The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh virtual campus map has been updated and redesigned to accommodate the growing needs of students, families, visitors, faculty and staff. The new, mobile-friendly map was released December 2017 in advance of the spring 2018 semester.

The initiative was developed by Sara Mayhew, a fourth-year student from Watertown majoring in English with a minor in computer science. The new virtual campus map boasts a rejuvenated look, accessible menu/search functions and improved 360-degree panorama tours.

“The original virtual (campus map) was created in 2012,” Mayhew said. “We wanted to freshen it up and make it look more like other websites today.”

The modernized interface, menu and search feature function very similarly to Google maps and the 360-degree panorama tour was developed using Google’s Virtual Reality tools. The chief goal of the project was to make the map usable on mobile devices.

“I think my favorite improvement is the new panorama tour, even though it was pretty difficult to implement,” Mayhew said.

She has been employed by the Management Information Office (MIO) since her first year at UW Oshkosh and began working as an MIO programmer in May 2017. The UWO virtual map was her first project to undertake as a programmer.

Although Mayhew was the project-lead for the virtual map, she has acknowledged a number of students and staff members who offered help and support during the eight-month development. Her supervisors, coworkers and other key campus collaborators were available to provide knowledge and expertise throughout the process.

The previous virtual campus map was used more than 24,000 times in 2017. Over 2,000 of those uses occurred during the first week of the fall semester. In that week alone, the map ranked 21st for most traffic among all UWO pages.