A proprietary, cloud-based system is not a long-term strategy for storing and preserving your ArcGIS Online project. A range of options exist for archiving your data and providing ongoing access to your project outside of ArcGIS Online.
Table of Contents
Digital Grinnell
As the institutional repository, “Digital Grinnell contributes to ‘free inquiry and the open exchange of ideas’ through the preservation and publication of scholarship created by Grinnell College students, faculty, and staff, as well as selected material that illuminates the College’s history and other activities.”
Members of the community who deposit materials in Digital Grinnell retain full copyright for their materials. Learn more about depositing materials in Digital Grinnell.
DASIL's Data Repository
ArcGIS Online projects that originate in the Data Analysis and Social Inquiry Lab (DASIL) may choose to use DASIL’s data repository to provide access.
File Formats
| File Type | Extension | Description |
Shapefile |
.SHP, .DBF, .SHX | The shapefile is BY FAR the most common geospatial file type you’ll encounter. All commercial and open source accept shapefile as a GIS format. It’s so ubiquitous that it’s become the industry standard.
But you’ll need a complete set of three files that are mandatory to make up a shapefile. The three required files are:
|
Geographic JavaScript Object Notation (GeoJSON) |
.GEOJSON .JSON | The GeoJSON format is mostly for web-based mapping. GeoJSON stores coordinates as text in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) form. This includes vector points, lines and polygons as well as tabular information. GeoJSON store objects within curly braces {} and in general have less markup overhead (compared to GML). GeoJSON has straightforward syntax that you can modify in any text editor. Webmaps browsers understand JavaScript so by default GeoJSON is a common web format. But JavaScript only understands binary objects. Fortunately, JavaScript can convert JSON to binary. |
Google Keyhole Markup Language (KML/KMZ) |
.KML .KMZ | KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language. This GIS format is XML-based and is primarily used for Google Earth. KML was developed by Keyhole Inc which was later acquired by Google. KMZ (KML-Zipped) replaced KML as being the default Google Earth geospatial format because it is a compressed version of the file. KML/KMZ became an international standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium in 2008. The longitude, latitude components (decimal degrees) are as defined by the World Geodetic System of 1984 (WGS84). The vertical component (altitude) is measured in meters from the WGS84 EGM96 Geoid vertical datum. |
Text file |
.TXT .CSV | A comma-separated values (CSV) file is a delimited text file that uses a comma to separate values. A CSV file stores tabular data (numbers and text) in plain text. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas. The use of the comma as a field separator is the source of the name for this file format. |
Access to Content After Leaving Grinnell
Students graduate, staff change positions, and faculty move to other institutions. Because your ArcGIS Online account is tied to your College username and password, you will no longer have access to the Grinnell College organization after your credentials expire.
We encourage users to be proactive in thinking about how they want to be able to access ArcGIS Online items after they leave the institution.
In situations where content will remain in ArcGIS Online but you do not need ongoing access to items, we are able to reassign those items to an active user in the College’s ArcGIS Online organization.
In situations where content does not need to remain in ArcGIS Online, the previous sub-sections under “Archiving and Preservation” outline the possible avenues for depositing and storing your project.
