Feature Review: ArcGIS Online Distributed Collaboration
ArcGIS Online is an web-based geographic information system (GIS) software which provides analysis, mapping, and data management capabilities for a vast amount of spatial data. The tool is offered by ESRI, a California-based company which supplies GIS software and geodatabase management applications internationally and is currently offered alongside the ESRI’s ArcGIS Pro desktop application.
ArcGIS Online is marketed as a cloud-based mapping platform, which means users are able to generate and analyze maps with ease thanks to the easy to use user interface and ESRI’s large offering of various online spatial data. As a result, users of ArcGIS Online don’t have to be GIS experts, instead the tool is designed to be utilized by everyday people as well as more advanced users.
With such a large demographic making use of ArcGIS Online’s capabilities, this opens a whole new dimension on online data distribution and collaboration. To take advantage, ESRI has developed a GIS tool to do just that. Starting with what the company calls “Ready-to-Use Maps”, users can get started generating a map right away with the help of a suite of base maps and high-resolution imagery. These base layers will give users a beautiful canvas for them to create an informative and easy to read map. In contrast to desktop GIS applications, these base maps are constantly updated, easier a faster to find and load, and can contain even more information such as live street traffic.
Though like desktop users, ArcGIS Online lets users upload their own data as well, however, users are not only limited to their own data anymore. Now, cartographers, market analysts, or ordinary citizens of the community can easily find readily available and updated spatial data such as, demographics or precise locations of certain points-of-interest (POI). Data that was once scattered on the internet can now be accessed in one place and is more expansive now than it ever was with the help of ArcGIS Online Marketplace which is a new online platform which lets users share, view, and download data created by the community as well as entire web apps.
Sharing might be the most important difference between desktop and online GIS. Using connected web services such as ArcGIS Online has made publishing finished maps easier and far more superior. Now, with the use of web apps, people are able to publish their maps and data into an easy to access and use app which is interactive and can contain far more information than just a static map. The publisher can adjust who can view the data, how much information is displayed at each zoom level, and can even create forms for crowd-sourcing for the public to use and add even more detailed information.
See: ArcGIS
A great example of an GIS web app is AccessNow. Founded by Maayan Ziv, AccessNow aims to provide worldwide information on places in the community that are accessible. The app uses crowdfunding to gather accessibility information and pin the data to a location, marking it as either accessible, partially accessible, or not accessible. People can use the app to see if the location they’re about to visit is accessible to wheelchairs or not, and if no information is available on the site, the individual can mark accessibility status of the location themselves to help others like them in the future.
For more GIS apps in addition to AccessNow (linked above), check out the ArcGIS Marketplace here.
