Community Maps Program Overview and Update

Donald Cooke
Esri
Redlands, CA, USA

Seth Sarakaitis
Esri
Redlands, CA

The Community Maps program employs VGI (Volunteered Geographic Information) in a unique manner ensuring that the major issue surrounding VGI (are the map data authoritative?) is resolved by employing spatial data from authoritative sources: GIS agencies charged with maintaining data for their jurisdictions.

In its second year of implementation, Community Maps has inspired hundreds of agencies, covering small cities to entire countries, to submit map coverage to a huge image cache, hosted for free in the "Cloud" by Esri. The community maps complement free desktop, web and mobile application templates which cities, states and countries can tailor to their own needs.

This panel will include a quick overview of the program followed by presentations by city, county and state participants narrating their experiences with the program and benefits to their organizations and the citizens they serve.