It wasn’t that long ago, and still is considered the norm on some websites, that if you wanted to see a map of a college campus you would download a .pdf copy.  Shortly after, people began saving the maps as image files, either .jpg or ,png.  Don’t get me wrong .pdf’s still have a place because of their great ability to print a clean document.  However now through software like flash and javascript people want more from a map.  They want a full interactive experience.  With these technologies people can actually feel as though they are exploring the buildings and pathways inside a campus.

Turning this old printable (.pdf) map into a vibrant interactive experience is a critical step for colleges and universities in their online marketing efforts.

Power of Map Content Management System

With powerful modern web tools you can make every location on a map come to life.  You can add the history of a historic building, have a student give a guided tour of a location through a video or simply share beautiful and vibrant photos of a particular spot.  We also believe that you shouldn’t need to be a flash or web programming expert in order to unlock these features in a map.  The whole power of content management systems (CMS) for a general website should and could easily be applied to an interactive map.

New software for campus map management should be easy to use, requires no special knowledge and provides lots of powerful features.  A few of these types of features could include:

  • Photos and video can be imported for insertion into your map.
  • Zooming in and out become possibilities.
  • Having a different marker graphic for locations to specify if they are academic buildings or a parking lot.
  • Embedding links to take you to other pages with more information about a location.
  • Easy to update text, pictures and video for locations around the map.

The Benefits of Campus Map Innovations

Interactive maps can save time for all people on and off campus.  Adding realism through actual photographs of buildings and landscape features can be an instant communication. Virtually every college applicant will be able to take a campus tour over his or her computer screen before traveling to the campus. With the cost of traveling in our modern world, virtual exploration of a campus is especially attractive to prospective students!

Users of interactive campus maps are able to explore certain locations through advanced features allowing them to use multiple senses to visualize an experience at a campus. All these benefits for the manager and the users of the map demonstrate leaps forward in technology.  A .pdf of a campus map will always have a place on the web for its easy to print properties, but interactive maps are the present and the future.  Are you ready to move forward to this new frontier?