2008 Surveying II Course Information

Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Surveying II: The Advanced Short Course
July 27 - August 1, 2008

Course Content
This course will go beyond the basic surveying course expanding duties and responsibilities of surveyors and exposing students to other problems involved in Texas land surveying, such as sunshots, using Roelof’s prism and calculation for true meridian within a few seconds; Polaris-observations and computations; demonstration of practical use GPS in control work, advanced mathematics and the Texas State Coordinate System. The instruction will be presented in lectures, demonstrations, field practices and problem solving.

During the course there will be homework-study/reading assignments. Also, there will be short, written and oral quizzes to help instructors assess the class progress. The final examination is not a pass-fail test. It is for the attendee’s personal evaluation as to how much was achieved during the course. The examination will be graded at a later date and mailed to the address specified by the attendee.

Specifically, Surveying II: The Advanced Course will provide the following instruction:

Responsibilities and Liabilities: Understanding the surveyor’s responsibility to the public, clients, and the profession. Minimizing liabilities is of major importance to surveyors and their employees.

Professional Practice: Exploring the elements. There is more to surveying than knowing how to survey.

Original Land Grants: Where, when and how land divisions came about.

General Land Office: Identifying the vast accumulation of important records necessary to surveyors and the general public. Detailed explanation of the need and requirements for mandatory and volunteer standards.

Basic Boundary Law: Every surveyor must know about the law or suffer the consequences.

Surveying Mathematics: Instruction on traverse closures, adjustments, area cut-offs, circular curves, and area by coordinates.

Texas Coordinate System: The nomenclature, how it works, and some of the problems involved when using it. Exercise in use and solutions. What it is used for and how it can be misused.

Geographic Information Systems/Land Information Systems: What it involves, how databases are developed. Evaluating data to build a reliable system. Examples of current systems.

Introduction to Celestial Observations and Global Positioning Systems: An introduction to the celestial sphere, terms, and uses and the mathematical solutions available.

Field observations (weather permitting): A hands on field experience. Solar observations will be made during the late afternoon. Instruments used include total stations with appropriate filters, time cubes, and tripods.