WATCH ABOVE: Nervous about starting school at NAIT? Now, you can tour the campus ahead of time…. virtually. Emily Mertz explains.
EDMONTON – NAIT (the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) has become the first post-secondary school in Alberta to offer an indoor Google Street View-style campus tour.
It was created through Google Business View, which incorporates interactive, virtual, 360-degree tours of businesses into Google Maps.
Local Google-certified photographer Kyle Giesbrecht was tasked with the job.
“This was the biggest project I have done,” said Giesbrecht.
“The tour itself is over 200 panoramic images which is comprised of over 2,000 individual images. So, capturing that all in one day was quite a task.”
“The most challenging aspect of this project was, because the NAIT campus is so big, it’s not something you can shut down to do all the images. I had to capture all my panoramas with people walking around.”
Twenty-four different areas on Main Campus were photographed, including the South Lobby, food services areas, and student service areas. In fact, NAIT wanted to add some extras, so it added pop-up information cards that people can click on as they virtually explore campus.
“All transit locations around NAIT are available – there’s a filter for that,” said Jeff Mason, NAIT’s web content coordinator. “There’s a filter for food services locations on campus or student services, even parking – where you can park, where you have to pay for parking, where there’s not paid parking.”
The ultimate goal was to help visitors and new students get around campus more easily.
“For the most part, it’s for everyone,” said Mason. “But priority I would say would be prospective or new students who are coming every year.
“It’s a very big campus and very spread out and can be daunting for students who may have just left high school for the first time. That in itself will help boost their confidence on the first day and maybe lower any anxiety or stress they may already be having.”
The interactive view can be found at www.nait.ca/campusview.
“For prospective students who are thinking of attending NAIT, they can check out the campus beforehand and see what it has to offer,” added Giesbrecht, “or possibly new students trying to figure out where their classes are, they can actually navigate the halls before they go.”
NAIT is proud to lead the way when it comes to offering a web-based tour and expects more schools will follow in its footsteps.
“It’s excellent. We’re very excited about it,” said Mason.
“I think it’s inevitable that all schools – in fact all schools and businesses – will follow suit. It makes things so much easier for anyone wanting to visit your location.”
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