The goals of this lab were to use skills we've learned throughout class, such as mapping a variable by using symbology and queries as well as joining and relating tables, and learning new skills. These new skills included: downloading and importing online data from the US Census Bureau into ArcMap and building a web map.
Throughout the lab, I struggled quite a bit with importing the data from the US Census Bureau into ArcMap and creating the web map. When I was attempting to download the data from online, I ended up clicking on the link to open up the table view and download from there...
This was incorrect, however. Instead, I needed to download the .zip file from the search result page...
In addition, I learned how to troubleshoot publishing a web map. With the help of Christina and Martin, I was able to learn what things to look for if a map isn't publishing correctly, and how to fix those things. For example, I kept getting an error message saying that the system had trouble consolidating the data when I tried to publish my map to the web. After recognizing the data wasn't matching up correctly by means of removing one of the data frames from my original map, it was a simple fix. All I had to do was add the original shape file to the map and re-symbolize the population variable.
After publishing my web map, I felt as though the results were a good looking, professional map. Having data from the US Census Bureau might be a little more accurate and up-to-date compared to the data in our mgisdata folder.
The source I used for my web map is the US Census Bureau.
