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Story Maps

Story Maps

This tutorial is designed as a brief introduction to the capabilities of ArcGIS Story Maps.

About This Tutorial

Section titled “About This Tutorial”
Author

Ryan Mattke, Map and Geospatial Information Librarian, University of Minnesota (matt0089@umn.edu)

Time to Complete

variable

License

Except where otherwise noted, content in this tutorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Note for Instructors

Introduction

Section titled “Introduction”

Story Maps are an application within ArcGIS Online which allows you to integrate web maps with text, images, and other multimedia content.

Access Options The institution‑affiliated option gives you more stability, long‑term access, and additional features, but a free option is also available.

Story Maps allow you to:

  • Put your web maps in context
  • Compare web maps and data sets
  • Experiment!

Starting a Story Map

Section titled “Starting a Story Map”
  1. Go to https://storymaps.arcgis.com/
  2. If you are affiliated with a school that has an ESRI site license, hit the drop down button (small arrow) next to “Your Organization’s URL.” Add your institutions identifier to the URL (find out from your local GIS community) and hit continue to get to your institution’s authentication sign-in.
  3. Alternatively, you can create a free public account at the ESRI Create Account page.

Basics

Section titled “Basics”

Create Story MapCreate Story Map

The first step is to log on to ArcGIS Online, go to your Content section, and click Create then Story Maps.

Title and ContentAdding Title and Content

  • Give your story a title and a subtitle and/or an introduction.

  • Add cover image or video (upper right).

  • Click the “+” symbol to add content to the story map.

CreditsAdding Credits

Be sure to take advantage of the options (at the bottom/end of the story map) to add credits and content attribution.

Basic options for content:

  • Text ‒ Options include heading, subheading, paragraph, large paragraph, bulleted list, numbered list, and quote

  • Button ‒ To highlight a link with text

  • Separator ‒ Insert a horizontal line

Content OptionsContent Options

Media options for content:

  • Map ‒ Insert a web map or web app from ArcGIS Online

  • Image ‒ Upload or link to a jpg, png, gif, or svg file

  • Image Gallery ‒ Insert a gallery of up to 12 images

  • Video ‒ Upload or link to video content

  • Audio ‒ Upload or link to audio content

  • Embed ‒ Embed using iframe code or a web url; this could be a website, or even another story map

  • Swipe ‒ Compare two web maps or images

Media OptionsMedia Options

Intermediate

Section titled “Intermediate”

Once you have the basics down, try something a little more fancy… Immersive options for content:

  • Slideshow ‒ Full screen, media-focused layout

  • Sidecar ‒ Stationary text/media panel with a scrolling narrative panel that can include web maps

  • Map tour ‒ Showcase a set of locations

Immersive OptionsImmersive Options

Explore

Section titled “Explore”

Example Story Map from the Big Ten Academic Alliance Geospatial Data Project with the following features:

Compare maps

Embedded web map

Compare images

Resources

Section titled “Resources”