What Smart Campuses Can Teach Us about Smart Cities: User Experiences and Open Data

Abstract

Universities, like cities, have embraced novel technologies and data-based solutions to improve their campuses with ‘smart’ becoming a welcomed concept. Campuses in many ways are small-scale cities. They increasingly seek to address similar challenges and to deliver improved experiences to their users. How can data be used in making this vision a reality? What can we learn from smart campuses that can be scaled up to smart cities? A short research study was conducted over a three-month period at a public university in the United Kingdom, employing stakeholder interviews and user surveys, which aimed to gain insight into these questions. Based on the study, the authors suggest that making data publicly available could bring many benefits to different groups of stakeholders and campus users. These benefits come with risks and challenges, such as data privacy and protection and infrastructure hurdles. However, if these challenges can be overcome, then open data could contribute significantly to improving campuses and user experiences, and potentially set an example for smart cities.

Proposal of an Architecture for the Integration of a Chatbot with Artificial Intelligence in a Smart Campus for the Improvement of Learning

“…The analysis of data through an architecture such as big data can take the data that is generated from the members and when analyzed, it is possible to find outliers and classify them and find a solution through AI algorithms. A smart campus, in addition to the features presented, serves to include new technologies that can be replicated in larger environments such as cities [10].…”

Internet of Things for Smart Spaces: A University Campus Case Study

“…Open data. Universities possess lots of data that could potentially be useful for improving operational management and utility services to please various stakeholders on campus [7,8]. Of course, the benefits of using the data should be analyzed, as well as proper measures should be implemented to achieve privacy and data protection.…”

“…Moreover, University campuses are usually more open for such experiments, as being the centers for professional education and research they have the required multidisciplinary expertise and scientific and development knowledge. In the literature, researchers even refer to campuses as small-scale cities [ 7 , 8 ]. Indeed, some consider that certain aspects can first be studied within campuses and scaled up to smart city use cases, like smart transport, smart building, and smart parking [ 9 ].…”

Application of a Smart City Model to a Traditional University Campus with a Big Data Architecture: A Sustainable Smart Campus

“…A university campus conforms to the previous definition, so having this type of ecosystem is an ideal starting point for this study. The geographical distribution, administration and the number of people who frequent them constitute ideal environments for the demonstration of techniques or processes of a smart campus [4]. However, the question of what a "smart and sustainable campus" is and of what it comprises remains.…”