Find your way around 1 Saint Thomas with the Sciences Po app

Launched in January 2020, the Science Po app has continued to evolve over the past semesters. The most recent update, in August 2022, offers students, faculty, staff, as well as the general public a detailed map of what’s inside the new 1 Saint Thomas campus. The interactive map allows users to pinpoint the campus’ points of interest (reception area of a lab or a school, study hall, library, etc.) and to create an itinerary to get there, using a dynamic step-by-step function that guides users from courtyard to upper floors, and from hallway to staircase. 

To provide this service, ICI worked with the Estates Department, the Facilities & Safety Department, and Visioglobe, a service provider that specializes in indoor mapping and orientation. Maps of each floor of every building on the 1 Saint Thomas campus were digitized. The offices and classrooms, as well as the bathrooms, cafeteria, and other useful spaces were identified. Everything was then integrated into the mobile application by Ready Education (formerly Appscho), which has been by Sciences Po’s side since the university started developing mobile services for its communities.

New students looking for their classroom, visitors wishing to attend a conference, invited researchers participating in seminars, employees visiting colleagues for the first time at the 1 Saint Thomas campus can now all benefit from this service, which will guide them from the campus entrance to their final destination. 

What steps were necessary to deploy the digital map of the 1 Saint Thomas campus in the Sciences Po app?

• providing Visioglobe with up-to-date maps of the campus,
• 3D modeling by the service provider,
• identification and naming of points of interest by the Sciences Po teams (Estates Department and ICI), 
• mapping tool training, creation of itineraries from one point to another on campus, including a version of each adapted for people with disabilities, 
• live tests,
• customization of map icons with the help of the Communication Department, and
• integration tests in the mobile application. 

It took four months for the Sciences Po, Visioglobe, and Ready Education (formerly Appscho) teams to accomplish these steps and make the indoor mapping service available for use. Users of the Sciences Po application immediately placed this function among the app’s top three most popular services.

Download the Sciences Po application