Alumni Access

Access to DePaul’s ArcGIS Online organization is tied to active enrollment or employment. When you graduate or leave university, Information Services removes your account from the group that authorizes ArcGIS, and sign-in stops working. This happens automatically on a timeline determined by IS. The Department of Geography and GIS does not control the timing, is not notified, and cannot restore access to a deactivated account.

DePaul’s Esri Education Agreement does not cover alumni use.

Not with your DePaul license. ArcGIS Pro is licensed through your DePaul ArcGIS Online account, which you sign in to with your BlueKey credentials. When your DePaul affiliation ends, that account is deactivated and ArcGIS Pro will no longer license through DePaul. Access to the DePaul Virtual Lab ends at the same time.

Projects and data saved on your own computer stay there. Before you graduate, make sure anything you need is saved locally, not only in ArcGIS Online. To keep using ArcGIS Pro, you will need your own license from Esri, such as ArcGIS for Personal Use. QGIS is a free alternative that can open most common GIS data formats, including file geodatabases.

Your content is not deleted at that point. Your account is deactivated and your maps, layers, apps, and StoryMaps remain stored.

Anything you shared publicly stays publicly viewable. Anything shared privately or with a group only becomes unreachable, including to you.

Content is kept for about 180 days after the end of the term your affiliation with DePaul ends, then permanently deleted. That retention period is set by the department and may change. Deletion cannot be undone, and any ArcGIS Online content embedded in a website, linked in a publication, or cited in a thesis will stop working. 
 

We recommend the following steps to ensure you continue to have access to the portfolio of ArcGIS Online work you created while at DePaul: 

• Set up a destination account: The quickest option is a free ArcGIS Public Account. Go to arcgis.com, click Sign In, then Create an account, and choose Create an ArcGIS Public Account. Use a personal email address rather than your DePaul one, or sign up with a Google, GitHub, Facebook, or Apple login. Public accounts are for non-commercial use, come with limited storage, and cannot host feature layers, so a StoryMap that depends on hosted data will not work there. If your work relies on hosted layers, ArcGIS for Personal Use is a paid annual option that supports them. Esri changed what that license includes in 2026, so check current terms and pricing with Esri before you decide.
• Content: Copy your content to that account before your access ends.
• Data: Download your source data to your own storage.
• Keep a record of any StoryMap:  Screenshots, PDFS, or a screen recording preserve how the story reads even if the underlying layers are gone.
• Transfer shared work: If people at DePaul depend on something you own, transfer ownership to an active DePaul account before you leave. This is the only transfer Esri officially supports.

Remember, moving your work is your responsibility and must be done while your account still works and you are an active student at DePaul.
 

Esri does not support transferring content between organizations. Ownership can only be reassigned between accounts inside the same organization. Every method of moving content across an organizational boundary is a community-built workaround rather than an Esri tool, and these can copy a project incompletely or fail partway through. See more at: ArcGIS Assistant.

The department can advise on migration while your account is still active. It cannot perform migrations on your behalf, and it cannot reinstate access once your affiliation has ended.
 

Email gis@depaul.edu before your final term ends. Once access is gone, the options available to us are limited.