Latest Contributions by GeriMiller

Due to coronavirus (COVID-19), many colleges/universities are moving to fully online classes.    In this webinar, select educators will discuss their approaches of moving a course online.  New media and delivery technologies must be adopted along with shifts in pedagogy – all while keeping course goals and program objectives at the forefront.   We’ll focus on what is practical in a short time-frame and highlight readily available resources.  We’ll hear from both veterans of online learning and educators who have just started teaching online in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.   Presenters include:  Patricia Carbajales, Clemson University Peter Knoop, University of Michigan Diana Ter-Ghazaryan, University of Miami   Joseph Kerski, University of Denver/Esri Jennifer Bernstein, USC/UCGIS   What: “Moving Your Course to Distance Learning”  Webinar  When:  Tuesday,  March 24, 2020 at 7:00 pm EDT / 4pm PDT  ****   Recording:      The Webinar recording can be found here.   Slides:      The slides from each presenter can be found here. ... View more

With COVID-19 causing colleges and universities to close doors for in-person courses, educators are seeking information on approaches to transition to a fully online classroom.   There are many challenges – providing access to technology in absence of the trusty physical classroom, providing licensing, adjusting our teaching style for the virtual classroom – all needing to be solved in a short timeframe!   Amidst of all the disruption, there is a tremendous opportunity ahead of us. While intimidating, this gives us an opportunity to re-invigorate our courses and to innovate.   Now is the time to identify and focus on your course's learning objectives and consider how ArcGIS Online (SaaS) instead of ArcGIS Pro or ArcMap (desktop GIS) will help you meet those objectives.  ArcGIS Online (and other apps) have minimal hardware requirements and run on Macs, tablets, and phones, making them more accessible than desktop GIS.  Web and mobile apps generally have a simpler user interface (fewer buttons and menus) that can be learned more quickly, keeping the focus on concepts and content.   Some more advanced objectives (most likely in advanced GIS course work) may still require desktop GIS; in these cases, consider a blend of SaaS and Desktop GIS.  ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro are designed to work together, so moving between the two is easy.  Starting with SaaS can buy additional time for you and/or your IT support staff to explore virtualization and remote access solutions for desktop GIS. That said, please consider moving your course activities to SaaS – ArcGIS Online and Apps – for which students only need an internet connection.     A few items to think about:      Desktop-only GIS is a thing of the past - for a while now, we have encouraged the use of SaaS technology such as ArcGIS Online and associated apps. Many educational institutions are highly leveraging apps like Story Maps, Survey123, Collector, among many others. These are now the starting point for geospatial technology in the classroom. And fortunately, there are many online learning resources to get us started quickly.        The technology has grown immensely over the years - many capabilities are possible with ArcGIS Online and Apps. We can maintain our current learning objectives and map them to some of these newer online learning resources. Some examples:      Symbology and Visualization –plenty of basic concepts can be covered with ArcGIS Online and apps such as Insights for ArcGIS.      Spatial analysis –ArcGIS Online has fundamental capabilities for querying and summarizing data, calculating proximity, and overlaying layers.      Field data collection workflows – there are many apps available to collect locations and attributes, such as Collector and Survey123. Bottom line: Use some of these lessons and e-learning/web courses as a base, as opposed to re-writing your existing materials, then pose additional challenges for your students.      Today’s students are fast learners - they have no problem with new technology and will welcome the opportunity to experiment. In addition, the SaaS technology and apps are easier to work with than desktop applications.      This is a forgiving time – if something doesn’t work, that is OK. Students will be open/receptive in this time of disruptive change. We are not going to design a perfect online course in such a short timeframe, it is not realistic. We need to do what is practical and feasible. Here are a few quotes from Higher Education colleagues that support the above.      Clemson University: In our pilot to test moving a course to fully online, we limited instruction to ArcGIS Online. This is my advice if institutions haven’t virtualized yet, have little experience with it, and had to rush to move online, as students might not have the right computer/access/space) etc.       NC State University: If our in-house virtual environment were to become overloaded for some reason and all else fails, we would look for ways to supplement our instruction with more ArcGIS Online examples where we can, particularly at the undergraduate level.       University of Minnesota: ArcGIS Online removes much of the stress associated with quickly moving my in-person courses to all online. ... View more

With COVID-19 causing colleges and universities to move their courses online, educators are seeking information on how to provide access to ArcGIS software for students working remotely, and at times, needing additional licenses.      At Esri, we are fully committed to providing enough licenses to support continuity of courses and ensure no disruption. Below is an outline of availability of licenses and recommendations on how to deploy to students. In short, Colleges and Universities who already have Education Institution Agreement (former Site License), should have enough licenses for the entire campus. Colleges and Universities with a small or medium Departmental Agreement, or an older LabPack license, can receive a Large Departmental Agreement, to provision sufficient ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap licenses.  Colleges and Universities with Education Institution Agreement (former Site License):      Use on any device – please encourage students, faculty and staff to install ArcGIS on their own devices (ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap). With the new Institution Agreement (former site license), now technology can be installed and licensed on any student-owned device.      Best way to distribute executables and single use licenses – please use your institutional file share to distribute any desktop executables and licensing (ArcGIS Pro and ArcMap) – GoogleDrive, Box, OneDrive, etc. We recommend licensing ArcGIS Pro via ArcGIS Online Named User. For ArcMap, please share the executable on your institutional file share, and the same single use license file can be used by everyone on campus (total of 5,000). Please read this blog for further information.      Unlimited ArcGIS Online Named Users for teaching and research – with the updated Institution Agreement, we have unlimited named users available for teaching and research. If your institution has not migrated to the new institution agreement, and you are running low on Named Users, please contact your Education Account Manager. We will provision additional Named Users to you, to support your courses.      Provision ArcGIS Online Named User licenses for ALL new users – please leverage New Member Defaults in ArcGIS Online. Ideally, you would work with your IT colleagues to setup Single Sign On (enterprise logins) for students to use their university credentials, but if this is not feasible in a short time frame, New Member Defaults can still be used for ArcGIS-only named users. This enables any new students who login to ArcGIS Online to be provisioned for any licensing.     Colleges and Universities with a small/medium Departmental Agreement, or older LabPack license (limited licenses):      We will be offering a donation of a Large Departmental Agreement to our customers with a term end date of 08/31/2020. This will provision (100) each ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, and ArcMap licenses. Please license ArcGIS Pro via ArcGIS Online Named User.       To request the donation:             -  If you are outside the United States, please contact your local Esri Distributor.             -  If you are inside the United States, please fill out this form. Please disregard the “Site License” notation.                We will make additional licenses available to all customers, not just those with a site license.      Please consider moving to Institution Agreement in the future, as it provides unlimited allocation of named users along with many other benefits. Please contact your Education Account Manager or local Esri Distributor with questions.      Please follow the above recommendations for distributing executables and licensing (desktop and Names Users).   Other recommendations:      We realize that not all students have personal computers, and even if they do, ArcGIS Pro has certain system requirements which may not be met with older hardware. Please check our COVID-19 Educator Support space which lists additional resources, such as this Virtualization of ArcGIS: On-premise and Cloud Options for Higher Education blog.        Run ArcGIS Pro on a Mac – please refer to the documentation, many students successfully run ArcGIS Pro on Mac machines.      If it is not possible for students to run desktop software on their own machines, and not possible to virtualize ArcGIS in a short timeframe, please consider moving to SAAS – ArcGIS Online and Apps, where students only need an internet connection. The technology has grown immensely over the years, and many capabilities are possible with ArcGIS Online and Apps. While intimidating, this gives us an opportunity to re-invigorate. Please check this blog for many online learning resources - keep your learning objectives and competencies, and map them to some of these existing resources. ... View more

COVID-19 has impacted us in many ways. There is an increasing number of institutions who are temporarily postponing or cancelling in-person courses, and on-ground faculty may be faced with having to migrate their courses to online learning. Of course, planning, available support, and clear communication are paramount to helping make such transition and ease both faculty and student anxiety.   We wanted to share several online resources that are available to supplement online learning. You likely know many of them, but they could be a lifeline for those faculty who have not utilized them, as many of these resources are conducive to remote and self-paced student learning.   Learn ArcGIS – a wonderful collection of short and focused lessons. A relatively new option is the notion of Paths, feel free to browse them.  Esri Training – search web courses and explore notion of a “learning plans”. ArcGIS Documentation – lots of tutorials depending on technology focus. Hiding in there are gems such as these Analytics case studies, many of which have accompanying Story Map, data, and guided workflows, for example. Esri Press books, available at no cost to students and instructors until May 25th via the VitalSource Helps program. FAQ for students/educators is here. Developer Labs – for students in programming-related courses Esri Video channel Explore ArcGIS Blog and pose questions such as How can local governments respond to COVIT-19. Specific examples: Have students explore and utilize collections of StoryMaps to present their work, publish Surveys to gather information about a topic, use ArcGIS Online to explore, create, analyze information. We would like to express particular appreciation and support to the many colleagues whose role is to support educators across campuses leverage geospatial technology. Folks sitting in libraries, instructional resource centers and technology support offices, may be faced with increased demand to provide support for moving courses to remote instruction.    Further, we have a close community of GIS educators – a community who has inspired and supported one another. If you have advice to offer, or need advice on approaches to transition courses, please feel free to post here. If a virtual meeting space is a desired mode to share practices, we can help facilitate that.  ... View more

Sharing a wonderful resource - a webinar recording and slides on “Teaching Practical Spatial Data Science and Deep Learning”. Huge thanks to Dr. Ilya Zaslavsky, UCSD and Dmitry Kudinov, Esri, for their wonderful presentation. “Teaching Practical Spatial Data Science and Deep Learning” recording “DSC 170 Spatial Data Science and Applications” slides (Dr. Zaslavsky) “Teaching Practical Spatial Data Science and Deep Learning” slides (Mr. Kudinov)   Thanks to all attended for the wonderful questions/discussion. ... View more

With the updated Education Institutional Agreement (former site license), we have simplified Single Use licensing by including the core product and all extensions in one authorization code.  One authorization code now unlocks both the core app and all extensions* for the following products:   ArcGIS Pro Advanced (though we encourage a named user license model in most cases) ArcGIS Desktop – ArcMap Advanced ArcGIS Enterprise – ArcGIS GIS Server Advanced   *Note:  The Locate XT and Business Analyst extensions are an exception and have separate authorization codes.   In addition, the Education Institution Agreement now includes 2 sets of licenses for all products:  Academic Use and Administrative Use.  Separating Administrative Use from Academic Use keeps operational maps and data safe and secure without limiting experimentation and innovation by students and researchers.    You will see different quantities for Academic and Administrative use under "View Authorizations".   The authorization codes for Administrative Use licenses are explicitly labeled as Administrative Use, e.g.,: Education Site ArcGIS Pro – Education License; Administrative Use License Education Site ArcGIS Desktop – Education License; Administrative Use License Education Site ArcGIS Server Enterprise – Education License; Administrative Use License   The authorization codes for Academic Use licenses are labeled as follows: Education Site ArcGIS Pro – Site License Education Site ArcGIS Desktop – Site License Education Site ArcGIS Server Enterprise – Site License   License files are created on My Esri under the Licensing tab, using the License Esri Products link. Please ensure that you are leveraging this option for any ArcGIS Enterprise GIS Server and ArcGIS Desktop licensing.   To generate Portal instances for ArcGIS Enterprise for versions 10.7 and above, use the License Esri Products link. For versions 10.4 - 10.6.1, the licenses are created using the Generate Portal for ArcGIS Licenses link.     If you require earlier versions of ArcGIS Enterprise for v10.3-10.8.1, these can be created upon request. Please contact your Customer Service representative for assistance.  ... View more

*Updated 2023 The Education Institution Agreement enables students, faculty and staff to leverage ArcGIS technology, such that any ArcGIS product can be accessed on any device and in any location. ArcGIS has grown beyond the confines of a single desktop GIS application, and ought to be managed as an institution-wide system available to everyone, similar to a learning management system (LMS) or cloud storage. More importantly, it must be managed at scale to take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits - maximizing access to the technology and minimizing administration time.    To successfully deploy and manage ArcGIS in a sustainable and secure manner, please follow the below recommendations. These recommendations are designed to help you take full advantage of the Institution Agreement benefits.   Single ArcGIS Online organization – use a single ArcGIS Online organization for the entire institution to avoid impeding collaboration and minimize management workload.   Enable SAML logins – leverage your institution’s identity provider to eliminate manual management of users and to prevent unauthorized access when student graduates or faculty/staff leave. Make sure to enable “Automatically” join for new users. Check the Why Single Sign On for academia (SAML logins) blog and the Enable Enterprise Logins video.   Configure New Member Defaults – enable new users with everything they will need, which eliminates manual administration. When combined with SAML logins and its "Automatically" join option, the result is a fully automated process, often referred to as auto-provisioning, for providing access to ArcGIS to your entire campus community. User Type (GIS Professional Advanced). Role (Publisher or Custom Role to give users all the privileges they need) – have one role for everyone (no need to create digital divides). Add-on licenses – such as ArcGIS Urban Suite, ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Business Analyst Web, ArcGIS Insights, ArcGIS Drone2Map Standard, ArcGIS Pro Extensions, etc.  Groups - empower users to create their own groups (including Shared Update privileges). Integrate groups with other institutional, authoritative systems for managing groups of users (SAML groups) Credits – set the credit allocation high enough that most users can get their work done, there is ample amount of credits available with your Institution Agreement Enable Esri Access – enable users to help themselves by providing access to Esri Training (e-Learning) and Esri Community. Check the Setting New Member Defaults video.   Software distribution – provide executables and any applicable license files (if needed) via your institutional file share system (Box, OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.). Check the Best way to share ArcGIS license files and executables blog.       ArcGIS Pro licensing - with the move to Modern GIS, and the upcoming removal of Single Use/Concurrent Use licenses for ArcGIS Pro from the Education programs, ArcGIS named user will be the only method to license ArcGIS in the future. Hence, it is crucial that organizations implement SAML logins for efficient access, as well as license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments via a named user model.   Check How do I license ArcGIS Pro in lab environments blog.       Maintain ArcGIS access website for your institution - it is important to provide a clear explanation of how users across the institution will obtain access to the technology itself, as well as be aware of any support and learning resources available to them. Check the ArcGIS access website for your institution blog.     Monitor Usage - demonstrate to stakeholders the breadth and depth of GIS on campus. The ArcGIS Online Usage Reports (Organization>Status) are a start and provide easy access to total usage data. Further analysis and efforts are needed to provide information for ongoing, repeat usage, as well as daily reporting. Check the GIS for Everyone (...and how to build your own ArcGIS Dashboard to show it!) blog.     Communicate when offboarding users - ensure that proper messaging is in place when off-boarding users leaving the institutions – students graduating, faculty retiring, etc. Proactively remind users – before they leave – about their options for transferring content, and what happens to their content after they leave. Ensure that you take the approach of empowering users to take care of themselves as much as possible. Check the Messaging for ArcGIS Online users leaving the university (students, faculty, staff) blog.   Manage inactive users and stale content – if you are in the early stages of deploying ArcGIS to your entire institution, the recommendation is that you do not delete content and users, as deleting content and users takes time and effort, it breaks the audit trail of ownership, and may break dependencies that others may have on that content. Deleting content cannot be recovered! Over time, you can work on best practices and data governance standards for your institution on how to manage old content and inactive users, which should be comparable to policies your institution has for similar business systems. Check the Storage and Data Governance Recommendations in Education blog.   ... View more