Room finder one in a million

The University of Calgary’s online interactive room finder reached one million page views earlier this summer. This monumental goal speaks to the achievements of the success of collaboration between faculties and departments on campus.

“The university room finder has had enormous use and has been used in ways that we never initially thought would happen,” says Tom McCaffrey, one of the technical designers and currently the director of UCMAPS and records management.

Activated in January 2010, the interactive room finder has helped thousands of students, faculty, and staff navigate their way around the ever changing campus. Currently, it also serves as guidance to university families, community members and a multitude of contractors and service personnel.

Pictured above is the room finder team. Back row: Dan Fitzsimmons (WCM, IT), left, and Tom McCaffrey (GIS, Facilities Development). Front row, from left: Cathy Krajnc (FMIT, Facilities Management), Renna Truong (GIS co-op student), and Deb Huartson (WCM, IT). Missing: Juliano Kersting (Geomatics Engineering).

The initial design was meant to aide as an inventory tool for computer labs. As the concept evolved, Information Technologies (IT) assisted in the development and supply of hardware that allowed the program to be written. Geomatics Engineering supplied technical support from their academic research. Facilities Management and Development provided the up-to-date data on room locations and Web Content Management (WCM) assisted in making the web page accessible for everyone.

As the room finder developed, it not only drew the attention of campus dwellers, it also took first place in the interactive web map category at the GeoAlberta conference in May 2010, and has had several inquiries from other universities and municipalities across North America.

Ongoing development for this program allows rooms to be located on main campus, Foothills campus, Spy Hill campus, Barrier Lake Station and the Rothney Observatory near Priddis. Future plans will soon include the Downtown campus as well.

“This was a simple idea that evolved into an important service for our university,” says McCaffrey. “By having multiple departments work together and produce a service that has impacted so many people, I truly feel like we have made a difference in moving forward to our goal as a top five research university.