Have you ever arrived at a destination on campus, only to have to circle around to find the accessible entrance? And once you find the right entrance, would you not want to share your discovery with others? Although the campus has a long history of accessible construction, finding a fully accessible path can still be a challenge. Up to now this has largely been a process of individual trial and error.
UCLA’s OIT (Disabilities and Computing Program + GIS Research Group) proposes to build a crowd-sourced campus map that will empower people with disabilities to share and access relevant information that will aid them in getting in and around campus. The Zig Map is a spatial data bank of critical information markers – locationally tagged resources that will include not only simple tags, but also detailed descriptions about them. The project intends to provide the general public with locational data on ramps, entrances, stairs, routes and hazards. It will also allow the community to add their own markers with useful tidbits that help the disability community “zig” around campus with greater ease.
If funding permits, the project would like to hire students to help seed the Zig Map with the more static elements of the campus infrastructure: locations of ramps, accessible entrances, disability parking spots, etc. Ideally, the project will hire students with disabilities, in order to tap into their awareness on what needs to be collected. Given the sheer size of the campus and the array of buildings to collect data for, we anticipate the need to hire many students over a considerable amount of time.