Smart campus: indicators for the smartization process at universities.

Abstract

Smart campuses transform the university through a range of technological, sustainable, and social actions. This thesis proposes a general framework for Smart Campus and recommends indicators to monitor the smartization process for the Latin American context based on technology, connectivity, and the Sustainable Development Goals pillars (SDGs). The thesis is structured by three papers that used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Firstly, the study performed a Systematic Literature Review based on PRISMA and SPIDER methods to identify the state-of-the-art and propose a smart campus framework, indicating its concept, main theoretical, and empirical perspectives. The second paper validated the previous framework through a Focus Group Method with a Latin American expert panel to create the Latin American school perspective. The third paper applied the framework in a Brazilian University to identify its importance and the priorities to decision-makers toward smartization processes of universities. The research method was an HJ-BIPLOT methodology based on Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). The results have twofold contributions. Theoretically, it consolidated a smart campus concept and model; at the same time, opened the Latin American perspective of smart campuses. Empirically, the thesis provided a tool for academic managers to implement and control the smartization process in universities. Thesis Results also offered an integrative framework for the smart campus based upon the SDGs as an integrated and indivisible universal agenda that seeks to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, environmental, and social. Also, the research provides a Smart Campus Model with eight dimensions and 38 indicators validated by Latin American scholars as a Framework to the field. In the end, this thesis gathered all findings in a management tool such as a monitor of smart campus.