Audubon Convention Exercise 1 Authoritative IBA Point Map (Draft Version 0.1) In this exercise, you will log in and open an online map that contains Important Bird Area points. You will experience the most commonly used features of ARcGIS Online, which is the toolset that powers the Audubon map gallery. The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with: - Opening an online map - Looking at the components of the map (Basemaps, Layers, and Legends). - Seeing how features and attributes are displayed on the map - Observing how the online map enables you to share information This exercise assumes that you have been given a valid login account ID and password. To be assigned an account and password please contact Doreen Whitley (National Audubon s GIO) at her email: dwhitley@audubon.org. STEP 1: Login to ArcGIS Online with your Login ID and Password Browse to: https://www.arcgis.com/home/signin.html Click Sign In and enter your name and password. Use YOUR Username and password! STEP 2: Open the Map (for this exercise) You will see the Home screen initially. You can click on the maps shown under the home screen banner to open them directly. For example you can open Audubon Convention Attendees to see the map of where people are from who are at the convention.
GALLERY: will show you all the prepared National Audubon Base Maps available for immediate use.
Note that there may be more than one screen s worth, click on the 2 at the bottom to see the next page(s). GROUPS: Clock on Groups to see the way the site is organized by flyways. For example, members of Portland Audubon are added to the Pacific Flyway group, by default.
If you wish to be invited to a group, you can click on find the organization s groups and STEP 3: View the Map Components Now we will look at a map to become familiar with some of the ArcGIS Online functions. Go to the Gallery and open the Audubon Important Bird Areas point map. (This is the one in the top right position of the screenshot, above. When the maps open, there is a map of the USA (and Canada) with colorful dots all over it. What s in this map? We can use the tools of ArcGIS Online to find that out, following the icons below, under the Details button:
About This Map (circled in above screenshot) This information tells you this is an authoritative map and some other things (author, dates of modification, etc). Contents This tells you the layers present in the map, in this case three types of IBA s. Plus a background map service called Topographic. You can click on each of the layers to see how it is symbolized in the map, what the different dot colors mean: You can unclick the layers using the checkboxes to the left of the layer names. This will turn off their contents makeingthem invisible on the map. Just click the checkbox to turn those layers back on again. Legend The third button shows the legend, which is similar to clicking on the individual layers.
Basemap The map was originally published using the Topographic basemap type. But there are others, including imagery, a bland grey map, and some with more detailed street content. You can select the basemap you prefer for your own needs using the Basemap icon. This brings up the following selection: Experiment with these to see what works best to show context for the IBA point layers. Search Box At the top right is a blank box just to right of Bookmarks button. This is a search window. You can use this to find places that have common names. We will search for the location of the Audubon Convention by entering Stevenson, WA into the box (this is not case sensitive). The map zooms to the location for Stevenson. Look at the basemap that shows the Skamania Lodge Golf Course label. Zooming and Panning There are several ways to move around the map, including zooming in and out, and panning up and down and sideways.
To PAN just hold down the left click on your mouse and move the screen around. To ZOOM OUT showing a larger area of the earth in the window, with reduced detail, use the zoom scale at the top left of the map: You can hold your cursor on the sliding bar and move down to zoom out. Or, for more precise changes of scale, click on the down arrow at the bottom of the zoom scale tool. To ZOOM IN (to show a smaller region of the map with more detail and magnification you can use the zoom scale and move the slider up or click the arrow at the top of the zoom scale tool. Most browsers will also allow you to ZOOM IN using a box. To do this, hold down the SHIFT key and use your cursor to draw a box. In the example below, the new area will be the area enclosed by the box you just drew.
Bookmarks Once you have defined an area you are interested in viewing, you can give it a name and a bookmark. Bookmarks let you keep track of many areas and return to view them easily and quickly. We will set a bookmark for Skamania Lodge using the zoomed in area just set (above). Click on Bookmarks button. There are no bookmarks currently set for this map. Clock on Add Bookmark. This will let you give a bookmark name of your choice to the area currently set on your map view. Call it Skamania or similar and hit the return key. Dismiss the Bookmark tools now, by clicking on the grey X at top right of Bookmark window. To see how this works, let s search on a far-away area, say, Portland. (Notice it brings up Portland, Oregon). Now open your bookmarks and select Skamania bookmark. Notice the screen returns to the area you set for that bookmark. You can store as many bookmarks as you wish they are saved with your map. QUERY: Many maps have information associated with the features you see on the map. A dot may contain many attributes. For IBA points, you might want to know the name of the IBA point. To see that, you can query a point to show it s Pop-Up. Go back to Portland, Oregon. There are several IBA points visible in the map for Portland. Put your cursor precisely on an IBA point and left-click once. This brings up a Pop-Up window with further information.
Now you know the Name (Bybee Wetlands) and type of IBA ( State ) as well as its coordinates. Click on More Info this sends you to additional Audubon information about the IBA, in a new browser window. Save You need to save your map if you want to return to view it someday again. Not every map needs to be saved, just the maps you have spent some of your time customizing with bookmarks, layers, or other aspects of the map. These buttons let you save a map (if you authored it originally) or Save-As. With Save-As you can start with someone else s map and make your own version of it and save it as your own. Give the map a memorable title. Then you *must* add at least one tag, but think about adding two or three. These will make your map easier to find later. Type in a short sentence of summary and click Save Map. If you started with an existing map (such as the original source in the Gallery) the Save Map will pick up that descriptive information and put it into your own map. You can accept that description, delete and replace, or just add your own commentary.
Once saved, your map will be visible under My Content for future uses. Share A powerful feature of ArcGIS Online is the ability to craft a map you like, showing what you want to show, and share that map with others. They can bring up your map, and make a copy for themselves, make a screenshot for a report, print it for their own uses, do their own analysis of the map features, measure distances, and even edit the feature content if you give them that permission. For now, we suggest you not share this initial map, but a look at the Sharing box shows you how it works. Click Share and it brings up the following screen:
You can share with Everyone but be careful this makes the map discoverable by anyone in the world! You can share with National Audubon Society this means anyone with an account from NAS can search and find this map (they will use the tags you added when you saved it last.). Or you can share with just the members of groups that you have access to. Finally, under Link to this map is a short identifier of the map you can cut and paste into an email. If you then send the email to someone, and they are in your group, they have only to click on the link and the map should then be visible to them. As you can see, there are advanced options to make website applications using the map. Conclusion Now you know how to login to Audubon.maps.arcgis.com. You can find and open a map of authoritative NAS data. You know how to see the contents, and how to manage open and close the layers. You can manage the view extent and zoom factor of the screen, and you can search for locations. You know how to set a bookmark for future reference. You can save and share the map if you wish and notify your colleagues of the map s existence in an email. There is much more you can do but this is a good start on your way to online map collaboration.