All students, faculty, and staff are eligible to create an ArcGIS Online account that is linked to the University of Texas at Austin's ArcGIS Online organizational account. Establishing a UT linked ArcGIS Online account provides access to a variety of useful capabilities that go far beyond what is offered by the free-tier "public" ArcGIS Online accounts that anyone is able to create. Creating an UT linked account will allow you to accomplish the following:
- Store geospatial datasets in the cloud for backup purposes
- Share access to geospatial data that is stored in your account with other ArcGIS Online users
- Publish map services and feature services for your datasets that allow them to be added to interactive web maps
- Use a simple graphical interface to construct custom interactive web maps that you can share with others
Please be aware that the process for creating new UT linked ArcGIS Online accounts was updated in January 2020 and the guide linked to below describes the new standard process for a creating an account. If you already have a UT linked ArcGIS Online account that was created prior to January 2020 you can continue to use your existing account or your can choose to create a new account that is tied to your UT EID credentials. Creating a new account will make managing your login credentials easier since all new accounts are tied to the account user's UT EID credentials but it will require that any existing content from your old account that you still wish to use be downloaded to your computer and then re-uploaded to the new account.
- Open a web browser and navigate to https://arcgis.com. Once on the page, click the Sign In button in the top right of the page.
- On the Sign In page, click the Enterprise login button. Next, enter ut-austin in the text field that appears under the wording "Your ArcGIS organization's URL" (as shown in the screenshot below) and then click the blue Continue button.
- Click the new blue button which appears that should say University of Texas at Austin (see button outlined in green in left screenshot below). At this point you will be automatically redirected from arcgis.com to the standard UT Austin sign in page (see right screenshot below). Enter your UT EID and password (the same credentials you use to sign in to all other UT services) and then click the Sign In button.
- You should now be redirected back to arcgis.com and be successfully logged in to your new UT linked ArcGIS Online account. Your unique account name will be automatically created using the formula "UT EID" + "_ut_austin". Every time you would like to log in to your account you will repeat these same steps.
While a UT linked ArcGIS Online account does provide functionality that can help facilitate research projects you should also be aware of the limitations of utilizing an account that is dependent on your continued affiliation with the university. While you will be able to enjoy the benefits of ArcGIS Online while you are enrolled as a student or employed as a faculty/staff member, once your connection to the university ends due to graduation, leaving for other employment, etc. your account will be deactivated and you will no longer be able to access content that you may have uploaded to it during your time at UT. Consequently, it is your responsibility to ensure that all content (datasets, web maps, etc.) saved in your account that you wish to preserve after leaving UT is downloaded from your account and saved elsewhere
prior to the end of your affiliation with the university. If you also want to ensure that any content you have created with your account remains publicly available or is transferred to a permanent UT ArcGIS Online account please consult the guide at
https://guides.lib.utexas.edu/gis/ut-arcgis-online-content-preservation.
