Unit Synopsis
Remote sensing is one of the most important and widely applied methods for monitoring natural and built environments. Satellite images help society understand the Earth's atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic environments. Information extracted from images is used to map and monitor land cover and biophysical changes (i.e. land-use change, vegetation health, crop yields, ozone concentration, soil moisture). Satellite images are often integrated into Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to support environmental management. In this unit, you will learn the spectral and spatial concepts that underpin multi-band image biophysical classification schemes. You will spend time practising image acquisition, processing and interpretation steps. Given the continued proliferation of satellite and airborne vehicle acquired images, such skills will increasingly be in demand.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
Completion of 18 credit points Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Practical and Written Assessment | 20% |
| 2. Practical and Written Assessment | 30% |
| 3. Case Study | 50% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 30% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: SUTE
Review and update learning materials and assessments. Some of the materials are dated and based on earlier versions of the remote sensing software used in the unit.
Review and update all learning materials and assessments for this unit. Ensure that the guidelines or procedures provided for mapping purposes are in sync with the current version of the remote sensing software in use.
All learning materials and assessments were reviewed and updated.
Source: SUTE
Schedule a weekly tutorial to complement pre-recorded lectures and other materials provided on Moodle.
Schedule a one-hour weekly tutorial to respond to students' questions or provide further guidance on certain aspects of the unit. Consult with the students about the time and day of the tutorial.
A one-hour live tutorial session was scheduled each week; however, attendance was low, with only a small number of students participating.
Source: SUTE
Balance the weekly workload. Currently, some weeks have significantly higher workloads than others.
Rationalise the workload and ensure that all the 12 weeks of term have nearly the same workload.
The workload was evenly distributed throughout the term.
Source: Self-reflection
A review of assessments is necessary
Assessments should be reviewed to improve their alignment with the unit learning outcomes.
In Progress
Source: Student Feedback during tutorial, Self-reflection
Schedule a live weekly tutorial to complement pre-recorded lectures and other materials provided on Moodle.
The weekly one-hour live tutorial should be continued, as students who attend find the sessions highly beneficial
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Explain spatial, spectral, radiometric and temporal characteristics of remotely sensed data
- Evaluate the capabilities and limitations of optical, multispectral satellite remote sensing image processing
- Create maps of selected earth observation parameters using satellite image processing techniques.
Nil
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Practical and Written Assessment | • | ||
| 2 - Practical and Written Assessment | • | ||
| 3 - Case Study | • | ||
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | ||
| 4 - Information Literacy | • | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | ||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |