Getting to Know Web GIS, fifth edition

I am excited about my new book,  Getting to Know Web GIS, fifth edition , which has been released through Esri Press. I’d like to share some of my thoughts and share the updates in this edition,

In the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the life-changing power of the internet and the web. Billions of people were encouraged to stay at home to reduce the spread of the virus. Amid the economic mayhem caused by the pandemic, we were able to work, study, shop, entertain, stay connected, and carry on our with lives using the internet. The internet and the web became more important than ever.

Web GIS, the fusion of the web and geographic information systems (GIS), also became more important in the pandemic. Web GIS supported the fight against COVID by mapping cases, predicting spread, identifying vulnerable populations, allocating resources, and facilitating vaccinations. During the past two years, the web traffic to ArcGIS® Online has surged. The adoption of Esri’s Web GIS—ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Enterprise—has grown quickly.

Today’s modern GIS is Web GIS. It has profoundly altered the way geospatial information is acquired, transmitted, published, shared, visualized, and applied. It has created new business models and reshaped many existing ones. Web GIS has facilitated public information services, facilitated the bottom-up information channel from citizens to governments, and supported decision-making. The societal need for Web GIS professionals is strong and pressing.

There is a fundamental need to update GIS education to reflect the prominence of Web GIS today. Some universities have added Web GIS to their curricula, but GIS education in many other universities remains desktop-centric. This creates a gap between GIS education and societal need. Without a knowledge of Web GIS, graduates will leave the university lacking a thorough understanding of the capabilities of GIS and the most-recent technologies used in many industries.

• Students still need to learn GIS theories, principles, fundamentals, database design, cartography, and spatial analysis. But all these topics can be taught using Web GIS, in more effective and enjoyable ways. Introductory GIS can be better taught using Web GIS than using desktop GIS.

• Desktop GIS is still important, but it doesn’t encapsulate the full spectrum of GIS. Desktop GIS often serves as the authoring tool for preparing materials for publishing to Web GIS and as a client tool. The full spectrum of GIS includes publishing various types of geospatial web services, understanding their pros and cons, organizing them into engaging and informative web apps, delivering GIS to millions of mobile devices, collecting information from the field, analyzing big data, using artificial intelligence in the cloud, and putting GIS into real-world applications.

With the increasing amount of free data services such as ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, quick smart-mapping capabilities, and powerful geospatial analytics in ArcGIS Online, educators can use these resources to deepen and expand Web GIS education:

• Web GIS education is designed for students majoring in geography and GIS. It focuses on  technologies, theories, principles, and applications. Students who understand Web GIS have a competitive advantage in today’s job market and become productive more quickly on the job.

•  Web GIS education can expand GIS education into any subjects containing geospatial content, from K–12 through graduate studies. It can foster geospatial thinking in a broader range of majors, such as computer science, business management, environmental studies, economics, planning and design, health care, human services, journalism, and more.

I have taught hundreds of students over the years as an adjunct faculty member at several universities, including Harvard University Extension (my  Mobile GIS syllabus  and  Web GIS syllabus ), University of Redlands, Henan University, University of Texas, University of California, and California State University. Students love the web—including smart phones and tablets. Today’s university students are “digital natives.” They were born in a digital world and web-based learning comes naturally to them. Web GIS can engage them and improve the effectiveness of learning.

I have authored and coauthored nine books and editions on Web GIS, drawing on my extensive project experience as a senior principal software developer for Esri Professional Services and my university teaching experience. My work experience has given me expertise in societal needs and how to implement solutions. My teaching experience has shown me how to organize and present Web GIS in a systematic and engaging way.

Getting to Know Web GIS, a perennial best seller for Esri Press, teaches the full spectrum of Web GIS knowledge and techniques. It balances principles, methodologies, and applications. It serves as a practical manual for classroom lab work and on-the-job training for students, instructors, GIS analysts, managers, web developers, and a broad range of GIS professionals.

Building on the success of the previous editions, the fifth edition is the most current and comprehensive treatment of Web GIS, ranging from fundamental concepts to cutting-edge technologies, from the cloud side to the browser and mobile sides. Improvements over the previous edition are extensive in each chapter and include the following:

• Added new tutorials on ArcGIS Field Maps, ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online, deep learn­ing, webhooks, z-value-based 3D editing and visualization, ArcGIS StoryMaps℠ express maps and new content blocks, ArcGIS Arcade formatting expressions and data expressions in ArcGIS Dashboards, and ArcGIS Assistant.  

• Incorporated the latest advances and extended tutorials on newer products, including ArcGIS Experience Builder, the new Map Viewer, ArcGIS Notebooks, ArcGIS Instant Apps, and ArcGIS Dashboards.  

• Updated the tutorials to match ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise (10.9.1), ArcGIS Pro 3.0, ArcGIS Survey123, ArcGIS QuickCapture, tile layers, image layers, and web tools. 

• Introduced new technologies on feature tiles, ArcGIS GeoBIM℠, ArcGIS Mission, and ori­ented imagery catalogs.  

• Extended discussions on best practices in Web GIS, virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (XR), metaverse, spatial data science, deep learning, and other frontiers.

The fifth edition retains ten chapters, but six chapter titles have been changed from the fourth edition to reflect these updates. Each chapter includes a conceptual discussion that gives readers the big picture and the underlying principles and detailed tutorials that provide hands-on experience with the software technology. The book also includes an ArcGIS Online trial account.

The web has become the dominant platform for GIS. Web GIS is becoming an indispensable part of GIS solutions for all industries and will eventually deliver a truly societal GIS, available on computers and smart devices. As users and organizations adopt Web GIS, I sincerely hope that the fifth edition of Getting to Know Web GIS will be a helpful part of their journey.