Cloud Mapping and Story Maps

1. Introduction (video link)

This session introduces you GIS on the cloud via ArcGIS Online, a collaborative web GIS platform that allows you to use, create, and share maps, 3D models, GIS apps, layers, analytics, GIS data, and your own Story Maps. With ArcGIS Online you get access to Esri's secure cloud, where not only you can add your data and publish it online, but you also get access to ready-to-use maps, data and template apps.

Check out this story map to explore interactive maps created with ArcGIS Online and embedded in a Story Map: Mapping the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak. As you can see, a Story Map is an easy, yet effective way of digital storytelling. With story maps you can combine your narrative with data, maps, infographics, photos and videos to help you create a story that informs and inspires others.

Goals 

The learning objectives for this session are:

  • Learning about the capabilities of cloud mapping with ArcGIS Online
  • Creating interactive maps
  • Geospatial data visualization
  • Digital Storytelling with Story Maps

Accessing Cloud Mapping at Clemson

Students, faculty, and staff at Clemson have access to the most powerful cloud mapping platform on the market: ArcGIS Online. This secure platform is accessible via any browser and includes everything you need to create your custom interactive maps. Whether on a computer, a tablet, or even your phone, open up a browser and follow the instructions below:
  • In the search box, type arcgis.com. In the screen that appears, click Sign in. 
  • In the Sign in with screen by Esri, select Enterprise Login (step 1).
  • You will be asked to Enter your ArcGIS organization's URL. Type clemson in the box, so that your URL is clemson.maps.arcgis.com and click Continue (step 2).
  • In the Enterprise login window, select the blue box that says Clemson University (step 3).
  • Log in using your standard Clemson username and password (step 4).

2. ArcGIS Online Basics (video link)

Once you are signed in, you should see your name on the right corner. To create your first interactive map, go to the top menu and select Map. 
ArcGIS Online will open to a default map showing North America.

Navigation

Practice zooming in and out using the roller button in your mouse. If you don't have a mouse, these are two additional methods you can use:
  • Click the + and - buttons on the top left corner of the map, 
  • Press Control + or Control -.
Notice as you zoom in, the amount of information gets added to your screen.
Here are ways to pan on your map:
  • With a mouse, press the middle wheel and drag the mouse to where you want to go
  • Use the arrow keys to move up (North), down (South), left (West), or right (East).

Finding addresses

You have a search box to quickly find places and zoom to particular regions. In the search box on the top right, type Clemson and hit Enter. Click on the first suggestion and it will zoom to the Clemson area. Try looking up 2 more places of your choice that are not a city (e.g. Issaqueena Lake or Ravenel Elementary). 

Basemaps

The collection of background images that appear as you zoom in and out in your map is called basemap. This is a foundational layer that can be displayed with a variety of other data. These have different styles, such as political maps, street maps, aerial and satellite imagery, or thematic maps.

In the upper left section, click the Basemap button and select a new basemap, for example, Imagery. Zoom into street level to see the detail of data available.

On your own, try a few different basemaps, such as Dark Gray Canvas and Streets.

3. Adding data to your map (video link)

In this section, you will learn how to add GIS data to your map from a variety of sources, in particular from the Living Atlas (a collaborative collection of data from authoritative sources). However, you can add your own data from your desktop (via ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Desktop), or find data published by anybody that uses ArcGIS Online.

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World: USA Health Care Spending

The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is a rich collection of geographic information from around the globe. It includes maps, apps, and data layers to support your work. It has a wealth of data from many trusted sources such as the US Census Bureau, CDC, NOAA, USGS, and Esri, that can be used on their own or combined with your own data to complete visualization and analysis tasks. Let's search for some data in the Living Atlas. In this case, we want to explore the average amount spent on healthcare per household by county. 
  • On the top left section, click on the Add button. From the dropdown menu, select on Browse Living Atlas Layers (step 1)

  • In the Living Atlas tab, type USA health care on the search box. Click in the first layer in the search result below: 2019 USA Health Care Spending (step 2).
A panel opens on the right. In this panel, you can see the metadata of this layer. Metadata is information that describes data. This is important information about the data you are accessing such as type (in our case is an image), the source, author, and description. It can also include additional information such as a how accurate and recent the item is, restrictions associated with using and sharing the item, credits, and so on. This information can help others discover and validate the usefulness of the data they are using for their interactive maps. 
  • In the side tab, click on Add to Map button (step 3). Close the add tab by clicking the X on the top right corner. 

  • To return to the data view, click the <- (left arrow) on the top corner. This will take you back to the Table of Contents.

  • Zoom out until you can see the entire United States. 

  • Use your mouse wheel to zoom in and out of the map.

  • Click on any county of your choice. What information do you see in the pop-up? 


Now, let's remove this layer. 
  • Under the 2019 USA Health Care Spending, click on the three dots 

  • Click Remove.

Coronavirus Outbreak Data

Now, we will repeat the same process to find real-time coronavirus case data.

  • Click the Add button. From the dropdown, click on Browse Living Atlas Layers.
  • In the Living Atlas tab, search Coronavirus COVID-19 cases. Click on the item description. 
  • Add this dataset to your map. 
  • Notice it has three data layers:
    Deaths - Cases - Cases country
  • Following the same steps as you did for the Health Care Spending layer, remove the deaths and cases country layers
  • Let's open the attribute table of the Cases dataset to better understand what we are displaying on the map. To do this, click on the table icon under the layer name. 
  • The table of attributes appears. Notice how for each country outside the US and each State within the US we have number of cases confirmed, recovered, and deaths. We also have information on the time when the record was last updated.
  • Close the attribute table (click on the X on the top right corner of the table).

Exercise on your own

Find meal distribution places dataset from My Organization (instead of the Living Atlas).

In the search tab, type meal distribution places. Add the SDOC Meal Distribution Places to your map.

Before moving to the next section, remove the following layers from your map:

- SDOC Meal Distribution Places
- Coronavirus Deaths
- Coronavirus Cases country

4. Cartography (video link)

Cartography is the art and science of graphically representing a geographical area. In this section, you will learn how to symbolize your data and use color to affect your map and story.
To get started, change the basemap of your Map to Dark Gray Canvas. 

Changing layer’s symbology: COVID-19 Cases

To change the symbology on the map of COVID cases, click the Change Style icon. We want to symbolize this data by number of confirmed cases, but reduce the size of the symbols so there isn't so much overlap.
Step 1: Choose an attribute to show
Leave it to be Confirmed cases. 
Step 2: Select a drawing style
Under Counts and Amounts (Size), click OPTIONS.
In the Style window that appears, notice the range of the data. 
In my case at the moment is 0 to 97,689. 
You can also see the histogram with grey bars to the side of the range. 
When clicking on the bottom bin, the count is currently 241 data points (countries/States) for me. Your number might change depending on when you do this tutorial, as this is real-time data that changes daily.
Check the box next to Classify Data.
Notice the defaults: Natural Breaks with 4 classes.
Let's change that to Equal Interval with 5 classes.
Change the Size to a minimum of 6 and maximum of 50.
Round classes to 10000. This will immediately change your classification method to Manual Breaks.

Move the Transparency slider to be around 30%.

On the top right corner of the tab, click on Symbols. 

Make sure that on the Fill tab, the third red from the top: code #FF0000 is the selected color. Click OK.
Now that all your drawing style settings are done, click the OK button at the bottom of the window. The Change Style tab appears again. Click DONE.
In the Contents panel, under the Cases layer, click the Legend button and reflect on the classification method that we used based on what you see on the map (see a screenshot). Do you think it reflects the variation of confirmed cases around the world? How can this map be improved?

Customizing pop-up window 

One of the advantages of interactive maps is that you can have several layers of information per feature using pop-up windows for secondary data. 
Click on any red dot on your map, notice the pop-up window that appears. It is calling the attributes on the table associated with the Cases dataset.
It is important that you "clean" this pop-up so that it has only the right amount of information in a clear and concise way.
To edit the pop-up window:
  • Under the Cases layer, click on the ... (More Options). 
  • In the drop-down menu, select Configure Pop-up
    • Pop-up Title:
      It makes sense to just have the name of the are on the title. Notice how some data points are countries and some are States. To fix this, remove the word Cases: from the Pop-up Title box.
      Click the + sign to the right of the box, and select Country/Region.Make sure to leave a space between {Province_State} and {Country_Region}.
      Your title box should look like the image on the right.
      Click OK and then check your changes on your map (select a State and then select a country). Notice how the title of the pop-up window has changed.
      Open the Configure Pop-up menu again.
    • Pop-up Contents:
      To arrange the contents of the pop-up window, click on Configure Attributes.
      Un-check the following attributes:
      Province/State and Country/Region (already on title)
      Lat
      Long
      Click OK in the Configure Attributes window and OK again in the Configure Pop-up tab.
      Check your results on the map.
    • Attribute Expressions:
      We are going to use an Arcade expression to calculate on-the-fly the number of active cases. This would be a simple expression that extracts the number of recovered and deaths from the number of confirmed cases. 
      Open the Configure Pop-up tab again. 
      In the Attribute Expressions section, click the ADD button. 
      The Arcade window appears. In the list of layers on the right, expand the one named $feature by clicking the blue arrow next to it (see image on the right).
      Select the $feature.Confirmed field to add it to your expression.
      Write the following expression:
      At the top of the window, where it says Custom, click Edit to change the name of this expression to Active.Click Save and OK. Now you have a new field that is created on the fly for you to use in your pop-up window.
      Go back to the Configure Pop-up tab. Select Configure Attributes again.
      Check the {expression/expr0} field. 
      Change the format to 0 decimal places and makes sure the Field Alias says Active.
      Use the arrows in the Configure Attributes window to move the Active field to the top of the pop-up window. 
      Your window should be similar to the image on the right.
      Click OK to finish your pop-up configuration.
      Go back to the map and click on any data point to see the results of your configuration. It should be similar to the image below:








Overall Visual Elements

It is important that all visual elements of your interactive map are clean and effective. Apart from the symbology and pop-up window of your data layers, here are another couple elements that you want to keep an eye for such as the layer's name and the legend.
The name of the layer in your Content tab should be precise and not redundant with the legend.
In your Content table, expand the legend of the Cases layer by clicking the legend button.
Notice the Legend and the name of the layer. Make sure you don't make one of them redundant by calling them both the same term.
Change the name of the layer by clicking on the  ... (More Options) and selecting Rename. Change the name to : Coronavirus Cases.

5. Saving and Sharing your Interactive Map (video link)
ArcGIS Online is a web platform, so it is important that you save your work constantly. In this section you will learn how to save your map and share it with others.

Saving your map

In the top menu, click the Save button. In the window that appears, fill out the boxes as shown below:

  • Title: Coronavirus COVID-19 Cases by **YOUR NAME** (example: Coronavirus COVId-10 Cases by PCD)
  • Tags: COVID-19, Coronavirus (these are the keywords that allow you to find your map among your content later on)
  • Summary: A map of the most up-to-date COVID-19 cases and latest trend plot across the world
  • Click on SAVE MAP.

Exercise on your own

With a crisis like Coronavirus pandemic, the digital divide between the communities becomes more apparent. Many students' main access to the internet and meals was through schools. With the school closures across the states, some school districts have meals and WiFi distribution centers. 
Create another map of Oconee county that uses meal and WiFi distribution places in Oconee County. 

Sharing your map

By default, every map that you care is private, so only you can see it. If you need to share it with others, embed it on a website, or use it for a story map, you will need to share it. Below are the steps to share your map publicly:
  • Next to the Save button, click Share.
  • In the new window that appears, check the box to share with Everyone (public).
  • Notice that you can share the short link to the map. Anyone visiting the URL will be able to view the data in your map. Click on DONE.
Test your public map by opening the URL on your cellphone. Congratulations! Now your map can be seen by everybody you share the link with, you can also embed your map in your website, or you can make it part of a story map. We will explore this in our next section.

Subpages (2):Creating a Story MapCreating Dashboards
Login_ArcGISOnline_Clemson.png
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Patricia Dale,
Mar 30, 2020, 6:10 AM
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screenshot_symbology.PNG
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Patricia Dale,
Mar 30, 2020, 6:39 AM
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