ArcGIS Online Content Sharing

The ArcGIS Online Content Sharing program enables your organization to contribute geographic data content to ArcGIS Online Services. Your content will be integrated with that from other providers for publishing in ArcGIS Online Services, which are hosted and published by ESRI. Users within or outside your organization will be able to access your data via the Web. This program is available to any ESRI user and other geographic data providers interested in making their data content broadly available.

Program Benefits

Contributing your data to ArcGIS Online Services provides a number of benefits to your organization:

• Minimize disk space and hardware requirements
• Eliminate packaging and distribution logistics
• Continuous access to your data via the Web (24/7)

ArcGIS Online Services can be easily accessed from a variety of client applications via the Web. Public citizens or the business community can use ArcGIS Online Services with ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Explorer, or a standard Web browser.

ESRI hosts ArcGIS Online Services and provides access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This means your data will be accessible even if your primary site becomes unavailable, so that in the case of an emergency you still have continuous, immediate access to your content.

As an additional benefit, once your data has been processed, ESRI can provide the data in ArcGIS Server map cache format that your organization can publish for internal use using ArcGIS Server.

Publishing Your Data

Desired Content

Because of the growing interest in high-resolution imagery coupled with its increasing availability, the initial focus of the ArcGIS Online Content Sharing Program is on adding local, high-resolution imagery to the existing imagery base map.

The existing imagery basemaps available through ArcGIS Online Services are a mosaic of public and commercial imagery sources for the United States and the world. Imagery has been selected based on a variety of factors, including public availability, image resolution, image currency, and general image quality (e.g. clarity, cloud cover, etc.). These same factors will be considered by ESRI when determining what data to include as part of ArcGIS Online Services.

• Image Resolution—In general, the imagery should be one meter resolution or better within the United States and five meter or better internationally.
• Image Currency—The imagery should have been collected within the past 36 months. However, imagery collected in the past 12 months is most desired.
• Update Frequency—Data should be scheduled for update on a regular basis.
• Image Format—The imagery should be available in an ESRI software supported file format and coordinate system.
• Image Quality—The imagery should preferably be in full color with less than 10% cloud cover.
• Redistribution—The data must be available for royalty-free redistribution.
• Metadata—The imagery should include standard metadata describing its source and data characteristics, including publisher information.

In addition to imagery, ESRI is interested in other datasets for publication including digital elevation models (DEM) and building footprints with height attributes, to enrich existing imagery basemaps, as well as other basemaps, and support 3D visualization.

Publication Process

When your data is accepted into the program, ESRI will prepare the data for publishing as part of ArcGIS Online Services. Imagery data will be integrated into a mosaic of imagery sources from a variety of government and commercial sources. Some processing of the imagery may be performed to blend it with other imagery displayed in the surrounding geographic areas. The imagery will then be converted into a cache format for display at multiple scales in ArcGIS Server services.

The data will likely be published in both 2D map and 3D globe services. The 2D map services can be used by ArcGIS Desktop applications and ArcGIS Server Web mapping applications. The 3D globe services can be used with ArcGIS Explorer and ArcGlobe, and application within ArcGIS 3D Analyst. The data may also be included in ArcGIS Data Appliance. ESRI will not redistribute the data in its native or unprocessed format to end users without separate permission.

Hosting and Updates

ArcGIS Online Services that include your data content are hosted and maintained by ESRI at one or more AT&T data centers in the United States to ensure high availability and performance. The services are accessible via the Web 24 hours a day, seven days a week, excluding any scheduled maintenance, through ArcGIS Online servers.

ArcGIS Online Services content is updated regularly as new or updated datasets are acquired and processed. ESRI will publish updates to the existing imagery basemaps at least twice per year. Imagery content that is contributed and accepted for the data sharing program will be scheduled for publishing as part of one of these updates. ESRI will notify you when the content is expected to be published and will send a confirmation notice, along with access instructions.

How to Participate

If you have data you believe is appropriate for ArcGIS Online Services, simply fill out and submit this form.

Once ESRI has reviewed your data and determined its suitability for publishing in ArcGIS Online, you will be contacted.

For more details or to ask questions, please contact online_content@esri.com.