Course Library
Browse our library of planning courses
United States Census 2020: All About Census 2020
Learn all about the upcoming Census. This course provides an overview of planned operations and discusses the Census schedule, process, products, accuracy, publicity, and jobs.
United States Census 2020: Using FactFinder and the American Community Survey
Learn how to use Census.gov and American FactFinder websites, which are the principal portals to Census Bureau data products and maps.
United States Census 2020: Introduction
This course covers basic Census Bureau geography and Census-taking concepts. It reviews the Census Bureau’s mission and development of the Nation’s statistical and geographic "architecture" that is the basis of almost all general purpose used in government, academia, and the business world.
The Ethics of Disruptive Transportation Technologies
This course discusses the process for making ethical decisions as part of planning for disruptive technologies.
Tableau for Planners: Introduction
This course will introduce general principles of data visualization and orient the user with the Tableau platform. Learn how to connect to a data set in Microsoft Excel, understand general principles of a relational database, and start building basic worksheets and dashboards.
What To Do When You Suspect Your Boss Is Unethical
This courses reviews the challenges you face as a planner if you suspect your supervisor of unethical conduct.
Understanding the Content and Process for Determining Ethical Conduct
This course reviews the new organizational structure of the AICP Code of Ethics, along with an extended examination of the new procedures for advisory rulings and adjudication.
The Ethics of Office Administration, Part 2
The second course in the "Ethics of Office Administration" series discusses how to identify, evaluate, and resolve difficult scenarios that might arise in a planning office.
The Ethics of Office Administration, Part 1
The administration of a planning office—whether in the private or public sector—can raise ethical questions. This course introduces these questions and presents tools for analyzing them.
Healthy Urban Food Systems: Planning Production Facilities
This course examines the role for planning in addressing various forms of urban agriculture as well as many examples from around the country of the statutes, policy, and practices implementing interventions in food production at urban scales.
Healthy Urban Food Systems: Planning Retail Facilities
This course introduces information from legal and public health perspectives on the retail side of food systems entities, such as farmers markets, grocery stores, and mobile vending.
Planning Ethics
This course provides professional planners with a thorough and thoughtful discussion of ethical concerns likely to face many planners in their careers. The work of planning for communities is rooted in values, often unexpressed, about the role of government in working for a better future. So planners should, from time to time, examine their own values and those of the American Institute of Certified Planners as they go about their work in the public or private sectors.
Working with Census.gov 1: Background and Geography
This first of four courses on the Census -- Background and Geography -- will prime you to understand how the Census works, where the data comes from, as well as vital terminology and data sets you should be familiar with in the built environment.
Ethics: Balancing a Business Friendly Planning Environment
Over the past few decades and increasingly over the past several years, the private sector, led by developers, has increasingly courted, conflicted and collaborated with planning departments amid shrinking budgets. As business interests engage and influence public agencies and planning strategy, the role of ethics is of increasing importance for the practicing planner. This is the first of a two-part series that evaluates and analyses the role of planners, from public window staff to department heads, in an increasingly business-friendly environment.
Ethics: Balancing a Business Friendly Planning Environment, Part 2
Over the past several years, the private sector, led by developers, has increasingly courted, conflicted and collaborated with planning departments amid shrinking budgets. As business interests engage and influence public agencies and planning strategy, the role of ethics is of increasing importance for the practicing planner. This is the second of a two-part series that evaluates and analyses the role of planners, from public window staff to department heads, in an increasingly business-friendly environment.
Working with Census.gov 2: Topics, Programs, Products
This second of four courses delves deeper into the Census 'architecture'. In course 2 of "Working with Census.gov", Dr. Chris Williamson, a.k.a. Dr. Data, provides an overview on the federally mandated topics that lead to programs which ultimately produce products for the public. Course 2 also delves into such tricky topics as Census data table analysis and gives insider tips and goodies from a Census Bureau veteran.
Working with Census.gov 3: Interacting with the Data
This third of four courses takes you into a series of live demonstrations and in-depth explanations and visuals from the Census.gov and American FactFiner websites. The course covers a comprehensive navigation of the pages, tools and interactive databases that form the expansive Census website and publicly accessible data stores and produced information.
Working with Census.gov 4: Quality, Interpreting and Examples
Chris Williamson, A.K.A. "Dr. Data" completes the final episode in this four course series on the 'architecture' and 'analysis' of the Census Bureau and its many products. In course 4 students will go through a brief introduction to margin of error and a range of error and data quality analysis. Along with some examples and case studies, this course takes us into Dr. Data's own Ventura County, California for a look at some of the more challenging sampling and non-sampling errors many planners and demographers must wrestle with.
Regional Scenario Planning: An Overview
This first of two courses offers a brief history of regional scenario planning in the late 20th century and beyond, with examples from Portland, Oregon's Vision 2040, Salt Lake City's Envision Utah, and the Chicago Metropolis Plan. Principles of regional planning relating to land use, urban design, and transportation are discussed. Finally, more advanced regional planning topics are touched on, including jobs/housing balance, and the relationship between demographics and regional housing market demand.
Regional Scenario Planning: Understanding Urban Footprint
This course is the second of two scenario planning courses hosted by Garlynn Woodsong. This course introduces UrbanFootprint, a next-generation open source scenario planning tool developed in response to a changing policy environment in order to automate and streamline the processes involved with: loading base data; assessing and defining developable lands; translating existing plans and scenarios; creating new scenarios; and analyzing those scenarios for their performance according to a range of metrics.