scholarly journals An Investigation into Stakeholders’ Perception of Smart Campus Criteria: The American University of Sharjah as a Case Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vian Ahmed ◽  
Karam Abu Alnaaj ◽  
Sara Saboor
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
American University ◽  
Smart Campus

In recent times, smart cities and sustainable development have drawn significant research attention. Among developed and developing countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been at the forefront in becoming an incubator for smart cities; in particular, it has placed some efforts in the education sector by transforming the traditional campus into a Smart Campus. As the term Smart Campus attracts professionals and academics from multiple disciplines, and the technology keeps intervening in every aspect of life, it becomes inevitable for the Smart Campus to take place and deploy the future vision of smart cities. As a first step to achieve this vision, it is very important to develop a clear understanding of what is a Smart Campus. To date, there is still no clear perception of what a Smart Campus would look like, or what are the main components that can form a Smart Campus. Therefore, the objective of this research is to use the set of comprehensive criteria to identify what it is perceived to be a Smart Campus and evaluate these criteria from the stakeholders’ perception. The main criteria are defined from the literature review, and a case study is conducted on the American University of Sharjah campus stakeholders (faculty, students, management, and Information Technology (IT)) to assess the designated criteria. This exploratory research relies on both qualitative and quantitative methods to perform the analysis, taking into consideration the perceptions of students, faculty, and IT service providers. Finally, having defined and evaluated the criteria that underpin the Smart Campus framework, a set of recommendations are drawn to guide the utilization of a Smart Campus within higher education settings. This research opens the doors for future studies to gain a deeper insight into the type of decisions that need to be made to transform a traditional campus to a Smart Campus.

Lighting Up the Bulb’s Station

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adeeb Nami ◽  
Virginia Bodolica ◽  
Martin Spraggon
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
American University ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Predisposing Conditions ◽  
The Way

This case study follows the entrepreneurial journey initiated by a group of undergraduate students in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and examines the decisions made and lessons learned along the way. Uncovering the intricacies of the process of business ideation, the case analyses the predisposing conditions that led to the establishment of the Bulb’s Station—a vending booth offering exclusively homemade food. A particular emphasis is placed on analysing the two major experiences that the partners had running the booth, namely, at the 2016 AUS Global Day and the 2016 UAE National Day Celebration at the American University of Sharjah (AUS). By providing detailed information regarding the type, variety, quantity and pricing of dishes on the menu, the reader is brought to estimate the extent to which the booth’s operation was successful at each of the two events. Based on prior challenges and shortcomings in adopted strategies, the partners are now confronted with the critical question of whether to turn the Bulb’s Station into a start-up company in the food industry in the UAE.

Urban Regeneration Case Study of the Old Town of Ras Al Khaimah

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Seif
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Urban Regeneration ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Gulf Region ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
American University ◽  
Policy Paper ◽  
Historical Sites

"As with many historical sites in the Gulf region, urban regeneration of the Old Town District of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates (UAE) presents a challenge in maintaining the balance between preservation and refurbishment. This policy paper aims to highlight and convey the significance of the Old Town District as a historical and cultural site to policy makers in the emirate. In doing so, it outlines the District’s potential for becoming an agent for the development of RAK through an urban regeneration project. The paper begins with a brief historical overview of RAK and the urban development of the Old Town District. It then goes on to discuss the opportunities offered by the area. A description of the District’s building materials and urban morphology is also discussed. The paper concludes with a list of recommendations for the urban regeneration of Old Town. The author conducted fieldwork and collected data for this paper between 2009 and 2011 as part of two courses for her bachelors and masters degrees at the American University of Sharjah."

Engineering students and faculty perceptions of academic dishonesty

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 378-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sami W. Tabsh ◽  
Akmal S. Abdelfatah ◽  
Hany A. El Kadi
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Academic Dishonesty ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Faculty Perceptions ◽  
Academic Misconduct ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Content Type ◽  
American University ◽  
College Of Engineering

Purpose This paper aims to survey students and faculty from the College of Engineering at an American university in the United Arab Emirates about their perception on different issues related to academic dishonesty. Opinions were sought on plagiarism, inappropriate collaboration, cheating on exams, copyright violations and complicity in academic dishonesty. Reasons for students to commit dishonest acts and ways to reduce academic misconduct were also included. Design/methodology/approach A survey involving 11 questions with multiple choice answers was developed and distributed to engineering students and faculty at the institution to get their perception of the considered issues. Findings Results of the study showed that while faculty and students were generally in agreement in their perception of the frequency of academic dishonesty among students, they greatly differed on the courses of action needed to reduce them. Most faculty members favored applying tougher penalties and using more proctors in exams. On the other hand, students preferred softer approaches such as educating them on academic integrity issues, applying lenient deadlines for assignments and reducing the difficulty of exams. Research limitations/implications The conclusions and recommendations of the study are applicable to colleges of higher education having similar characteristics and culture to the surveyed institution. Practical implications The findings can be used to understand students’ behavior and faculty’s attitude toward academic dishonesty, and to assess the effectiveness of current strategies addressing the issue at similar universities in the region. Originality/value The conducted literature review indicated that this work is believed to be a pioneering case study in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

scholarly journals Geospatial Multicriteria Analysis for Earthquake Risk Assessment: Case Study of Fujairah City in the UAE

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
Diena Al-Dogom ◽  
Rami Al-Ruzouq ◽  
Bahareh Kalantar ◽  
Karen Schuckman ◽  
Saeed Al-Mansoori ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Multicriteria Analysis ◽  
Earthquake Risk ◽  
Support Vector ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
Earthquake Risk Assessment ◽  
Very High

A clear understanding of the spatial distribution of earthquake events facilitates the prediction of seismicity and vulnerability among researchers in the social, physical, environmental, and demographic aspects. Generally, there are few studies on seismic risk assessment in United Arab Emirates (UAE) within the geographic information system (GIS) platform. Former researches and recent news events have demonstrated that the eastern part of the country experiences jolts of 3-5 magnitude, specifically near Fujairah city and surrounding towns. This study builds on previous research on the seismic hazard that extracted the eastern part of the UAE as the most hazard-prone zone. Therefore, this study develops an integrated analytical hierarchical process (AHP) and machine learning (ML) for risk mapping considering eight geospatial parameters—distance from shoreline, schools, hospitals, roads, residences, streams, confined area, and confined area slope. Experts’ opinions and literature reviews were the basis of the AHP ranking and weighting system. To validate the AHP system, support vector machine (SVM), decision tree (DT), and random forest (RF) classifiers were applied to the datasets. The datasets were split into 60 : 40 ratio for training and testing. Results show that SVM has the highest accuracy of 79.6% compared to DT and RF with a “predicted high” precision of 87.5% attained from the model. Risk maps from both AHP and ML approaches were developed and compared. Risk analysis was categorised into 5 classes “very high,” “high,” “moderate,” “low,” and “very low.” Both approaches modelled relatable spatial patterns as risk-prone zones. AHP approach concluded 3.6% as “very high” risk zone, whereas only 0.3% of total area was identified from ML. The total area for the “very high” (20 km2) and “high” (114 km2) risk was estimated from ML approach.

scholarly journals Big data-oriented energy prosumption service in smart community districts: a multi-case study perspective

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bokolo Anthony ◽  
Sobah Abbas Petersen ◽  
Dirk Ahlers ◽  
John Krogstie ◽  
Klaus Livik
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Streaming Data ◽  
Continuous Growth ◽  
Energy Data ◽  
Utility Grid ◽  
Smart Community

AbstractThe smart grid achieves bidirectional information and energy flow between energy consumer and utility grid, aiding energy users not only to utilize energy, but also to produce, sell, and share energy with other consumers or with the utility grid. This type of energy user is referred to as the “prosumer”. Thus, prosumer management structures are important within energy market. However, prior studies on energy sustainability has paid little attention on prosumer involvement and management. Likewise, the continuous growth of cities has increased data processing complexity. Consequently, processing and analysis of historical, online, and real-time streaming data from energy sensors and metering devices has become a major issue in smart cities. Therefore, this research aims to present an architecture based on big data to improve energy prosumption in smart community districts by applying enterprise architecture approach grounded on The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF). Accordingly, qualitative methodology is adopted to collect data by employing case study by focus group interview from two energy companies in Norway to preliminarily validate the architecture. Findings from the case studies was demonstrated in ArchiMate modeling language to evaluate the applicability of the architecture. Moreover, findings from this study provides practical scenario that energy service providers can refer to in designing their own energy data platforms. Essentially, the architecture can be utilized as a guide to help municipalities and policy makers in creating approach for energy data analytics in smart community districts towards making decisions for future energy prosumption planning.

scholarly journals Educational Mechatronics and Internet of Things: A Case Study on Dynamic Systems Using MEIoT Weather Station

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Miriam A. Carlos-Mancilla ◽  
Luis F. Luque-Vega ◽  
Héctor A. Guerrero-Osuna ◽  
Gerardo Ornelas-Vargas ◽  
Yehoshua Aguilar-Molina ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Smart Cities ◽  
Graphic User Interface ◽  
Weather Station ◽  
Intelligent Environments ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Weather Variables ◽  
Open Platform ◽  
Smart Campus ◽  
Iot Devices

This paper presents the design and development of an IoT device, called MEIoT weather station, which combines the Educational Mechatronics and IoT to develop the required knowledge and skills for Industry 4.0. MEIoT weather station connects to the internet, measures eight weather variables, and upload the sensed data to the cloud. The MEIoT weather station is the first device working with the IoT architecture of the National Digital Observatory of Intelligent Environments. In addition, an IoT open platform, GUI-MEIoT, serves as a graphic user interface. GUI-MEIoT is used to visualize the real-time data of the weather variables, it also shows the historical data collected, and allows to export them to a csv file. Finally, an OBNiSE architecture application to Engineering Education is presented with a dynamic system case of study that includes the instructional design carried out within the Educational Mechatronics Conceptual Framework (EMCF) to show the relevance of this proposal. This work main contribution to the state of art is the design and integration of the OBNiSE architecture within the EMCF offering the possibility to add more IoT devices for several smart domains such as smart campus, smart cities, smart people and smart industries.

scholarly journals Tendencies of Technologies and Platforms in Smart Cities: A State-of-the-Art Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Chamoso ◽  
Alfonso González-Briones ◽  
Sara Rodríguez ◽  
Juan M. Corchado
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Smart Systems ◽  
Definition Of

Technology is starting to play a key role in cities’ urban sustainability plans. This is because new technologies can provide them with robust solutions that are of benefit to citizens. Cities aim to incorporate smart systems in their industrial, infrastructural, educational, and social activities. A Smart City is managed with intelligent technologies which allow improving the quality of the services offered to citizens and make all processes more efficient. However, the Smart City concept is fairly recent. The ideas that it encompasses have not yet been consolidated due to the large number of fields and technologies that fit under this concept. All of this led to confusion about the definition of a Smart City and this is evident in the literature. This article explores the literature that addresses the topic of Smart Cities; a comprehensive analysis of the concept and existing platforms is performed. We gain a clear understanding of the services that a Smart City must provide, the technology it should employ for the development of these services, and the scope that this concept covers. Moreover, the shortcomings and needs of Smart Cities are identified and a model for designing a Smart City architecture is proposed. In addition, three case studies have been proposed: the first is a simulator to study the implementation of various services and technologies, the second case study to manage incidents that occur in a Smart City, and the third case study to monitor the deployment of large-scale sensors in a Smart City.

SenCity – Evaluating Users’ Experiences of Intelligent Lighting for Well-Being in Smart Cities

2018 ◽  
pp. 60-67
Author(s):  
Henrika Pihlajaniemi ◽  
Anna Luusua ◽  
Eveliina Juntunen
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Evaluation Methods ◽  
Data Analyses ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
System Data

This paper presents the evaluation of usersХ experiences in three intelligent lighting pilots in Finland. Two of the case studies are related to the use of intelligent lighting in different kinds of traffic areas, having emphasis on aspects of visibility, traffic and movement safety, and sense of security. The last case study presents a more complex view to the experience of intelligent lighting in smart city contexts. The evaluation methods, tailored to each pilot context, include questionnaires, an urban dashboard, in-situ interviews and observations, evaluation probes, and system data analyses. The applicability of the selected and tested methods is discussed reflecting the process and achieved results.

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