Put Yourself on the Map with GIS Tribe!

GIS Tribe is a worldwide online supportive GIS community that is open to anyone interested in GIS. We recently hosted our first live web chat on Twitter with people tweeting in from all over the U.S., Europe, and Africa. It was great to connect with GIS tweeps from across the globe and we're planning to do it again, Wednesdays from 12 to 1 PM Pacific time.

To give us a picture of where the members are from, and because we're clearly interested in all things mapping, I decided to create an interactive map using ArcGIS online and invite GIS Tribe members to add their location. This is a good opportunity for me to learn how to create and embed an interactive webmap in a website, and learn how to set the properties so that the map can collect crowdsourced data. This should be pretty easy to do, I thought. Right? Well... not exactly.

From what I gathered through various tutorials, I need to have an "organizational level" membership at ArcGIS online in order to create an editable feature service (editable= others can add their locations). So I created one for GIS Tribe using the option for a free 30-day Trial. This means GIS Tribe members have 30 days to add themselves to the map! And what happens to the map at the end of the 30 day trial, well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. (Addendum: I'm sorry to say I don't think you can add your location to the map now that we've passed the 30 day limit.)

In ArcGIS Online, I created a map called GIS Tribe Members using the National Geographic world basemap. Then I created Feature Layer using an existing ESRI template for Locations and then Edited it to add my location (Sedona, AZ).

Making the map editable was the tricky part for me. I set the Share Properties to "Everyone (Public)" for both the Map and the Feature Layer. Then I embedded the map in my blog by copying and pasting the HTML code. As you can see, the map sits prettily at the end of this post. But this map does not appear to be editable. So after much trial and error, I discovered that people could access the editable map using a link to the original map at ArcGIS online.

So, (drumroll please) to add your location,

• Open this map,
• Zoom in to your location on the basemap,
• Click the Edit tool button (the pencil icon), 
• click the Location symbol on the Add Features panel, 
• move the mouse pointer over the map, 
• then click to add your location to the map.

View Larger Map

Wanna talk #GIS? Join the #GIStribe Chat! Wednesdays 12 to 1 pm PST

What: GIS Twitter Chat 

#GIStribe

A social network of GIS geeks, ninjas, students, teachers, entrepreneurs, and professionals
 

When: Wednesdays at 3pm EST / 12 pm PST 

 

Where: Hosted on Twitter using hashtag #GIStribe

Who: People from all over the world interested in GIS

The #GIStribe chat is a weekly hour long chat hosted on Twitter where anyone can follow, join in, and contribute to their heart's desire. It is designed to help people interested in GIS become part of a supportive global online GIS community to meet people, learn from each other, discuss interesting topics, troubleshoot, and inspire. We talk software, tools, code, problems, solutions, tips, tricks, and more. The sky is not the limit, because, well, that's just too limiting...

If you need help with how to join a Hashtag Chat don't fret, there are plenty of resources to get you started. A hashtag is a predetermined alphanumeric sequence that begins with a pound sign, in this case "#GIStribe" (minus the quotation marks).  

We keep track of the conversation by adding the characters #GIStribe to each tweet designated for the chat. To follow along, you can do a hashtag search on Twitter. If you prefer using a dashboard interface like Hootsuite, or  Tweetdeck,  most will allow you to create a column in your feed using a search that will display all the tweets with this hashtag so you can follow along easily. For those of you who need help narrowing it down more,  Tweetchat is a tool that will let you view only the hashtagged tweets....the list goes on. Pick one and let's chat!
 
To contribute to the chat, be on Twitter (or your preferred alternative) on Wednesday at 12 PM PST, search for #GIStribe, and remember to type #GIStribe in your tweets.

Join the tribe and get chatting!

Mapping Wildlife Crossings with Google Maps A.K.A. How to Embed an Interactive Google Map in Blogger

There's an easy way to add interactive maps to your website using Google Maps, and I'm about to show you how.

Let's use the potential wildlife crossing at Liberty Canyon and California's 101 as an example. This area has been on wildlife biologists' radar for many years now, since it serves as an important connection for wildlife moving between the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the Simi Hills, and the Santa Susana Mountains. In fact this area is a hotbed of wildlife vehicle collisions, including collisions that have killed a number of the rarest, coolest creatures in those hills, mountain lions. Researchers who've have been tracking the mountain lions for over a decade have documented only 1 lion that crossed the 101 in this area- and lived to tell.

Clearly, if we're going to write about this location, we need a map of the area in our story. Below is an example of a "static" map that the Santa Monica Fund features on their website to point out the area where a safe crossing for wildlife should be built.

Not bad, right? But like I said, this map is static, meaning its not much different from an image, except that its an image of a map. So let's say we want to be able to zoom in and out on the map, pan around, find our favorite hiking trail, examine things more closely, or just "interact" with the map in general. That's where Google Maps comes in. Google Maps are interactive by nature.

To add a Google Map, we'll follow these steps:

1. Open a new tab and go to Google Maps. Type in the location you wish to display in the search bar. In this case, I'll type "Liberty Canyon Rd, Agoura Hills, CA"
2. Now a map of the area is displayed where I can zoom in and out, pan up, down and all around, and even toggle between satellite imagery and a more traditional map. I'll move around the map until I get it centered the way I want it to appear in my blog.
3. Once I have the map looking the way I want to display it in my blog, I move my cursor to the bottom right of  map, click on a gear-shaped icon, then select "Share and Embed Map."
4. In the dialogue window that appears, I select the Embed Map tab, then Ctrl-C to copy the code that appears.
5. Returning to Blogger, I use Ctrl-V to paste the code in my post....and Voila, a map appears. *To make any edits to the code, be sure to use the HTML viewer option in Blogger.

I just embedded an interactive map in my blog and I didn't even have to open any GIS software. Pretty slick, right?