ArcGIS Blog

Mapping

ArcGIS Living Atlas

Tarrant County College Uses Esri's Community Maps Editor to Enrich Their Community

By Camille Sanseverino

Capstone or Final class projects are common for College and University Students. These projects are meant to demonstrate a comprehensive grasp of the fundamentals taught through the semester. For GIS classes, participating in the Esri Community Maps Program can be a great way to supplement real-world spatial thinking.

After having a discussion with Esri Education Solutions Manager, Dr. Joseph Kerski, the idea of contributing to ArcGIS Living Atlas via the Esri Community Maps Editor App was adopted to satisfy Dr. Oda’s capstone class project.

Esri’s Community Maps uses the best available data sources to produce a wide variety of multiscale, online basemaps that can serve as a foundation for any GIS task.User feedback and sharing authoritative data and service layers help improve basemaps in ArcGIS Online.  

Another effective way to improve basemaps in ArcGIS Online is by using the Community Maps Editor. The Community Maps Editor is a web-based app that enables you to edit Esri’s basemaps by adding detailed features for universities, schools, parks, landmarks, and other special areas of interest. 

Community Maps Editor App

Dr. Oda found particular interest in this approach because there was a lack of GIS data to support a mapping project, and he learned that this was the fastest way to add large-scale features to the basemap. After some careful planning, the students began utilizing this tool to update various High School campuses in the Tarrant County, TX area. 

Brewer High School

Dr. Oda’s students transformed several regional high school campuses. Adding large-scale features like sports fields, parking lots, and trees. 

This class project enabled students to master skills for developing basemap data that better describes their community while improving Esri’s basemaps. 

Next semester, Dr. Oda will continue to offer this valuable capstone course, with the possibility of developing a 3D map data of downtown Fort Worth, Texas. 

Dr. Oda and his students proudly showing off their new community maps t-shirts.

Learn More 

If you would like to learn more about the Community Maps Program and the Community Maps Editor, try the links below for valuable resources and tutorials. 

The Community Maps Program 

Community Maps Editor 

Tutorials 

Enhance your area of interest with Community Maps Editor 

Esri Videos 

Getting Started with the Community Maps Editor App 

Creating Features with the Community Maps Editor App 

Contact the Community Maps Team 

communitymaps@esri.com 

Share this article

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments