[OSM-newbies] Appropriate use of OSM?

[Andy Robinson (blackadder)]

Andrew Harris wrote:
>Sent: 04 February 2008 5:19 AM
>To: newbies at openstreetmap.org
>Subject: [OSM-newbies] Appropriate use of OSM?
>
>Hi, couple of questions:
>
>1) I work at a large University and am compiling all sorts of data to
>create a campus map. It's dawned on me (finally!) that OSM would be a
>perfect tool to create and display a reasonably detailed (building
>level) map of our campus... but is this appropriate? I can't see why
>not, it's publically accesssible and would probably be quite useful to
>our thousands of students and visitors, but maybe there's some
>opinion/precedent here of similar cases.
>
>2) Assuming there are no obstacles to (1), what about tagging?
>If I draw an outline on a building how should I label it and tag it?
>My experiments so far have found the following tags which I think are
>appropriate... eg:
>
>description: University of Melbourne
>name: Law
>building: yes
>amenity : university
>
>but what about these...
>loc_ref or place_numbers for the building number?
>our university has it's own postcode, so I assume postal_code would be
>a handy addition.
>
>Any other tips/ideas/comments?
>Are there other examples of this sort of 'campus' mapping on OSM? - I
>couldn't find any.
>
>Andrew
>
>--
>Andrew Harris
>andrew at woowoowoo.com
>http://www.woowoowoo.com
>

This is exactly the sort of thing that OSM was designed to serve, so go for
it!

As for tagging, you can use what you like. The default renderers use
principally a subset of the Map Features tagging list. If you are rendering
your own then you can add any special and purpose specific tags you like.
Just keep them in the same sort of style that you find on Map Features (eg
human readable and logical) and then everyone else can use them too.

btw, rather than building=yes suggest you use building=something where
something is a better description. Such as refectory, lecture hall,
main_building etc.

I believe one or two other universities have been done around the world so
you might ask on the OSM-talk list to get examples of others.

Look forward to seeing the results.

Cheers

Andy