Abstract
Interdisciplinary cross-cultural and cross-organizational research offers great opportunities for innovative breakthroughs in the field of smart cities, yet it also presents organizational and knowledge development hurdles. Smart cities must be large towns able to sustain the needs of their citizens while promoting environmental sustainability. Smart cities foment the widespread use of novel information and communication technologies (ICTs); however, experimenting with these technologies in such a large geographical area is unfeasible. Consequently, smart campuses (SCs), which are universities where technological devices and applications create new experiences or services and facilitate operational efficiency, allow experimentation on a smaller scale, the concept of SCs as a testbed for a smart city is gaining momentum in the research community. Nevertheless, while universities acknowledge the academic role of a smart and sustainable approach to higher education, campus life and other student activities remain a mystery, which have never been universally solved. This paper proposes a SC concept to investigate the integration of building information modeling tools with Internet of Things- (IoT)-based wireless sensor networks in the fields of environmental monitoring and emotion detection to provide insights into the level of comfort. Additionally, it explores the ability of universities to contribute to local sustainability projects by sharing knowledge and experience across a multi-disciplinary team. Preliminary results highlight the significance of monitoring workspaces because productivity has been proven to be directly influenced by environment parameters. The comfort-monitoring infrastructure could also be reused to monitor physical parameters from educational premises to increase energy efficiency.
Highlights
A sustainable university is “a higher educational institution that addresses, involves and promotes, on a regional or a global level, the minimization of negative environmental, economic, societal, and health effects generated in the use of their resources in order to fulfill its functions of teaching, research, outreach and partnership, and stewardship in ways to help society make the transition to sustainable lifestyles” [12]
This study explored the structures, processes, and activities related to the smart campuses (SCs) concept, which promotes sustainability from a multicultural and interdisciplinary perspective
The joint efforts provide a broad range of experts and knowledge that will create innovative solutions to complex sustainability challenges, as well as creative opportunities with the hope of helping the planet through concrete and real actions, which should be the backbone on which all degrees base their teaching, research, and learning programs
Summary
Smart cities must be large towns able to sustain their citizens’ incremental needs while promoting environmental sustainability. Our research proposes a radical paradigm shift and the use of IoT technology in monitoring and optimizing comfort in university learning environments, where the frame for analysis and modeling of the comfort parameter holistically covers the internal and external meta-dimensions, as a whole, that characterize the socio-environmental interactions of three strategic stakeholders: teaching and learning community, facility management staff, and energy providers If these dimensions, and their impact on comfort, were defined, quantified, and validated through innovative scientifically-grounded methods, this would drive the conception of a new technology able to transform the current generation of comfort analysis in physical and virtual educational environments. This achievement will endow them with a completely novel functionality to improve their sustainability while helping to understand, design, populate, monitor, and perceive comfortable learning environments
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
