Hello everyone!
I wasn't sure where to post this - so feel free to move it to a different board if this is not the right place.
I've been working on converting legacy StoryMaps for my organization since June 2025. It's been an adventure (a lot of problem solving) but I've been learning a lot. It's also helped us build better processes for preserving and sustaining long-term digital projects.
We're a smaller institution - there are around 35 legacy StoryMaps that needed to be converted. Some of them the project owner decided to decommission their project (for various reasons) but most people wanted to keep their work. In order to do that, we had some really good discussions on what updates/changes would be needed in order to reach accessibility requirements and if there was anything else they wanted to add because a particular tool/function may not have been available at the time.
Here is my process for working with researchers & faculty on converting their projects:
- Identify the projects that need to be converted
- Meet with the individual - discuss what they do/don't want to keep
- If they want to keep it - make a plan on what will need to be done to update it, and how to deal with any content issues (broken links, missing images, etc)
- It's important to note - I do not make any content changes to research, validating source material, add new content, etc.
- Create an ArcGIS Group - all new/draft versions are shared with the project owner so they can make their own changes
- If able - use the Converter Notebook tool
- If unable to use the tool - check in with the project owner and make sure to get access to any collections of information. These project types need to be manually re-constructed.
- Create a Google Doc of shared notes - Include links to the original project and new version, and a table to track changes. The project owner and myself can comment and assign each other tasks in the doc and not have to worry about playing email tag.
- StoryMaps Convert - Example Notes → Example site: Musical Geography
- About 15 StoryMaps were converted - this is a small portion of the notes. The doc is some of the actual notes and project links that I worked with as a project owner - I've generalized it a bit and removed the comments for reasons.
- This seems like a lot - but it was REALLY easy to maintain notes in one place, and the project owners really appreciated it.
- Once the conversion is complete - if the project owner is good with it, make the project public, update any associated website embeds or links to go to the new version.
I won't sugar coat it - it is an investment to do this (I still do all my regular other job tasks on top of this) but I felt like the investment was worth it because the information is valuable and these projects were still active. Digital project preservation is also a major question across institutions, so it was a win to do this all around. People have been really awesome and incredibly glad to preserve their projects for the long term.
Anywho - that's my 2 cents! If anyone is currently doing this process, it's work but it's worth it. Big thank-you to @ThePreatorian and many other people who helped me with my nutty questions.
Good luck everyone!
