Open Days
& how to improve your welcome in 7 easy steps
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1. Your location Image left: Falmouth peninsular map
Choosing the place to study is a top priority for nearly 2 million undergraduates annually. Every university is working hard to try and maintain a good intake of students, by making degree courses more relevant to a changing workplace and responding to business needs. Making your university attractive to students from web page to campus is becoming more rigorous as student’s expectations rise with the cost of their course.
Under-graduates are carefully selecting their place of study not only on the course available, but on a variety of factors including accommodation, library services as well as how friendly and welcoming they feel when they visit their chosen university. How can you make your new students feel welcome? Being prepared for Open Days requires a huge amount of effort and planning from across the university departments.
Planning for a new influx of people arriving on-site is much easier when using up-to-date maps.
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2. Your campus & your nearest town Promoting each campus and their transport options is essential when planning a successful Open Day.
Image above: Falmouth campus town map
Image left: Penryn campus town map
Remember that most visitors whether students or parents will usually have to book accommodation as well as their Open Day visit. They will need to consider local travel options by bus or train. New students may need extra support while on their college tour. It is worth considering whether you have hearing loops installed or mobility scooters and people trained
to assist when necessary. Do you have maps which show where your campus is located in relation to the nearest town? Online maps may be unclear about where your university campus is, as most universities grow, build up over time and buildings can be spread throughout the town. By using bespoke, custommade maps, we can help you make sure the information available to new visitors is up-to-date.
Fresh maps ensure your visitors can navigate between campuses, so they know where they are going, to which campus, at which time.
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3. Your campus - mobile app
Image above: Student representatives
Image left: Intergrated mobile maps into your Open Day app
Open Days should be fun, but can be quite stressful for overseas students.
course lecture by asking them to register their interest online.
For students from overseas, being prepared as much as possible before the Open Day is essential as well as making the most of their visit.
Students preferences can then be automatically updated in an app, providing alerts, any changes to the programme as well as being useful on the day as a mobile map.
Ensure that your overseas visitors don’t miss their
Never lose your overseas students again!
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4. Your campus - academic map For new students and their parents, being on campus can be hugely disorientating with information packs clustered in tightly gripped hands.
Image above: Falmouth campus academic map
Image left: Penryn campus academic map
Clear, concise maps which show which building their courses will be in, is invaluable. Remember that not every student will be making their way past reception on their first visit, so maps need to anticipate the most popular directions
visitors will be coming from and where they need to go to register. Maps should relate to the built environment and imitate the way finding provided on the ground. Signposts should be upto-date and temporary signage should be as visible as possible, especially in a crowd. If you have people directing visitors, even better!
A map for each representative will ensure smooth spoken directions and provide visual reassurance to your visitors that they are going in the correct direction. Each print run has had to be extended due to the popularity of these maps.
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5. Your campus - facilities map Making sure that the human needs of your visitors is met, is equally important as knowing where the study rooms are.
Image above: Falmouth academic map
Image left: Penryn academic map
Every Open Day should be ensuring the comfort of each visitor. By reassuring your new students and their parents that eating, sleeping and toilet facilities are available within easy reach, means that everyone can enjoy the most of what your university has to offer.
Falmouth University specifically asked Clear Mapping Co to make sure that their maps were as accessible as possible for future students. We did an extensive audit for Falmouth University’s Accessibility Statement creating accurate maps, written descriptions about each campus and a photo story describing in detail the way into each building.
The maps have been tested for different types of colour blindness as well as reproduction in black and white. The maps are provided as PDFs so that the text can be picked up by digital translators when online or downloaded to the user’s device. We’ve made sure that Falmouth University maps are inclusive as standard.
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6. Your campus - accessibility statement When making plans about making your campus accessible, consider the many different types of people who may come to visit, whether they are students, parents, visiting lecturers or staff members.
Images left and above: Student and her parents with student representative
Making your campus accessible means ensuring that everyone can access the campus safely and with ease. Some disabilities may be temporary like a broken leg. Some disabilities may be ‘invisible’ like lack of hearing. Our aim is not to assume that we
know the best ways to access information for that person, but to take all needs into consideration when providing information such as maps. For Falmouth University, we ensured that accessibility was at the heart of each map. Clear, easy to read maps makes it more legible for everyone. Each map was carefully constructed to make sure that the essential information, such as how to get on and off the campus was distilled into an easily visual form.
With the Equality Act (2010), universities need to meet the needs of people with protected characteristics - including disabled people - against which discrimination is unlawful and can now be enforced.
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7. Your campus - accessibility photo story Image left: Accessible route to professional services building, Falmouth campus
For Falmouth University, we created a photo story to compliment the map which showed how to get into each building in detail, recording ramps, steps and entrance surfaces and door widths. Further details such as
on site; travel and parking restrictions; facilities on site; types of support available and what to do in an emergency. This is the gold standard of providing an accessible campus.
map, it will take the user to the Access Statement, which will in turn take the user to the visual description in the photo story.
descriptions of slopes were in the full Access Statement.
The response from these maps with the ultimate users, the students and their parents, has been phenomenal. We have created an integrated pdf where you can click on the
campus.
The Access Statement describes in detail, in written form, all the visitor needs to know before arriving
This is the gold standard of providing an accessible
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“ I have found working with Clear Mapping Company has been a great experience. The team at Clear Mapping Co are prompt and available for any queries I may have; always making time when necessary.” “ The maps have already proved to be very useful for our Open Days and Interviews, and will continue to be an attractive & informative resource.” Harriet Reed, Falmouth University Clear Mapping Company is an award-winning cartographic design consultancy, we create beautiful maps to improve efficiency in the workplace with an inclusive and sustainable design focus.
+44 (0) 1326 337072 or hello@clearmapping.co.uk www.clearmapping.co.uk
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