Campus Maps of the Big Ten Universities - Part Two

Part two of our look at the Universities of the Big Ten Conference. But not the football. Nope; that's boring. We're looking at their online campus maps and how the OpenStreetMap community is progressing in their area as well. Part one covered Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan,
Michigan State and Minnesota.

Now we look at the remaining five schools of the Big Ten.

Northwestern University

Ohio State University

Pennsylvania State University

Purdue University

University of Wisconsin

Northwestern University Wildcats

The Northwestern University map is both as attractive and as useless as $simile[inoffensive]. The oblique angle drawing must sell well in the campus bookstore but is horrible for navigating the campus. While the map claims to be interactive and will "click the map to zoom in" the zoom only shows the same facade-focused obstructed view of the campus. A third click the provides the same building drawing but with a red circle around it, and then a photograph of the front facade of the building. This approach to campus maps is frame-breaking and brain breaking.
OpenStreetMap activity around the Northwestern campus is non-existent but still better than the campus maps.

• Wildcats -1/10
• OSM Wildcats 0/10

Ohio State University Buckeyes

Oh dear, OSU. You really need OpenStreetMap to get you out of this mess. The Ohio State University map page makes the same mistakes found at Northwestern University. Way to buy your essay from the bottom of the class OSU. The oblique angle is still useless for navigation, the street names, where they exist are tiny and in a recessive blue. And the new buildings were drawn by a different artist with Dali's fun perspective games. They must have realized that their maps was in trouble because they include an alternate map page with a Google widget. Michigan State did this better than OSU because Michigan State included their own images for the campus. OSU just locates their points of interest with Google stickpins. Ohio State even provides historic campus maps that are better than the one they use here. OpenStreetMap activity on the OSU campus includes the stadium which isn't much but means that OSU still beats Michigan.

• Buckeyes 0/10
• OSM Buckeyes 1/10

Pennsylvania State University Nittany Lions

Penn State gets their map almost half-right. They can dynamically add / remove point of interest like the bus routes shown in the screen shot. The map widget scales with browser size. Both of those are good. Sadly, zoom is disabled so on a small screen you get the whole map and no hope for legibility. No OSM activity near Penn State as far as I can see.

• Nittany Lions 4/10
• OSM Nittany Lions 1/10

Purdue University Boilermakers

The Purdue University map avoids big mistakes. They use a fixed size Google widget and have added their building outlines and information to the map. The map is missing what Google misses, footpaths. No OpenSteetMap activity at Purdue yet.

• Boilermakers 6/10
• OSM Boilermakers 0/10

University of Wisconsin Badgers

The map at the University of Wisconsin has a lot to love. The cartography is beautiful. Hill and water shading that pops out of the monitor at you. Hover tips that offer the name of buildings or areas. Click a building for street address and departments. They even include pedestrian trails on the map. It can give you a permalink. Wonderful. Why only a 9/10? It needs to be Open Source. Lovely in every other way. OpenStreetMap should aim for this goal. There is a little bit of OSM activity at University of Wisconsin including some paths, medical facilities and building outlines.

• Badgers 9/10
• OSM Badgers 2/10

... yes. There are eleven universities in the "Big Ten".

Next: A top-notch OSM campus map!