Campus virtual tours are commonly used by the admissions and marketing teams to showcase amenities, features, programs and spaces on campus to online visitors.  Virtual tours were made even more essential during the pandemic when in-person tours were unavailable due to social distancing restrictions. Virtual campus tours come in all shapes and sizes, but a typical tour includes one or more of the following: an illustrated or aerial map, 360° panoramas, video clips, text, photo galleries, descriptive text and links to get more information or contact the school.

And while it is true that individuals with malicious intent could potentially use a tour to plan or navigate during a school shooting, there are ways to present the information for marketing and admission purposes without providing a guide to finding one’s way on campus.

Here are a few strategies we at Circlescapes use to create a security-conscious tour:

1. Create a point of interest tour — Unlike a Google Walking/Street View tour, a point of interest tour only highlights certain spaces on campus — science lab, gymnasium, performing arts center, etc.  In a point of interest tour, these spaces are not connected together, so you can’t see how they relate to one another or discern the school’s interior layout.
2. Choose locations that don’t reveal sensitive information —There are many locations on most campuses that don’t give provide viewers with inside knowledge of the spatial layout.  When deciding which locations to showcase, choose those spaces.  Your photographer can also place the camera in locations that hide the sensitive info.
3. Leave out any “connector” buttons — Many tours, including walking tours, feature arrows that jump you to an adjacent space within the tour. In our world, we call these directional hotspots. We can simply leave these out of the tour.
4. Hide campus map graphics (temporarily) —Most schools have school layouts posted near doorways for fire-safety purposes.  When your photographer is on-site and the school map is visible in the panorama, remove the map while the until the photographer is done photographing that location.
5. Close window blinds —While it’s nice to see out the window, closing the blinds in will help hide where that classroom is on campus.
6. Remove exit signs in Photoshop —For doorways that lead to the outside, we can digitally remove the exit sign, so you cannot tell what doorways are entrances and exits.
7. Constrain the panoramas —We can stop specific panoramas from spinning all the way around, essentially hiding any sensitive information like doorways, hallways and windows
8. Selectively share your tour — You can password protect your tour or put a form in place that requires that user give you information before you allow them access to your tour. This has the added benefit of letting you know who is interested in your school.
9. Use thumbnail image navigation —While a campus map can be differentiating, eye-catching and can communicate all that your campus has to offer in a single graphic or photo, thumbnail images give the user quick access to the panorama they want to view, but don’t reveal anything about the school’s layout.  The image below is an example of thumbnail navigation.

In reality, the odds of school shooting happening at any given school are quite low and most of the perpetrators are connected to the school and already know the layout of the campus. But even one more is too many.

At Circlescapes, we’re ready to help you create a security-conscious tour that also meets your marketing and admission goals.