Since I do a bit of university mapping, I thought I might note a few reasons why you should map your local university, especially since universities provide their own maps.

Support disabled students.

OSM includes tags that help blind and wheelchair bound students get around. Most proprietary maps ignore these users. Institutions that ignore OSM disabled tags or fail to help disabled users through another mapping solution are effectively discriminating against their disabled students through inaction.

Synergize with the community.

Often Universities and the town or cities that surround them have completely different cultures. By improving OSM on campus, outsiders not using a university’s official app can still navigate effectively.

Encourage Student Creativity

Unlike proprietary maps, OpenStreetMap is free for anyone to use. Students may use OpenStreetMap data legally in their projects through the ODbL. Encouraging the use of proprietary maps on campus locks students out of that data, stunting their creativity.

Commitment to Transparency

Any university that wants to commit to open technologies should at least have a well mapped campus on OSM. Having a well mapped campus in Openstreetmap is like having a well written Wikipedia article. An easily accessible and honest source of information for the community can boost a university’s reputation in the free and open source software communities, and elsewhere.