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Ohio State Goes Live With Real-Time GIS Maps Website

  • 06/10/15

COLUMBUS, OH – The Ohio State University (OSU) has gone live with its GIS Maps 1.0, a live Geographic Information System (GIS) map of the historic Columbus campus.

The public website at gismaps.osu.edu, developed by Woolpert, offers up-to-date information on the location of campus buses and routes, car2go vehicles and currently available parking spaces, as well as energy consumption by building.

The site also highlights static student amenities, such as building locations, blue emergency phones, bike racks, landscape data, handicapped parking and city bus routes.

For OSU employees with a user ID, the site provides further GIS information: utility line locations, road pavement conditions, building assessment data and building floor plans with associated space data.

Larisa Kruger, OSU GIS manager, says the 145-year-old public university had only disconnected datasets and localized desktop GIS prior to 2014.

Woolpert was hired to integrate the university’s myriad systems and existing tools and data, and make them obtainable by public and private users in both website and web application formats. Woolpert a national architecture, engineering and geospatial firm headquartered in Dayton, OH.

“GIS Maps 1.0 brings information that had been available but was difficult to access, and puts in in one place that's easy to get to,” says John Przybyla, Woolpert project manager. “GIS is not just designed to make maps; it’s a platform to bring together information from multiple locations into one easy, user-friendly environment.”

Joe Porostosky, OSU’s director of facilities information and technology services, lauds Woolpert’s ability to produce a high-quality product in a “very short and somewhat unreasonable time frame.”

Woolpert built the end-user application, implementing Esri’s ArcGIS software, in approximately four months.

“Our broad understanding of the technology needs of the university and needs of end users helped expedite the process,” Przybyla said. “Our work in higher education settings as a firm, our ability to leverage existing data and existing integration capabilities, and the fact that we have the technology to merge them into one was crucial in executing this project accurately and efficiently.”

The Ohio State University has more than 1,300 buildings across its six campuses, and had a total enrollment of nearly 65,000 students in the fall of 2014.

About Woolpert
Woolpert provides professional architecture, engineering and geospatial services to clients in public and private sectors. Founded in 1911, and with more than 600 professionals in 25 offices located throughout the U.S., Woolpert’s collaborative and multidisciplinary approach is driven by great people, great clients and great projects. For more information on Woolpert, visit woolpert.com. Woolpert Labs is a cross-functional group of industry leaders who are focused on discovering new uses for geospatial technology and practices to continue fueling advances in the industry. For more information, visit woolpertlabs.com.

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