As students head back to school,
Centennial College has become the latest Ontario campus to get the Google Street View treatment.
Google has been building photo-based maps of cities since 2007 (Toronto first got mapped in 2009), using motorized vehicles with cameras mounted on top. But car-free spaces like university campuses have, until recently, been beyond the purview of Google Street View. With a new fleet of Google trikes—three-wheeled person-power pedal vehicles—Google can now capture the more intricate roads and pathways that make up a city.
Canadian universities are quickly getting on board. Early this week, the trike-captured views of Centennial's flagship Progress Campus, located in Scarborough near Markham Road and Progress Avenue, went live for the first time. The street-view captured campus will not only help orient incoming students and the wider Centennial community, says Mark Toljagic, communications officer with Centennial College. It will also help entice the international students to consider Centennial.
"More than 4,000 Centennial College registrants are international visa students, so the technology will help orient them with the campus before their arrival," says Toljagic.
Centennial is one of the first Ontario post-secondary institutions to get the Google Street View treatment. There are currently nine Ontario campuses mapped using Street View, two of which, Progress campus and University of Toronto Mississauga, are in the GTA.
"We put the first [Canadian] campuses on the map (so-to-speak) earlier this year," says Aaron Brindle, communications manager with Google Canada, "but stay tuned, more are on the way."
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Mark Toljagic, Communications Officer, Centennial College; Aaron Brindle, Communications Manager, Google Canada