On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 1:31 PM, Marco Boeringa <[email protected]> wrote: > Yes, I agree "school" is a pretty loose term used from anything ranging from > kindergarten to primary to secondary school / high school / college. > > However, "college" and "university" aren't. College, as Vao Matua also > pointed out, usually refers to secondary school / high school age education, > where the buildings do have additional (lab) facilities for science > teaching, where a primary school usually wouldn't. > > I am fully aware many secondary schools / high schools are currently simply > tagged "building=school". Ideally though, if there is a proper reference to > "building=college" as well, I think many of these may in the long run be > retagged to this more appropriate tag, if it clearly explains referencing > secondary / high school education.
And, although I'm well aware that UK English is the standard for OSM tagging, this tag will continue to cause confusion on this side of the Atlantic indefinitely. Americans use 'college' and 'university' as synonyms; you never hear 'college' used in American English for anything but a post-secondary institution. (This is an artifact of history: early on, most of the institutions that became our universities were indeed colleges. They grew to take on the post-secondary and research roles, and eventually ceded secondary education.) There's a weak correlation in that institutions with 'college' in their name usually do not grant anything beyond a four-year degree, while 'universities' have graduate programs, but that's very weak. A good many older universities retain the name 'college' despite having extensive postgraduate programs, while even some 'community colleges' (2-year institutions) presume to take on the 'university' label. The tag is confusing even in the UK, where (as in the US), 'college' can refer also to a subdivision of a university. Moreover, in the UK, a 'college' in the university setting is often housed in a cluster of buildings that offer residential accommodation and food service as well as teaching and laboratories. It's a difficult term. I'd much prefer something like 'landuse=education education=secondary'. We can dispute the precise tagging, but 'college' is just too overloaded. _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
