SURE 325 EXAM QUESTIONS 2001

·        Describe how the problem of confidentiality affects land records.

·        Integratability of land records is a problem.  Explain

·        What is the decimal value of the binary number 11011001 (show all work)?

·        There are two classification methods used to describe reel-to-reel tape drives: streaming method and start/stop method.  What is the difference between the two?

·        Explain the difference between a transaction-based information system and a data-based information system.

·        In one of the readings, there was a discussion on ways to fund GIS development.  Describe the concept of the cost-recovery dissemination policy.  Describe the concept of the public-private partnership dissemination policy.

·        CPUs can be classified as either centralized or distributed.  What is the difference?

·        Describe the difference between a pencentric and a pen-aware mobile computing system.

·        In the video on Land Records Modernization, there were a number of social, economic, institutional and technological trends identified. What were they?

·        Explain the difference between attribute data and cartographic data.  Give examples.

·        Describe what a distributed hardware processing system is and give an example.

·        How is data integrated horizontally and vertically through an organization?

·        What does non-graphic data consist of?

·        What is the difference between a cartographic entity and a cartographic object?

·        The ideal cadastral database contains measurements.  Describe what the system capabilities should include.

·        What is a cadastre?  Describe the four different forms of the cadastre.

·        In what way would a GIS help in a city zoning process?

·        When do changes in land use maps occur?

·        The adoption of new innovations, such as a GIS, typically occurs in three phases, described by an S-shaped curve of adoption over time.  Explain.

·        Describe how incomplete or inadequate needs assessment leads to misidentification of the functional requirements of a GIS.

·        In local government, discussions about data quality between agencies generally reflect disciplinary training and biases.  Describe how one can, instead, focus the discussion on the real data requirements for applications.

·        Many organizational barriers to effective use of a GIS come down to people problems.  Describe why these barriers exist.

·        Several major needs are evident when an organization begins to develop an ideal land ownership database.  Describe them.

·        What are the dangers of digitizing tax assessor maps to start a GIS?

·        Explain the method by which cartographic and attribute databases are linked together.

·        What characteristics of topological data structures make them unique to a GIS?  Use an example to describe this uniqueness.

·        The city of Milwaukee’s solid waste collection routes were established in the 1970s.  Over time, problems arose.  Describe the problems and how the city used the GIS to solve these problems.

·        Describe how each polygon is traceable back to the points (nodes) that surround it.

·        What is a Geographic Base File (GBF)?

·        One basic section of a GBF is the street segment.  What is a street segment and how is it defined in a GBF?

·        The Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) provides an intermediate exchange format instead of a direct exchange.  Why?

·        Since most computerized information systems in local government have been built as transaction-based systems, the geocodes that they contain are usually unique for each individual unit or function.  Explain why and give a specific example.

·        What are the advantages of the rectangular land survey system as a parcel identifier?

·        What are the disadvantages of municipality and street address as a parcel identifier?

·        Uniqueness is an important parcel identification criterion.  Why is this criterion important?

·        What are the problems in using the centroid as the reference point for numbering in a parcel identifier?

• Actual use of SDTS is carried out through its profile.  What does a profile do?

·        One of the principles for improving the NSDI is ease of use.  Explain.

·        What is geocoding?

·        How does logical consistency differ from attribute accuracy within the SDTS data quality report?

·        How does a spatial entity differ from an object as defined in SDTS?

• What does the SDTS spatial data model define?

·        When does transferring spatial data represent more complex challenges than say transferring files from one word-processor to another?