2008 09 04

Program Description
The ArcGIS Online Content Sharing Program enables your organization to contribute geographic data content to be published and hosted by ESRI. By participating in the program, ESRI will integrate your content with that from other providers for publication in ArcGIS Online services . Once your data is published, the data can be accessed by users throughout your organization and by other users with access to the Internet. This program is available to any ESRI user and other geographic data providers interested in making their data content broadly available.

Program benefits
Many organizations have high quality and useful data they want to share with others. However, the logistics of sharing data broadly can be cumbersome if you must package and distribute the data. Also, as the amount of data grows, particularly imagery, more disk space and machine maintenance is required.
Contributing your data to an ArcGIS Online service can help solve these problems since all users, both inside and outside your organization, can easily access the services from a variety of client applications via the Internet. Your organization and other users outside your organization, such as public citizens or the business community, will be able to use the services with ArcGIS Desktop , ArcGIS Explorer , or via a standard Web browser.
ESRI hosts the 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. In the case of an emergency, having the data in a secondary location allows continuous, immediate access.
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 .

About publishing your data

Desired Content
ArcGIS Online services provide access to a wide variety of basemap and reference information for the world. This includes satellite and aerial imagery, street maps, topographic maps, shaded relief imagery, and political maps, along with reference layers and terrain services for 3D visualization. Because of the growing user interest in high-resolution imagery coupled with its increasing availability, the initial focus for the Content Sharing Program is on adding local, high-resolution imagery to the existing imagery basemap. Learn about the World User Imagery service created for the Content Sharing Program.

The existing imagery basemaps available as ArcGIS Online services are a mosaic of public and commercial sources of imagery for the United States and the world. Imagery has been selected for these services 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 and its data integration partners when determining what contributed data will be used as part of the ArcGIS Online services. 

• Image Resolution: In general, the imagery should be one meter (1m) resolution or better.
• Image Currency: The imagery should have been collected within the past 36 months, with imagery collected in the past 12 months 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 contributed data must be available for royalty-free redistribution.
• Metadata: The imagery should include standard metadata describing its source and data characteristics, including at minimum publisher information and other details listed above.

 In the future, in addition to imagery, ESRI will be interested in other data sets for publication including digital elevation models (DEM) and building footprints with height attributes. These types of services can be used to enrich the imagery basemap, other basemaps, and support 3D visualization.

Publication Process
After you provide ESRI access to your data, ESRI will determine if the data is suitable for use in ArcGIS Online services. If your data is accepted into the program, ESRI and its data integration partner will perform a few steps to prepare the data for publishing as online services. Imagery data will be integrated into an existing mosaic 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 Online 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. The data may also be included in one or more packages of content for ESRI's ArcGIS Data Appliance. The ArcGIS Online services that include your data content are hosted and maintained by ESRI at one or more data centers in the United States to ensure high availability and performance. The services are accessible through the ArcGIS Online servers via the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week, excluding any scheduled maintenance.

ArcMap

ArcGIS Explorer

ArcGIS Server
Web Mapping Application

The ArcGIS Online services are updated regularly as new or updated data sets are acquired and processed. ESRI and its data integration partner will publish updates to the existing imagery basemaps at least twice per year. Imagery content that is contributed and accepted for the program will be scheduled for publishing in 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, when the content is available.

How to Participate

If you have data you believe is appropriate for ArcGIS Online services and would like to participate in the program, please complete this simple participation form to get started.

Once we have had a chance to review your data, ESRI will determine if the data is suitable for publishing in ArcGIS Online services and contact you.

You can also contact ESRI at online_content@esri.com any time for more details or to ask questions.

ESRI