College Campus Boundaries

The number of students attending higher education institutions has consistently increased over the past few decades—and the numbers are expected to continue to climb.  And while online education accounts for some of the increases, there is still a growing number of young people attending traditional four-year college and university programs.  Whether students live on campus or not, their lives revolve around primary campus locations and that is why Maponics created College Campus Boundaries.

Maponics College Campus Boundaries ^TM is a geographic dataset that includes the campus footprint for over 1,200 institutions across the Unites States and Canada.  In addition to the boundary outlining primary campus areas, the dataset includes the complete address, telephone number and student enrollment information for each school.

While online and campus maps may show the shaded areas of campuses, College Campus Boundaries is the first GIS dataset of its kind and can be used to support a set of unique use cases, as described below.

Dataset Use Cases

With College Campus Boundaries, companies offering mobile apps can provide location-based services (LBS) that are “campus-aware”—meaning that they “know” when users are on or off campus. In this scenario, mobile apps on users’ GPS-enabled devices use campus boundaries as geofences to determine if they are within a campus boundary and even when they cross one. 

Social life is clearly one of the most important aspects of the college experience—not surprisingly, social networking started on college campuses.  More and more, students rely on social media to connect and stay in touch with friends.  Imagine offering enhanced location-aware services that enable college students to:

• automatically change their on/off campus status
• share their general location while protecting their exact location
• play games related to on and off-campus check-ins

Student populations represent important markets for companies looking to reach young trend-setters.  Campus boundaries can be used in conjunction with location-based advertising campaigns to target users within key campus areas.      

Student housing is an important segment within the residential real estate market.  With definitive boundaries defining the extent of main campus areas, student housing can be presented on maps with clear and accurate indication of ‘on’ versus ‘off’ campus status.

Product Offerings

College Campus Boundaries is available as a stand-alone product but can also be used alongside other Maponics products that define where people live, work and play.  Taken together, Maponics product line offers a geographic data stack that includes vast coverage of social and administrative spaces that offer unique map views, provide location context, improve search results and ultimately, enhance the web and mobile user experience.