Google Maps are a very popular way to get around these days, especially with the increasing popularity of Android-powered devices (primarily smartphones) that can so easily go on the walk/drive/bus/bike with you. But Maps has never been a comprehensive, 100% accurate project, as anyone who has used the service for an extended period of time can tell you. That’s one of the reasons why Google Map Maker was created: to help those with local knowledge make corrections or additions to maps in their area. To help establish this new service, Google is touring campuses around the United States.
The Map Maker team started with UC Berkley, near the famed Mountain View Googleplex. There students were trained on editing Google Maps, and made alterations such as “moving location markers, tracing building boundaries, and adding names of campus dorms” (according to the official Google statements). The project allowed users to see their edits instantly on a large display at the front of the room, demonstrating real-time mapping. Live mapping is a feature in Map Maker that can be accessed by those who want to see the user-built maps, but is only integrated into the core version of Maps once the edits have been approved.
The college tour will help contribute to mapping of the colleges themselves (a weak spot in the Google Maps system) and enlist the aid of the “internet generation” in refining maps of other areas. This entirely practical approach can be added to the more altruistic uses of Map Maker earlier this year, which included educating people in South Sudan on how to create accurate maps of their area to help build a strong infrastructure and effective pathways for emergency response.
Want to contribute? Map Maker can be accessed at this site.
[via the Google LatLong Blog]
