“This is a huge and fundamental shift. When we start making things intelligent, it’s going to be a major engine for creating new products and new services. Of all the technology trends that are taking place right now, perhaps the biggest one is the Internet of Things; it’s the one that’s going to give us the most disruption as well as the most opportunity over the next five years.”
That’s how Daniel Burrus, a world’s leading technology and innovation expert recently explained in Wired magazine the real meaning of the Internet of Things (IoT)*.
A phenomenon that started not so long ago has become a crucial topic for conversation, observation and analysis amongst technology experts, scientists, tech companies and even academics. There are plenty of signals showing that the IoT is going to change many industries, including higher education.
The possibility of interacting with so many everyday objects connected to the web allows us to access unlimited information from anywhere, anytime, and opens a new horizon of ideas and developments, a vision that is already being considered by academics.
For example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) created an Internet of Things Lab, focused on “learning, research and hands-on experimentation to discover and demonstrate the promise of the Internet of Things.”
“This campus hub serves as an exciting multidisciplinary learning and research ‘sandbox’ as well as a thought-leadership and innovation showcase to explore, experience, and extend cutting-edge technologies and use-cases. We are investigating a variety of emerging devices and technologies (involving smart sensing, pervasive connectivity, virtual interfaces and ubiquitous computing), and their potential applications in consumer, retail, healthcare and industrial contexts,” the University explains on its website.
UWM has also created a video explaining the possible outreach of IoT, and Forbes has called it “the latest trend in higher education.”
What are the next possible applications for the Internet of Things in universities?
According to Zebra Technologies, “as educational organizations begin to leverage solutions like cloud computing and radio frequency identification (RFID) across an IoT platform, they’re able to capture, manage and analyze Big Data. This insight provides stakeholders with a real-time view of students, staff and assets. It is this asset intelligence that enables institutions to make more informed decisions in an effort to improve student learning experiences, operational efficiency, and campus security.”
Zebra also states that “by leveraging asset intelligence, educational organizations stand to see value added in the following areas:”
1. Enhanced Learning Experiences and Outcomes
“With the IoT, institutions can improve educational outcomes by providing richer learning experiences and by gaining real-time, actionable insight into student performance. (…) One connected to the cloud, these e-learning technologies can collect data on student performance, which can then be used to improve lesson plans in future school years.” These are variables that may help in an accreditation process.
2. Improved Operational Efficiency
“In order to succeed at what they do, educational institutions must be able to keep track of students, staff, and resources, all while keeping costs in check. This is possible by leveraging enabling technologies that can easily keep track of people, assets and activities.”
3. Safer Campus Designs
“The IoT’s ability to track objects, students and staff, and to connect devices across campus(es) brings a new level of safety to institutions.”
At the end of the day, IoT brings the possibility of rethink (and improve) the way universities are managed, and even the way they approach their accreditation process.
What other opportunities do you see in campus management through new technologies? I’d like to hear your comments and suggestions. Leave me a comment below.
* The Internet of Things (IoT) has been defined in Recommendation ITU-T Y.2060 (06/2012) as a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting (physical and virtual) things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies.
Other interesting blogs: