For students at Northern Illinois University, the time it takes to walk from one class to another is just a mouse click away.
Unveiled in January 2004, NIU’s Campus Web Map shows students where buildings such as NIU’s Student Recreation Center and Founders Memorial Library are located on campus. It also reveals that the buildings are 1,947.17 feet apart and require a seven-minute walk to get from one to the other.
In addition, the map allows users to find bus routes, parking lots, emergency telephones and points of interest. Latitude-longitude coordinates are available for all locations, and users also can search for specific buildings, departments or offices.
Students can download the map from www.webmap.niu.edu for no charge.
After receiving a $900,000 research grant from Intergraph Corp., Phil Young, a research scientist and director of NIU’s Advanced Geospatial Laboratory, collaborated with research associate Rick Schwantes and several students for 11 months on the project.
“We’ve had rave reviews, and Intergraph has made us its case study for this type of technology and information you can push with this type of software,” Young said.
Young also said the university is hoping to connect the Campus Web Map to course registration by late spring. The goal is to have the systems work together in order to warn students if they will not have enough walking time between classes — that is, if it exceeds 10 minutes.
“The university has been very supportive in our work and since our lab works with mapping, it made sense for a public service,” Young said of why he developed the map.
Northwestern’s Web site offers an interactive campus maps of its own, which can search for specific buildings and zoom in and out. But no distances are provided like NIU’s interactive maps.
NU’s Director of Web Communications Staci Roberts said that NIU’s Campus Web Map requires installation, while NU’s is accessible to all computers. Another feature of NU’s online web map is that it is 3-dimensional.
Roberts also said she has not heard any requests from NU students for including estimated walking times. She said she thinks students do not demand the service because NU’s Evanston Campus is small in comparison to NIU’s.
“NIU’s campus has 25,000 students,” Roberts said. “Walking is a huge issue. For us it’s not as huge.”
But some NU students said an estimated time service would be beneficial.
“Having it as a resource would be helpful,” said Judy Lim, Weinberg freshman. “I could see myself using it.”
McCormick junior Joe Chang said he doesn’t need a computer to tell him how long it will take to walk to class.
“(To get) from my dorm to (the Technological Institute) … takes me 15 minutes, even though some claim it only takes them 10,” said Chang, adding that he didn’t even know NU had an interactive online map.
Roberts said she is interested in the features of the NIU map and that adding shuttles to the map could benefit students. She added that the Office of Web Communications would look into getting student feedback before adding any new features online.
