At universities worldwide, creating a ‘smart campus’ is gaining significance. This is a response to the increasingly dynamic use of the campus and the pressure on resources: energy, financial and human resources. The university community has become more mobile, student numbers more unpredictable and funding more uncertain. Consequently, campus strategies focus on resource efficiency and sharing space, requiring investment in management information to improve decision making. The Internet of Things (IoT) can help to provide big data about use patterns: by collecting real-time data on space utilization, users can make better use of current spaces and real estate managers can make better decisions about long-term demand. Furthermore, space utilisation data can be complemented with user feedback data and environmental variables, e.g. noise levels, luminance. In this research we identify the capabilities of existing IoT applications through a literature study. Literature also suggests that information from IoT applications is not utilized in organisational decision-making processes. Through four case studies we analyse these decision-making processes and identify the process-level requirements to make strategic decisions in campus management. Then we show how information from the IoT can be directly connected to these processes, thus providing a valuable addition of real-time data as input.

Purpose: – The use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the Netherlands is increasing. Studies show that BIM is mainly used in the lifecycle stages of initiation, development and realisation. Owners and operators are presumably yet to discover the added value of BIM for maintenance and information management within their organisations. The purpose of this paper is to investigate information management during the operations stage from the viewpoint of owners and determines the added value of BIM within this growing field of construction. Design/methodology/approach: – This research is based on a literature review, explorative interviews and process modelling. In total, 21 semi-structured interviews were conducted among public real estate and infrastructure owners and operators, software companies, service providers and contractors. Findings: – This paper provides empirical insights into the sources of inefficiency and ineffectiveness in the activities of Dutch semi-public and public clients. It finds that the current added value of BIM in the operations stage is marginal. The main reasons for this are a lack of alignment between the supply of and demand for information and the context-dependent role of information. Practical implications: – The authors propose a structured approach that supports client organisations in establishing greater alignment between the supply of and demand for information, and a less context-dependent role for information during the operations stage. Originality/value: – In contrast to previous studies, this paper offers a new perspective on BIM in the operations stage, a growing field of interest in practice and science.

User participation is a key element in decision processes concerning the accommodation of dynamic organisations such as schools. This article addresses the discrepancy between the perspectives of the architects and engineers, as the makers of school buildings, and school management, teachers and students, as the users of the buildings, and proposes that productive and efficient participatory design of school buildings requires appropriate information tools. Visual information technology tools, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), already used in interaction between architects, engineers, consultants, etc., are proposed to support school managers, teachers and students in participating in all stages of the life cycle of their school building. The proposed use of BIM is compared to a retrospective analysis of a Dutch school which realised a completely new secondary education building. The article concludes with recommendations to increase the impact of visual information technology tools such as BIM in the design of school buildings in Europe and beyond.

School-based interventions for socially including autistic pupils in mainstream schools were systematically reviewed. Included interventions targeted at least one level of the school environment: the autistic children, the peers, the staff, and/or the physical environment, and assessed autistic pupils’ quantity and/or quality of social participation as outcome measures. Findings from 56 studies showed increased accessibility of school activities to autistic pupils, but the reciprocity and friendship between the autistic pupils and the peers were not necessarily improved. Moreover, limited interventions were available for modifying the physical environment. A more holistic strategy that moves the focus from individual children’s social skills to the larger context surrounding children, should be considered for a better inclusion of autistic children in school routine.

At universities worldwide, the notion of a ‘smart campus’ is becoming increasingly appealing as a response to the multitude of challenges that impact campus development and operation. Smart campus tools are widely used to support students and employees, optimise space use and save energy. Although smart campus tools are supposed to support campus managers in their decision-making processes, the use of the information delivered by smart campus tools and their application in organisational processes has received little attention. In this paper, we focus on the use of dashboards in the connection of IoT information to strategic decision-making processes in the management of university campuses. To this end, we developed a briefing approach for dashboards that expresses the needs of campus management and matches the structure of decision-making processes. In two cases, dashboards based on this approach were use-tested by stakeholders for defining information requirements for IoT applications. The results suggest that users are able to use dashboards for assessing portfolio performance and determining interventions. Through iteration the usability of the dashboard is improved and information requirements are refined, resulting in a brief for a campus management dashboard. The results suggest that the briefing approach can be used to determine IoT information requirements, though further research is required to study indications and contra-indications of the proposed method.