge; various information flows; information management in a variety of settings.

INFM 603: Information Technology and Organizational Context (3) – Application of communication and information technologies to support work processes, including technology-enhanced communication networks, computer-supported collaborative work, decision-support systems, interactive systems, and systems analysis. Acquisition of information systems and their integration into the organization.

INFM 612: Management of Information Programs and Services (3) – Key aspects of management – focusing on planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The evolution of management, innovative management for the changing world, management styles and leadership, managerial planning, goal setting and decision making. Ethical issues, designing adaptive organizations responding to change, global environment, diversity, and utilizing the appropriate technology to provide effective management of information programs and services.

INST-733: Database Design (3) – Principles of user-oriented database design. Requirements analysis. Data modelling. Data integrity and security and multi-user databases. Implementing an information system using a database management system (DBMS).

INST 737: Introduction to Data Science (3) – An exploration of some of the best and most general approaches to get the most information out of data through clustering, classification, and regression techniques.

INST 750: Advanced Data Science (3) – Application of data science techniques to unstructured, real-world datasets including social media and geo-referenced sources. Techniques and approaches to extract information relevant for experts and non-experts in areas that include smart cities, public health, and disaster management.

INST 751: Internet of Things (IoT) Analytics (3) – Increasing numbers of sensors and Internet-connect instruments and apparatuses are continuously streaming data across vast networks of devices. These structured data sources are joined by myriad unstructured data streams from social media, weather, and news sources, among others. Understand operational modes for streaming IoT data sources and examine methods for descriptive analytics, creation of predictive models, and integrated deployment of these models via edge computing resources. Survey technologies for IoT application development and discuss use cases including public utilities, smart cities, manufacturing.

INST 754: Data Integration and Preparation (3) – Comprehensive overview of the end- to-end processes for acquiring, ingesting, managing, and integrating data sources for the purposes of reporting and analytics. Concepts include data streaming, data staging, standardization, data quality, concept and metadata harmonization, transformation, and data modeling. Students will learn how ingested data sets can be transformed, integrated, and prepared for analytical use.

URSP 600: Research Design and Applications (3) – Techniques in urban research, policy analysis, and planning. Survey of descriptive and normative models. Objective and subjective measurements. Emphasis on assumptions of research.

URSP 601: Research Methods (3) – Use of measurement, statistics, quantitative analysis, and micro-computers in urban studies and planning.

URSP 603: Land Use Planning – Concepts and Techniques (3) – Land use concepts and definitions: legal context for planning; markets and planning; planning for housing; community services, employment, utilities, and transportation; zoning; subdivision regulations; growth management; plan implementation.

URSP 604: The Planning Process (3) – Legal framework for U.S. planning; approaches to the planning process; tools and technology; systems thinking; defining problems and issues; soliciting goals and values; developing and making good presentations; public participation; developing and evaluating alternatives and scenarios; plan evaluation; developing RFPs.

URSP 605: Planning History and Theory (3) – Examination of key, selected major events and issues in U.S. planning history and the development of the planning profession; exploration of major themes in planning theory and practical applications of them; and analysis of the relationship of history and theory.

URSP 606: Microeconomics of Planning Economics (3) – Resource allocation in a market economy, the nature of market failures, and the justifications for public sector intervention. The limits and possibilities for planning in a market economy.

URSP 705/706: Community Planning Studio (4+2) – Intensive community planning group field work during the summer session, typically five days a week for four weeks. Often outside the USA. Application of class work to actual planning and policy challenges./Intensive analysis and report-preparation of work completed in URSP 705. Held in College Park. Students seeking to meet the URSP studio requirement must also take URSP 705. Students can take URSP-708 or URSP-705 & URSP-706.

URSP 708 Community Planning Studio (6) – The Community Planning Studio is a “capstone” course intended to provide students with an opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills to analyze current, pressing planning issues, in a selected community and to produce a report containing recommendations for addressing those issues. In essence, students act as a consulting team for a community client. Students can take URSP-708 or URSP-705 & URSP-706.

URSP 709: Field Instruction (0-3) – Students will satisfy a 300-hour internship (20 hours for 15 weeks during the spring, 25 hours a week for 12 weeks during the summer). Suitable internships are approved by the Internship Coordinator or Instructor; they involve a significant amount of planning work (preferably in the student’s are of interest) and provide an appropriate on-site supervisor. The Internship Coordinator will assist students in finding a suitable internship, but the ultimate responsibility rests with each student. Whether the internship is paid or not is a matter to be worked out between the student and the organization.

Community Planning Courses (Choose 3 Credits)

URSP 673: Community Development (3) – Examines and identifies planning approaches and methods that can help communities – particularly low income communities – become stronger, more cohesive, and more capable of serving their interests. Examines urban poverty; urban politics; history, concepts and practice of community development; and community development approaches and methods.

URSP 688Z: Planning & Design in Multicultural Metropolis (3) – Explores the changing patterns of immigration and ethnocultural diversity that are shaping new geographies of race and immigration, and the various forms, meanings, and uses of urban space; explores strategies for improving planning processes, policies, built spaces, and the culture of planning to support an appreciation of and right to difference in the city and the ethical and equitable treatment for all residents.

Planning Technology Courses (Choose 3 Credits)

INST 752: Location Intelligence (3) – Principles of geographic information systems, integrating location information, maps, and demographic information with business information, and analytical applications. Understanding geographic data and how geographic information can augment analytical processes. The class will review business contexts such as citizen analysis, zoning and planning, retail site selection, supply chain management and logistics, field service planning and tracking, mobile telephony infrastructure, public safety, municipal maintenance, and others. Examine tools and technologies for developing location intelligence applications.

URSP 688L: Planning Technologies (3) – Fundamental concepts, hands-on experience and real-world applications of such urban planning technologies as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), data visualization, 3D modeling, mash-ups, digital design tools, web surveys, photo/video sharing (web/video conferencing), crowdsourcing web publishing and tools, search engine optimization, blogs, Twitter and social networking.

Smart Cities Courses (Choose 3 Credits)

INST 755: eGovernment for Smart Cities (3) – Explores information management systems for both municipal, state, and federal governments. What is the ecosystem? Can you capture that knowledge in a form of data? What is the cultural and demographic data that represents the social fabric and how can that be integrated into an information management system? Tools and techniques will include ontology and attributes associated with different aspects of the citizenry.

URSP 688Y: Smart Cities and Urban Data Science (3) – This course will introduce students to the concept of Smart Cities and their implications for the current and future development of urban areas. Students will learn about the history of urban development and when cities gained their sentience, how cities learn and grow their intelligence, and how these trends shape the lives of urban and rural dwellers alike.

For students who take URSP-709 for 0 credits, choose 3 credits from the following:

URSP 631: Transportation and Land Use (3) – The interrelationship between transportation and land use. What are the impacts of various transportation modes on land use patterns, and how can land use solutions influence travel demand. The integration of transportation into master planning and site impact analysis. Using quantitative methods to understand the land use and transportation linkage.

URSP 640: Growth Management and Environmental Planning (3) – Topics associated with growth management, defined as policies and strategies by which governments attempted to control the amount, location, pace, pattern and quality of development within their jurisdictions.

URSP 661: City and Regional Economic Development Planning (3) – Spatial patterns of employment and populations, and models of urban and regional growth and decline. Focus on application of economic theory and urban planning techniques to issues of local economic development and planning.

URSP 664: Real Estate Development for Planners (3) – Planning, Architectural and Public Policy students are introduced to the real estate development process primarily from the point of view of the private entrepreneurial developer. It will include the steps in undertaking a real estate development from the initial concept to the property management and final disposition, the basic financial and tax concepts underlying real estate development, a review of national housing policy,including public-private partnerships, and solving specific real estate development problems using financial spreadsheets.

URSP 688A: Community Resilience: Hazard Mitigation, Adaptation, and Disaster Recovery Planning (3) – This course will provide introduction to the concept of resilience, particularly as it relates to supporting community resilience through hazard mitigation, adaption, and disaster recovery planning. This course will explore, through a multihazard approach, the necessary connection between recovery and mitigation. This course will highlight the concept of social vulnerability and the insidious ways in which some groups are disadvantaged in their ability to resist, adapt to, respond to, and recover from natural hazards and environmental threats.

URSP 688G: Story Mapping Neighborhood Change in Washington, DC (3) – Washington, DC is a rapidly changing city. In recent decades, the District has experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity, reversing decades of population loss and declining housing values as it has emerged among the hottest real estate markets in the nation. But the city’s success has stirred mixed emotions and sometimes conflicts among long-term residents and newcomers who often see and experience the city in different ways. In this course, students will engage the sense of loss and possibility arising in the city as they map DC neighborhoods using a combination of different mapping techniques and primary data collected from residents to create online community story maps. The maps will narrate change across the city’s diverse neighborhoods and give voice to DC residents’ experiences, memories, attachments, hopes, and dreams for the changing city.  In addition to attending course seminars on neighborhood change and participatory mapping, students will engage in a series of in-class workshops to learn various mapping techniques. They will also work in neighborhoods and with community leaders and groups to document residents’ valued places and how these places have changed over time. This will culminate in community presentation of students’ story maps in Washington, DC.

URSP 688K: Urban Design Software (3) – Practical training in the use of such urban design software as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator, AutoCAD and SketchUp. URSP 688M: Intermediate Geographic Information Systems (3) – Skills development in the use of advanced GIS methods, including CommunityViz, a set of software tools for visualizing, analyzing, and communicating about potential futures of a given community.

URSP 688M: Intermediate Geographic Information Systems (3) – Skills development in the use of advanced GIS methods, including CommunityViz, a set of software tools for visualizing, analyzing, and communicating about potential futures of a given community.

URSP 688N: Urban Transportation Planning and Policy (3) –  Introduction to theory and concepts useful in transportation policy making and planning, with emphasis on economics and finance. Development of basic understanding of transportation modeling and forecasting.

URSP 688O: US Housing Policy & Planning (3) – This course provides an introduction to the U.S. housing policy, placing emphasis on the role of planners in promoting access to adequate and affordable housing.  Government housing policies enacted at the local, state, and federal level are reviewed and evaluated.

URSP 688Q: Urban Economics (3) – This course investigates the formation and evolution of cities and their interaction with policy and institutional setting through a formal and rigor analyses. Students are expected to master the fundamentals behind city formation and evolution, and dynamics. The course is composed of lectures of both theoretical reasoning and empirical studies on urban economics.

URSP 688X: Planning, Policy, and Public Education (3) – This course explores the linkages between non-school institutions and public education. We will apply a spatial lens to the study of public education and analyze public schools as not only educational, but also social, political, and physical infrastructure in neighborhoods, cities, and regions. This course has a strong focus on practice, and grapples with questions about how policy and plans are made and what barriers or opportunities exist for cross-sector collaboration at all levels of government.