Check this page regularly for the latest news and announcements of interest to the Esri Canada higher-education community.

To receive this information and other updates in a more timely fashion, subscribe the Higher-Ed Listserv for faculty and students, and follow the @GIS4HEd Twitter feed.

Looking for ways to access Esri technology from home?

2021-02-09:

New blog posts:

Check out some of the recent Esri blog articles discussing Deep Learning and GIS Visualization/3D topics:

2021-01-29:

ArcGIS Pro 2.7:

Released in December 2020 – for details on the new features and functionality, check the documentation and video that covers this update.

Highlights:

  1. GNSS GPS Device
  2. Mobile Geodatabases (operated in an SQLite database)
  3. New Movement analysis tools (Find Cotravelers, Find Meeting Locations, Compare Areas, Classify Movement Events)
  4. Matrix Heat Chart
  5. New raster functions (e.g., Burn Area Index, Normalized Difference Built-up Index, Normalized Difference Water Index, LandTrendr, Aggregate Multidimensional)
  6. Change Detection Wizard
  7. New Deep Learning tools

Esri GIS in Higher Education Chats

The next GIS in Higher Education Chat hosted by Esri will be held on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021 at 12pm ET (9am PT).

The next topic to be presented will be Introducing the new ArcGIS Field Maps: The All-in-One App for Field Data Collection, presented by Jeff Shaner (Lead Product Manager).

Register online to attend this virtual meeting. Visit the chat series web page to watch recordings of previous meetings and keep up to date on upcoming chats in the future.

New Geographical Thinking Podcast:

Subscribe to Esri Canada’s new Geographical Thinking podcast for timely stories on how people are making a difference by applying geographical thinking. Four episodes are already available, covering topics such as transportation, deep learning & GeoAI, and creating caring communities.

Esri Developer Summit registration is open:

The Esri Developer Summit this year will be held April 6th-8th, and will be an all-virtual event.

Registration cost is $45 for students (not including additional pre-conference workshops).

Register online to gain access to the following:

2020-11-03:

GIS Day in Canada:

This year, Esri Canada is celebrating GIS Day with a Virtual Seminar on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 beginning at 11:30am ET.

GIS Day 2020: Coming Together While Being Apart
For almost 20 years, GIS Day has been a celebration of the important work done by the GIS community globally. With the current pandemic situation, it’s difficult for users to come together in person, but it’s very important that we stay connected. Esri Canada is pleased to announce that we will host a virtual GIS Day celebration on November 18th, with presentations from members of the GIS community coast to coast. Join us and hear directly from users in many fields and academia on interesting projects and applications. Presentations will be in the form of short “lightning talks” with time allotted for a few questions.

Here are just a few of the lightning talks you can look forward to:

For more information and registration, visit esri.ca/gisdayincanada.  

2020-11-02:

Recent/Upcoming webinars:

2020-09-10:

New Learning Resources for working with LiDAR:

Two new tutorials have been published that focus on working with LiDAR data:

  1. Visualizing Lidar Data in ArcGIS Pro: this tutorial will teach you how to create a LAS dataset, and how to work with the tools available in ArcGIS Pro for visualizing lidar data.
  2. Deriving Raster Products from LAS Datasets: in this tutorial, explore ways to convert lidar data in LAS datasets into new raster data products.

Visit our Resource Finder to access these new resources, and browse the many other GIS learning resources that we have available.

2020-08-13:

New Learning Resource: Geodatabase Tutorials

A new series of tutorials has been published that provides a learning path for working with geodatabases in ArcGIS Pro, beginning with concepts such as domains, subtypes, data-loading, relationship classes, topology, and SQL queries in file geodatabases, and progressing to enterprise geodatabase setup, versioning, and replication.

The Geodatabase Tutorials package covers ten topics:

  1. Introduction to ArcGIS Pro Projects and File Geodatabases
  2. Geodatabase-specific Behaviours to Enhance Data Integrity
  3. Data Loading and Cleaning in ArcGIS Pro
  4. Using Geodatabase Topology to Enhance Spatial Integrity
  5. Relationship Classes and Attachments
  6. Querying a File Geodatabase
  7. Configure an Enterprise Geodatabase in PostgreSQL
  8. Create an Enterprise Geodatabase in PostgreSQL
  9. Versioned Editing Workflow in an Enterprise Geodatabase
  10. Data Distribution through Geodatabase Replication

In addition to the ten tutorials listed above, a set of task-oriented assignments are included in the package.

Visit our Resource Finder to access this and many other GIS learning resources that we have available.

2020-08-07:

Upcoming Webinar: ArcGIS Online Best Practices for Hosted Feature Layers

Hosted feature layers are essential building blocks that enable you to serve data from ArcGIS Online’s highly scalable cloud infrastructure.

In this live webinar, best practices will be demonstrated for managing and sharing data using the scalability, flexibility, and security of hosted feature layers.

The webinar will be offered on August 19th :

Register online to attend.

2020-07-24:

Registration open for 2020 Esri Education Summit:

The 2020 Esri Education Summit is taking place August 6th-7th. It will be a virtual event, and is free to attend. Register online at https://www.esri.com/educ.

There will be both Higher-Ed and K-12 focused plenary and technical sessions. Join a collaborative user community of forward-thinking educators and administrators sharing innovative teaching ideas and best practices about geospatial technology.

The Summit will:

2020-07-10:

Esri UC is Next Week!:

The virtual Esri UC is only a few days away. It’s not too late to register if you haven’t done so already, and it’s free for all higher education students, and for faculty/staff at licensed institutions.

Be sure to review the Attendee Guide. It contains login details, technical requirements, tips for navigating the event, and information on how the Live Expo will work.

Watch the Video Guide that steps you through how to navigate and access the sessions, exhibitor information, merchandise store, live Q&A, interact with other attendees and more.

You can even sign up for the Esri UC Virtual Run/Walk 2020! Although we won’t be able to run together this year, you can run or walk anywhere, any distance, at any time during the UC and get yourself on the map.

See you online next week!

2020-07-06:

Learning and Teaching with Experience Builder:

Until July 16th, access to a 1hr training seminar to help you Get Started with ArcGIS Experience Builder is available for free on the Esri training website.

Also, a reminder that the next topic for the Brown Bag chats hosted by Esri Inc. will be “Teaching with and using the Experience Builder to create customized web mapping applications” – tomorrow (July 7th) at 9am PT, 10am MT, 11am CT, 1pm AT, 1:30pm NT. Details and connection information are listed in the GeoNet post for the Brown Bag chat series.

2020-06-12:

Recording for Teaching with ArcGIS Notebooks webinar:

If you missed the Esri Inc webinar on Teaching with ArcGIS Notebooks (below), the recording is now available. This webinar will show you options for incorporating ArcGIS Notebooks into your classes.

Esri to host Brown Bag Chats for Higher Education GIS

In response to the ongoing need to keep the higher education GIS community connected, Esri Inc. will host a series of ‘Brown Bag’ chats. Join your colleagues in higher education and Esri’s education team to learn about tools, data, curricular materials, and teaching approaches during these informal chats.

These 45-minute virtual meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of every month at 12pm ET (9am PT, 10am MT, 11am CT, 1pm AT, 1:30pm NT)

Upcoming discussion topics, connection details and past recordings are available on GeoNet.

The first topic covered on June 2nd was Teaching with and using the QuickCapture App. Coming up in the next session on July 7th: Teaching with and using the Experience Builder to create customized web mapping applications.

2020-05-27:

Esri International UC, July 13-15 – details for educators and students

If you are an educator or a student interested in registering to virtually attend the Esri International User Conference, please take a look at the recent blog article by Esri Inc. that provides further information and answers to frequently asked questions.

Taking place July 13-15, the conference event will include plenary sessions, technical workshops, user sessions, an Expo, and unique networking events. Registration will be complimentary for all Esri customers with current licenses/maintenance. In addition, it will be free for all currently enrolled students and 2020 graduates, regardless of whether their institution has Education Program licenses.

Two key items to note from the details outlined:

Visit the article linked above for detailed instructions.

2020-05-08:

8 New ArcGIS Learning Resources

  1. New: Getting Started with the ArcGIS Pro SDK
  2. New: Surface Analysis in ArcGIS Pro
  3. New: Network Analyist in ArcGIS Pro
  4. New: Introduction to Spatial Data, Part 1: Vector Data
  5. New: Introduction to Spatial Data, Part 2: Raster Data
  6. New: Clustering Tools in ArcGIS Pro
  7. New: Suitability Analysis
  8. New: Working with Python Notebooks

Webinar: Teaching with ArcGIS Notebooks

If you are interested in learning how to teach using ArcGIS Notebooks and the options available to incorporate it into your courses, Esri Inc. invites you to a webinar that will be hosted on Thursday, May 21st at 1pm EDT (10am PDT, 11am MDT, 12pm CDT, 2pm ADT, 2:30pm NDT).

Topics covered include:

ArcGIS Notebooks provides a Jupyter Notebook experience optimized for spatial analysis and an easy way to combine Python libraries from ArcGIS API for Python, ArcPy, and open-source Python libraries in a single environment, reducing time spent managing dependencies and increasing cross-team collaboration.

Presenters:

Register online to attend.

Tip: if you would like to learn how to work with Python Notebooks in ArcGIS, try the new Working with Python Notebooks tutorial, included in the new ArcGIS learning resources linked above.

2020-04-24:

Esri International UC, July 13-15 is now a virtual event

Yesterday, it was announced that the 2020 Esri User Conference in San Diego, scheduled to take place on July 13-15, has been moved to a virtual format. Although we will all miss the opportunity to attend this annual event in-person, it opens up the opportunity for many more of us to attend virtually

11 Updated/New ArcGIS Resources

  1. Updated: ModelBuilder in ArcGIS Pro
  2. Updated: Labeling Features in ArcGIS Pro
  3. Updated: Creating Basic Selections in ArcGIS Pro
  4. Updated: Creating a Layout in ArcGIS Pro
  5. New: Symbology in ArcGIS Online
  6. New: Discover ArcGIS Pro
  7. New: Getting Started with the ArcGIS Pro SDK
  8. New: Network Analyst in ArcGIS Pro
  9. New: Surface Analysis in ArcGIS Pro
  10. New: Visualize Temporal Data in ArcGIS Pro
  11. New: Creating web scenes in ArcGIS Pro

Reminder: free VitalSource materials

Up to 7 free course materials, including Esri Press books are available for download from VitalSource until April 30th

2020-04-09:

Updated Coronavirus Response Solution Available Now

A new version of the Coronavirus Response solution is available.  This update includes new apps to inform the public about community meal site locations, new desktop and mobile coronavirus case dashboards, a new mobile dashboard to understand community impacts, and many other enhancements.

Full details on this update are outlined in the Esri Blog

Panel session at AAG virtual conference on impacts of COVID-19 on undergraduate teaching and learning

Organized by Dr. Terence Day, Professor, Geography & Earth and Environmental Science at Okanagan College, April 9th, 11:10am-12:25pm MDT: https://bit.ly/39y8oi8

Imagery Deep Learning Made Easy – webinar

Hosted by the Esri Inc GeoAI team, Tuesday April 21st, 12:00 pm – 1:00pm EDT.

Register online to attend: https://go.esri.com/geo-ai-imagery-deep-learning-made-easy

The webinar will cover the following topics:

2020-04-03:

ArcGIS Desktop Azure VMs, Sizing, Cost and Sample Templates:

This video is a follow-up to our previous video demonstrating how to launch an ArcGIS Desktop virtual machine in Azure.

In this video, we discuss in more detail issues of VM sizing, cost estimation, and we provide some convenient Azure Resource Manager templates in a corresponding GitHub repository that you can use to more quickly and easily launch new ArcGIS Desktop VMs: https://github.com/highered-esricanada/azure-templates

2020-03-31:

New and updated tutorials on our higher education resource finder:

  1. New/Updated: Introduction to ArcGIS Pro (tutorial)
  2. New: ArcGIS Urban Setup to Design Urban Futures (tutorial)
  3. New: Designing Urban Futures (ArcGIS Urban | video)
  4. New: Create a COVID-19 Dashboard using ArcGIS Dashboards (ArcGIS Online | tutorial)
  5. Updated: Designing User Interfaces for Geospatial Applications (workshop)

2020-03-27:

How to Launch pre-configured ArcGIS Desktop virtual machines in Azure:

For students and educators looking for a means to access ArcGIS desktop software, and who are unable to install the ArcGIS software on their own PCs (e.g., incompatible hardware, or Mac operating systems), this video will walk you through how to setup a virtual machine image in Azure that is pre-configured with ArcGIS desktop software.


Five new and updated tutorials on our higher education resource finder:

  1. New: Deep Learning in ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS API for Python to conduct Object Detection
  2. Updated: Symbology in ArcGIS Pro (choropleth and dot density mapping included)
  3. Updated: Calculate Fields in ArcGIS Pro
  4. New: Georeferencing in ArcGIS Pro
  5. New: Part 2 – Applying Data Science Tools in ArcGIS Insights: includes scripting in Python and R

2020-03-26:

COVID-19 Esri Educator Support Office Hours

Join the Esri Inc higher education team during a series informal office hours to learn about tools, data, curricular materials, and teaching approaches to teach GIS effectively online.

Scheduled times and connection details for sessions scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays from March 19th to April 21st are posted in GeoNet (for the ADT time zone add 1 hour to EDT times; for NDT add 1.5 hours).

Past session recordings are being added to the GeoNet post following each session.

Free Esri Press E-Books

Esri Press has made an arrangement with VitalSource to make Esri Press e-books available for free to Canadian students through their new VitalSource Helps program.

For students:

For instructors:

2020-03-24:

Esri Canada Blog: How to access Esri technology while working from home

While this article is not education-specific, it has some useful information in it, and includes a helpful video tutorial. Send any questions you have directly to us at highered@esri.ca. Tech Support and Customer Care at Esri Canada are working closely with us to resolve problems as they arise.

2020-03-16:

COVID-19 Educator Support – Enabling Remote Access to ArcGIS in Higher Education Webinar

This webinar recording presents options for remote access, emphasizing both on-premises virtualization (e.g., Citrix, VMware) and Cloud virtualization (e.g., Amazon Web Services, Azure). Learn from members of the higher-education community with experience supporting ArcGIS in virtual environments.