Lab 2: Mapping Campus Safety & Security

1. Why does it matter what datum your waypoints are recorded in?

It is important because using a different datum will skew the coordinates of the GPS points relative to our campus map. qGIS might have a way to switch between datums, but you would still need to be aware there was a difference.

2. What coordinate system are the campus data layers in? What coordinate system is the GPX file you added in?

When looking at the preferences, the campus data layers seem to be in a custom, user-defined coordinate system. When I switched the project into WGS84, all of my circles became ellipses. The .gpx file I added was using the WGS84 coordinate system.

3. What distance did you use to buffer the call boxes and why?

I used 100 feet as the call-box buffer for two reasons. First, if I had used any larger of a buffer, it would have begun extending beyond the other side of some of the buildings, negating its usefulness. Second, it would only take from 5 to 10 seconds to run 100 feet. This seemed like a reasonable amount of time to run in an emergency situation and have it still be relevant. If I were to delve deeper, I would interview the UO police and find out how often the call boxes are used, or if they are more useful as a crime deterrent; in which case it would be more important to make sure there was a line-of-sight to each box from the various walkways.

4. What operations would you perform if you wanted to identify areas of sidewalk that were outside both call box and streetlight buffers?

I would merge my two buffers together (using dissolve to avoid strange fringe cases) and then find the difference between that layer and the sidewalks.

5. What areas seem adequately covered by both streetlights and emergency call boxes? Where would you recommend the University install additional lights and call boxes?

The areas near the Education complex, Matthew Knight Arena / Ford Alumni Center, the Science buildings, the art and collections area across the river from the main campus, and the area near McKenzie Hall and Lillis all seem to be better covered by the lights or call boxes. I would recommend a lot more lights and call boxes near the Learning Living Centers, all the dorms,

6. What are some issues you see in the available crime location data? What compromises or judgement calls do you have to make when entering data of this nature? Why do you think this is so for this particular data set?

The location for each crime is usually pretty vague. At best, it gives a general building location near where the crime occurred. There are also certain crimes that have no location data at all, but simply state that they occurred on campus. I think that this particular dataset is lacking in specifics because they are not required for the Cleary report, and the UO campus does not have a high enough crime rate to warrant creating reports with greater detalis.

7. What information would make your report more complete? Can you think of any other data that might be important to include that you did not or were unable to? Include a discussion of the shortcomings of using buffers alone to identify areas of concern

The light data only reports on the position of street lights and does not take into account any light that may come from lights mounted on buildings. In order to get a real idea of sidewalk illumination, light-meter measurements should be taken at regular intervals along all sidewalks. This method would also account for any trees or buildings blocking the lights. I would have liked to have taken into account the time of day when each crime was committed, however the dataset was severely decreased by only using crimes that were known to have been committed at night. Buffers only take into account distance from a source, but not line of sight, diffusion, or any other aspects that would change the amount of illumination that would reach the walkways.