Building and using evidence from primary and secondary sources is crucial to strategic planning, effective decision making, assessment, and monitoring and evaluation. Planners are required to confidently utilise data, engage in research and use resulting information across a breadth of tasks and activities tied to their role. This course builds upon the introduction to planning techniques and analysis in PLAN1006 and PLAN2002 to develop a further strengthening of understanding and application of those skills through the lens of live projects, issues and tasks carried out during their Practice Year. Students are expected to build up a portfolio of practice-based projects that demonstrates a deepening of skills and techniques and critical engagement with the evidence-making process reflective of their specific placement contexts. Students will develop a variety of enhanced skills, for example in census or housing market analysis, using 'smart' data, preparing and administering surveys, engaging in qualitative techniques, or manipulating spatial datasets through GIS, city analytics and visualisation. The diversity of students' practice-based learning will be brought together and structured around a series of intensive class periods across the year.
