UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE
FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

GEST2032 SOCIAL SCIENCE TECHNIQUES Dr. Dianne Rudd Ms Balambigai Balakrishnan

MODULE 1—Workshop 4

Mapping Index of Dissimilarity Scores across Metropolitan LGAs using Geographic Information Systems

This workshop is designed to show how the ID scores differ across all of metropolitan Adelaide, and highlight areas where the disparity in occupation category between males and females is the greatest.

The map you create from this Workshop is to be submitted as part of Module 1

Aims
1. To put the ID data for all LGAs into a format which can be imported into a GIS
2. To use a commercial GIS program (ArcGIS) to view and examine the differences in ID scores across the metropolitan LGAs
3. To create and print a high quality map of this variable

Data are extracted from Basic Community Profile 2006.

Log in and double click on the My Computer icon and locate the L directory then move down to humanities and then social sciences and locate SOCI2010 folder and copy the Workshop 4 folder to your home directory on U:. so that you have a copy of the files for your own use. Now go to your copy of the Workshop 4 folder on U drive and double click ID_LGAs.xlsx to open the data file. Each LGA in Adelaide is represented by a worksheet containing the appropriate data from the 2006 Census, plus the final Index of Dissimilarity (ID) score for that LGA.

Exercise

Step 1 - Preparing data for use in the GIS

Scroll along the tabs (LGA Names) at the bottom of the worksheet until you reach the last one – West Torrens. Click on the next tab across to insert a new worksheet.

Right click on the new tab and choose Rename. Call it Mapping Data

Position your cursor in cell A1 and type ‘LGA’ (do not use apostrophes!)

Now position your cursor in cell A2 and type the name of the first LGA – Adelaide. Continue typing names down the sheet until all LGA names are entered. Drag the border between column A and column B across so that column A is wide enough to hold the longer LGA names.

Now position your cursor in cell B1 and type ‘ID_Score’

Go back to the Adelaide worksheet and locate the ID Value. Position your cursor in this cell and right-click → Copy

Return to the Mapping Data worksheet and position your cursor in cell B2. Right-click → Paste Special and choose Values → OK

The Index of Dissimilarity value for the LGA of Adelaide should now appear next to Adelaide.

Repeat this procedure for all of the LGAs and SAVE your worksheet.

Step 2 - Starting ArcMap and adding data

Go to the Start menu and choose All Programs → ArcGIS →ArcMap

As the program opens, a dialogue box will appear – choose ‘A new empty map’ from the available options and click OK.

Click on the Add Data button and the following dialogue will appear (drive letters/paths WILL be different)

Click on the Connect to Folder button and navigate to where you have saved your Workshop 4 folder (your path names will vary from this illustration!). Click OK.

The data available to you in your Workshop 4 folder will now be visible. Highlight LGAs.shp and click ADD.

LGAs.shp is a layer of spatial data, known as a shapefile. When you add this to your map document, the layer name and symbol will appear on the left hand section of the ArcMap interface, and the outlines of all of the Adelaide LGAs will be visible in the larger map view area.

(If the map is not visible, make sure there is a check mark in the little box next to the layer name)

A layer of spatial data will always have a table associated with it, which holds the information about each record in the shapefile. Right click on the layer name and choose Open Attribute Table to view this data.

Pay particular attention to the field (column) called LGA_Name. This is the field we are going to use to join the information in your ID_LGAs table to the spatial data. Make sure that you have typed each name in your Mapping Data worksheet