In a prior blog post, I mentioned that for the 2015 Esri Press research monograph Ocean Solutions, Earth Solutions, we encouraged the chapter authors to prepare a story map as another way to communicate their work. The story map is a new Esri medium for sharing not only data, photos, videos, sounds, and maps, but for telling a specific and compelling story by way of that content. This is all done with sophisticated cartographic functionality that does not require advanced training in cartography or GIS. Therefore the beauty of Esri story maps is that, depending on the chosen complexity, they can be built in anywhere from a few minutes to a few days, using the free public accounts and data available within ArcGIS Online. Story maps are essentially applications built from web maps which in turn are built from web-accessible data (including OGC WMS, WFS). With the beauty and utility of underlays such as the Esri Ocean Basemap, as well as a small tsunami of ocean content percolating up through free public accounts on ArcGIS Online, and on premium subscription accounts, it’s no wonder that we are seeing an “ocean” of interesting story maps.
See the January 2015 webinar An Ocean of Story Maps.
A small catalog for your enjoyment is available at An Ocean of Story Maps | ArcGIS Blog
