Smart Campus Project
Campus Woudestein
Introduction
In the Smart Campus Project real-life data will be used to make campus Woudestein more livable and sustainable. Part of the project is to experiment with the use of sensors to collect data on air pollution, indoor climate, people flows and heat distribution. In combination with other anonymized data about campus users and existing campus systems, issues relating to use of buildings and facilities, overall sustainability of campus and health & wellbeing will be addressed and tackled.
The project started in February 2022 and will run until the end of 2024. The project is led by the Erasmus Centre for Data Analytics (ECDA) and executed in collaboration with Erasmus Real Estate & Facilities (RE&F), Erasmus Digitalisation & Information Services (EDIS) and the Data Privacy Officers. Partners in the project include YesDelft! and the Municipality of Rotterdam, and several supporting partners such as Leapcraft, Blockbax and Kivi. In addition to the goal of improving our study and working environment and wellbeing of campus users, the project is a learning tool for students, a prototyping platform for RE&F, a tool for research, and a collaboration platform with external parties.
Three key challenges: Wellbeing, sustainability, and mobility
Exploring and experimenting with data-driven solutions for three key challenges will be the core of the project. The three challenges are related to:
- Operational excellence (optimizing the use of spaces and campus facilities, finding available study spaces)
- Wellbeing (how to improve indoor air quality and campus users’ mental health and wellbeing, based on measuring data and taking actions to improve wellbeing)
- Sustainability (monitoring and nudging students’ behavior towards more sustainable behavior, optimization of energy use, changing mobility patterns towards more sustainable alternatives). For this challenge collaboration will take place with the Erasmus Sustainability Hub to stimulate students and staff to come up with ideas.
Approach
The approach of the project consists of five elements:
- Identify and solve real problems that are faced by students and Staff at Erasmus Campus Woudestein in the context of operational excellence, wellbeing and/or sustainability.
- Experiment with new technologies, ways of working and organize POC’s. The campus serves as a testbed for (academic) experiments that aim to contribute to one of the key challenges.
- Learn from the experience. We offer students the opportunity to be part of the project, gain skills, knowledge, and a network. We also actively facilitate learning from other smart campus and smart building initiatives in the Netherlands and beyond.
- Share documented findings with internal and external stakeholders, such as City of Rotterdam and the Dutch community of smart campus initiatives among educational institutes. Specifically, we will use different media and visualization tools to share learnings and facilitate engagement of stakeholders.
- Inspire the community to learn more about how to organize a smart campus by visiting best practices, experimentation and share learnings via immersive technologies in the Erasmus Data Collaboratory.
- Finally, we activate campus users by involving them in the project and providing them with insights they can use to continue and scale up initial pilots after the project.
As part of the project we continuously incorporate key values such as ethics, personal privacy and accountability, to make sure the project aligns with our core Erasmian Values. We will work in an agile approach in continuous improvement by learning from the experiences.
Infrastructure
As part of the project sensors will be placed on several spots over the campus to collect data on air pollution, indoor climate, room usage, heat distribution etc. Next to the sensor data, anonymized data will be collected about campus users. This will create a continuous loop of data collection, analyses, and visualizations, resulting in actions and learning as visualized below.
A series of tangible and digital platforms and dashboards will be set up. These include a 3D model of the campus and an online prototyping environment. Layering data on a 3D model of the campus allows the project to be communicated to the users of the campus and the RE&F team to make simulations of possible changes. It also facilitates evidence-based decision-making about future changes, for example in optimizing the use of facilities, and overall livability. The 3D model will be housed in the Erasmus Data Collaboratory in Polak Building.
A data sandbox environment will be developed to explore how data from different sources can be brought together into one environment for teaching and research purposes.
Several Proof of Concepts will be developed during the project with involvement of external platforms and smart campus solution providers.
A vision for the future Smart Campus
Ultimately, the project should result in a vision for the future Smart Campus, and the associated collaboration agreements and funding. The learning experiences from this project will also be shared with other (university) campuses, the partners and other relevant stakeholder groups.
Bas Boorsma, CDO City of Rotterdam, said “Digitalization is a Force for Good if it contributes to the wellbeing of the citizens in our cities. Given the pandemic experience, public health is top of mind. The Municipality of Rotterdam is therefore both pleased and proud to contribute to the smart campus work Erasmus is executing on, by means of the advanced air quality sensing project we have jointly engaged on.”
Michel Spies, Head of Asset Management a.i. at Real Estate & Facilities said “Collaboration with research and education is for us as critical as it is inspiring. The expectations of a data driven ‘Smart Campus’ will rise in the years to come. We believe we can match these expectations if we collaborate intensively on this subject. Not only within professional services but also with the people for whom we do our work every day. We are looking forward to adding concrete value to our services, our transparency and the sustainable development goals, all in accordance with our Erasmian Values”
For the Smart Campus Project, we’re always open for new input. Do you have an idea how to improve our campus in a data-driven way?
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Organizing, Support & Network Partners
