Q: Why doesn’t my department or office appear on the map?
A: The map displays buildings by their physical address, not the multiple offices, departments, schools, institutes, laboratories and colleges inside them. The map is used to find buildings; you can search for and find campus units in Illinois Directory.
While a handful of buildings are linked to a specific campus unit, most campus buildings share classroom, administrative or research space with a multitude of other campus units, making it impossible to link most buildings to a specific campus unit. Imagine, for instance, how long the list would be if every college and department that used Foellinger Hall or Lincoln Hall was listed, or how many times the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences or The Grainger College of Engineering or ACES would appear in the various pop-up windows for individual campus buildings. The sheer number of campus units and the frequency of relocation makes it impossible to track and update manually.
On Sept. 13, 2013, the "schools" point of interest layer was enabled in the Google map API, which allowed the location of departments and schools taken from the data provided by Google MapMaker to appear next to the scholarly cap icon on the base map provided by Google. Strategic Communications and Marketing does not support changes or corrections in location for departments, schools and colleges, as the data is crowdsourced using Google MapMaker. Departments, schools and colleges that wish to indicate or change their locations must do so themselves within the Google MapMaker application.
Q: The building I’m looking for appears in the building index and in search results, and an outline of the building appears on the Google-provided base map, but the building name doesn't appear on the base map.
A: Google uses a mathematical formula to determine what building labels appear at what level of zoom. This is used to make it easier to read the map when there are many buildings clustered closely together. Try zooming in. If the name of the building doesn't appear on the Google-provided base map at the highest level of zoom, please contact StratCom. We'll examine the entry for the building in Google MapMaker and edit it to resolve the issue, if possible. Note that building names always appear in the Web Services-provided layer, and are shown by searching for the building, using the pull-down menu or by clicking on the building.
Q: Why is my building listed by its street address in the building index and in search results?
A: StratCom references Facilities & Services’ building information for facility names and addresses, which lists some buildings solely by the street address. Whenever available, F&S applies the official names approved by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. For smaller facilities outside the University District, or those leased and rented spaces, street addresses are frequently used as a matter of record, as they are often the most appropriate naming convention to maintain data management and reporting consistency. This can be due to units using a facility for a limited time, multiple departments sharing building space or similar space allocation reasons. StratCom, for instance, is located in 507 East Green Street — along with several other units. The steps to name a facility in recognition of a distinguished individual are outlined in the Naming Campus Facilities, Programs, Projects and Existing Units for Distinguished Individuals and Donors policy in the Campus Administrative Manual.
Q: Why does a building appear in the building index of the desktop version, but not in the mobile version?
A: The number of buildings appearing in the pull-down index in the mobile version are reduced to avoid long scroll windows in the mobile version. All buildings still appear in the search results in the mobile version.
Q: I thought this building was an animal research facility and according to campus policy should not appear — why is it on the Google base map?
A: We live in an era of ubiquitous information. Anyone with a GIS-enabled cellphone and a connection to the web can identify buildings and their locations. Via Google MapMaker, everyone now can enter relevant data on Google’s base map. That data is reviewed and edited by others participating in the MapMaker project. StratCom does not identify the buildings in the searchable campus maps index, but the building outlines may appear on the base map provided by Google. Images of individual buildings appear on the aerial photography provided to Google by the Champaign County GIS Consortium or other Google partner organizations.
Q: What criteria is used to determine whether to include a building in the building index and search results?
A: The building must be owned by the university, or be private property leased to the university and occupied by a campus unit. Privately owned buildings may appear on the Google-provided base map, but are not included in the building index or search results.
Q: Why doesn’t a building appear in the search index? It's owned by the university and/or it's private property leased to the university and occupied by a campus unit.
A: Some campus buildings, including utility and telecommunications buildings, some laboratory animal holding facilities and some research facilities do not appear per campus policy. Faculty and staff that have reasons why a building should or should not be viewed by the public should review the campus policy and then contact StratCom.
Q: Something isn’t right on the base map. Why don’t you just call Google and make them change it?
Google handles edits to its base maps much the same way Wikipedia handles edits to its entries — it's crowd-sourced. Individual editors build up a reputation (represented via algorithm) based on how good (or bad) the information is that they provide, and editors and reviewers update the information — that way there's no overhead for Google, but also no customer service whatsoever. Edits to Google’s base map are handled by other Google Map Maker editors and reviewers according to their own time schedule. There’s no way to hurry the process along.
Q: I want to use the campus map in my student project. Where do I request map data?
A: See the forms at the bottom of this page in the Campus Administrative Manual.
Data Sources
StratCom manages data related to building locations and the categories in which they appear. Facilities & Services provides building names/addresses/codes, accessibility information and exterior facility images. Only buildings owned by the university or private facilities where the campus rents or leases office space appear within the building index or in search results. The names of the buildings displayed on the base map are sourced directly from Google.
F&S, in partnership with the Office for Access and Equity, also maintains a dedicated Facility Access Maps website to provide interactive building maps and upgraded wayfinding features for the campus community. The website is designed to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and support any device. The optimized setup includes detailed building floor layouts, interior access routes and parking summaries designed to help improve navigation around the university, especially for persons with disabilities.