This section aims to present the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative methods used to gain the experts’ and stakeholders’ perception of implementing Smart Campus applications and the most significant enablers and challenges to its implementation.
5.3. Relative Importance Index (RII) Analysis
The relative importance index is a powerful tool to understand how important a point is relative to the unit of study [
45]. Therefore, the data generated from the ranking survey were analyzed using the Relative Importance Index (RII) in order to determine the importance of each criterion as compared to the maximum importance it can achieve, which can be calculated using the formula below as suggested by Raigor et al. [
45]:
where
w is the total weight given by the respondent from 1 to 5. In addition,
n1 is the number of respondents for “not important at all”;
n2 is the number of respondents for “slightly important”;
n3 is the number of respondents for “moderately important”;
n4 is the number of respondents for “very important”; and
n5 is the number of respondents for “extremely important”.
A denotes the highest weight (5 in this case) and
N represents the number of respondents. To determine the significance of the 25 smart applications in the eight criteria of a Smart Campus framework, the participants of the questionnaire survey were asked to “Rate the importance of each of the following applications” with weights varying from 5 (extremely important) to 1 (not important at all). The Likert scale of 5 included: extremely important; very important; moderately important; slightly important; and not important at all. The results of each of the criteria are illustrated in the figures below.
Figure 10 shows the average score given to the E-card criterion and its importance within different facilities within the university campus, such as its importance for monitoring students’ attendance in a classroom, students’ residential activities, library activities, borrowing, as an E-wallet for processing payments, and for recoding students’ data (e.g., student information, admission, transcript, graduation information, student records, and activities). The results showed that the use of E-cards to record personal data gained the highest scores amongst the respondents, followed by its use for library activities and payments.
These results, therefore, indicate that students are more interested in the use of E-cards to facilitate and speed up services and processes rather than physical mobility and accessibility.
Figure 11 shows the significance of smart classroom applications for a Smart Campus, such as virtual reality (for labs, experiments, site visits, simulations, etc.), remote digital learning (online lectures, visual interviews, cloud storage, online access to all course information and lectures, etc.), interactive cloud sharing platforms (between classmates and professors, between the market and the university, between government and university, etc.) and collaborative research (connectivity and communication with several universities, companies, and governments for research).
The result concludes that the interactive cloud sharing platform is considered as the most important application in comparison to other applications based on the student’s perceptions.
Figure 12 presents the students’ perceptions of the importance of energy management applications for a Smart Campus. The applications include buildings energy management systems (monitoring and automated: heat and air conditioning, lights, and power devices), sustainable energy (solar power, sustainable design buildings, carbon capture storage), smart streetlights, house management systems (for residential end-users usage), and energy trading systems (for electric vehicles inside parking). The results reveal that the students considered sustainable energy (solar power, sustainable design buildings, carbon capture storage) as the most important application, followed by buildings energy management systems, smart streetlights, house management systems, and energy trading systems.
These results, therefore, indicate that the students understand the importance of a sustainable environment and prefer it to the smart management of energy.
Figure 13 illustrates the students’ perception of the three applications in terms of their importance for the Smart Campus. The application includes adaptive learning (customized learning according to market needs and students’ interests, customized learning for students’ weak points), optional supplementary courses in specialized fields (besides the curriculum) and Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) (tailored questions as per exam taker’s needs, questions depend on previous answers for more accurate results, and deep assessment).
The results conclude that students considered adaptive learning (customized learning according to market needs and students’ interests, customized learning for students’ weak-points) as the most important applications followed by optional supplementary courses and Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT).
Similarly,
Figure 14 shows the average score given to the smart transportation criterion and its applications as per their importance within the university campus. The applications include smart parking, fleet tracking of all campus transportation (for logistics, transportation, smart bus shelters, etc.), intelligent signage (for navigation, broadcasting, etc.) and in-campus navigation (smart kiosks, way-finding for offices, room, mobile app, facilities, events, etc.).
The figure illustrates that 51 (35%) participants ranked smart parking as the most important application, followed by 48 (33%) participants that ranked in-campus navigation (smart kiosks, way-finding for offices, room, facilities, events, etc.) as important, 44 (30%) ranked fleet tracking of all campus transportation (for logistics, transportation, smart bus shelters, etc.) as important, and 31 (21%) considered intelligent signage (for navigation, broadcasting, etc.) as important applications. This indicates that, although the participants seemed in favor of all of these applications, they did not show a particular preference towards one application over the other, except for the use of intelligent signage.
Finally,
Figure 15 illustrates the result of the students’ perceptions when they were asked to evaluate applications from three different criteria including security and safety, optimization and analytics data center, and smart facilities services.
The results reveal that the students considered smart safety and security systems (tracking, surveillance, evacuation, etc.) as the most important criteria and applications, followed by optimization and analytics data center (operations, data storage, research center, etc.), smart facilities services (sports fields and centers/libraries/restaurants/student center/activities), and private campus social networks.
Thus, to summaries the results obtained from the questionnaire survey,
Table 12 combines the average scores gathered from the participants in order to produce the Relative Importance Index (RII) values of the eight identified criteria and the 25 associated applications of the Smart Campus. The smart list of the Smart Campus applications was sorted in a descending manner from the highest RII values to the lowest, while the five important levels were transformed from RII values as suggested by [
45]: high (H) (0.8 ≤ RII ≤ 1), high-medium (H-M) (0.6 ≤ RI ≤ 0.8), medium (M) (0.4 ≤ RI ≤ 0.6), medium-low (M-L) (0.2 ≤ RI ≤ 0.4), and low (L) (0 ≤ RI ≤ 0.2).
It can, therefore, be concluded that the highly important applications (RII score above 0.80) from the stakeholders’ perspective include: smart card applications, smart classroom applications, energy management applications, adaptive learning application, and smart security and safety applications. Moreover, the rest of the applications were also above 0.72 RII value and inside the H-M range. This indicates and validates that all the designated criteria and applications are important features of a Smart Campus as previously illustrated in the literature review. In the beginning, it was not expected to have all applications above the high-medium level (above a 0.60 RII value), but the results were extremely aligned with the selected applications and criteria for Smart Campuses. All in all, campus stakeholders’ perceptions are certainly important to validate the smart applications, since they are the targeted people who will deal directly with these features and changes in educational institutes. However, to comply and integrate the concept of a Smart Campus, it is important to initiate:
Deeper, more technical research on each of the designated criteria inside the proposed framework;
Implementation guidelines on each of the smart applications inside the Smart Campus framework;
Cost–benefit analyses on each of the proposed Smart Campus criteria;
The engagement of industry experts to help develop a full understanding of all challenges and limitations;
Further research into decision support tools that aid with decisions regarding which smart application to invest in or not invest in, based on the budget, vision, and current preferences of campus stakeholders.
This study therefore contributes to the body of knowledge in a number of ways. First, by exploring the current state of the art in relation to the utilization and adaptation of Smart Campus applications within educational settings. This led the authors to believe that educational establishments have thus far only utilized limited aspects of the Smart Campus applications and have not utilized the Smart Campus applications to their full potential. Accordingly, and in the absence of a set of well-defined criteria that present a holistic model of a Smart Campus with its embedded applications, this study proposed a framework based on a set of criteria derived from the literature, which underpin the definition of Smart Campuses and their applications. This framework provides researchers and stakeholders with a holistic overview of the definition of a Smart Campus that is currently missing in the literature.
The second contribution that this study makes is through exploring the level of importance of the Smart Campus criteria from the Stakeholders’ perception. These include educators, who would be likely to gain an ultimate benefit from Smart Campus facilities, and students, who would be the ultimate beneficiaries of such facilities. In doing so, the results of this study led the researchers to belief that students’ priorities in relation to Smart Campus facilities are closely related to automated processes that enable the smart handling of data, such as the use of smart E-cards for their importance in monitoring students’ attendance in a classroom, students’ residential activities, library activities, and borrowing, as an E-wallet for processing payments or for recoding students’ data (i.e., student information, admission, transcript, graduation information, student records, and activities, etc.). On the other hand, the educators’ priorities are mainly focused on smart facilities, such as automated access to buildings and smart communication facilities and applications. Such a realization provides stakeholders with an interest in developing a Smart Campus within educational establishments, with an insight into the different end users’ perspectives of Smart Campus applications and their reaped benefits. In doing so, this study therefore lays the path for future studies that will be concerned with stakeholders’ interests in investing in the development of Smart Campuses, and to recognize the most important criteria that are of interest to certain beneficiaries, in addition to the added value that these criteria and their applications can bring in terms of cost versus value. It is therefore within the intended future research of this study to build on the current findings in order to develop decision support tools that will help decision-makers and investors to make sound investment decisions in relation to Smart Campus applications’ value and related costs. This study, therefore, provides a pathway for the integration of smart applications into future Smart Campus development plans.