Miscellaneous Projects
Enhancing St. Andrews University's Presence on Google Maps
January - March 2023
In response to a request from the Admissions department, I updated our presence on Google Maps. Prior to 2023, the data on campus buildings, offices, and places of interest was limited. It was not clear for prospective students, attendees of campus sporting and cultural events, and other types of visitors where exactly they needed to be on campus. The entire campus used a single address, 1700 Dogwood Mile St., since all campus mail is routed to a single office. While this simplifies sending mail, it makes navigating the campus difficult.
Correcting Google Maps One Problem at a Time
The Problem
Not having much experience with editing Google Maps, I went about by fixing individual buildings by opening Google Maps and right-clicking on incorrect & incomplete locales. Anyone can 'Add a missing place' or 'Report a data problem' (to correct a misnamed road, building, or point of interest). This process, however is tedious and slow!
After some research, I discovered Google Cloud, a developer platform to create maps. This required an extensive knowledge of Google Maps API, which I do not have. Companies like Mappedin are paid services where developers create maps for clients. Having no budget for this project, these were not viable options.