Campus map 2.0: Collaborators welcome

Last November, Campus General Services unveiled an online campus map that, for the first time, let users dive in interactively — giving it usability that was light years ahead of the previous static map.

 

Now, an upgrade includes easier-to-use tools, lots more information and — perhaps most advantageous — the capacity for campus units to adapt the map to their unique needs.

 

Got an event coming up at, say, the Fowler Museum? You can make notes on the map to direct people to the museum, highlight the closest parking lot and even draw a path that shows which way to walk between the two —and then e-mail your annotated map to event participants. The new map's potential is far-reaching, said Jack Tchilingirian, associate director of General Services Information Systems, who leads the map-building team.

 

Leading off the new version are greatly improved search capabilities. Users of the previous map had to know the name of a campus building or point of interest and then select it from a list before being directed to its location. Now, you can search by keyword. You can also point your mouse to a location, click “Identify” and let the map tell you what you’re looking at. Once you find a location, you can add a note — “Meet me here,” for example — and then e-mail the annotated map to others.

 

Each location offers a drill-down menu with details such as a description of the site, driving directions and even “trouble tickets” to report building maintenance problems directly to Facilities Management.

 

The new map also incorporates the surrounding community, making it easier for users to find their way around Westwood and beyond. And Tchilingirian’s team of proud Bruins even added an image gallery and 360-degree views of spots like the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden and the Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden, as well as a bird's-eye view from atop the helipad at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.

 

But the potential for personalizing this resource — opening the door to campuswide collaboration — is the aspect its developers are most excited about.

 

“We want to offer this map as a service,” Tchilingirian said. “We have created a map footprint that others can develop on top of, adding their own layers of information.”

 

Campus map developers and units that use geospatial data can make use of the map’s “mashup” capabilities: Using an API (application programming interface) provided by Tchilingirian’s team, potential users can connect to and add their own data to the campus footprint already in existence. For example, campus restaurants could list their locations, menus and hours of operation.

 

The mapmakers are not new to collaboration: Since the release of the interactive map last year, “we have received hundreds of e-mails, taken all their requests and put them together into this map,” said Louis D’Ambroisio, senior web developer in Facilities Management.

 

“It’s really a community effort,” said David Yamamoto, the hands-on technology expert who built the map. “There’s a lot of creative people out there who come up with great ideas that we’d never think of.”

 

For more information, e-mail Spaceinv@facnet.ucla.edu. Anyone interested can also subscribe to two listservs:

 

• UCLA Campus Map Users Group, a discussion group open to map developers and consumers of geospatial data: e-mail campusmap-usergroup@lists.gs.ucla.edu.

 

• UCLA Campus Map Public Group, a discussion group for members of the general public who would like to receive real-time map updates: campusmap-public@lists.gs.ucla.edu.