DCU Campus Explorer: Engaging Staff and Students to Use Campus Facilities
摘要
CE (Citizen engagement) is an activity that aims to provide a way to link citizens and organizations. As such it has a bidirectional channel of communication, from citizens to organization and from organization to citizens. These channels of communication should be user friendly, easily accessible and also need to fulfil other requisites depending on the use case. In that sense, CE still poses a research challenge to provide a complete solution. To this end, Digital Twin (DT) technology has been used to develop tools that integrate and visualize data of different types like 2D/3D maps digital models, sensor readings and any multimedia data. DTs have the capacity to provide as well user-friendly and easily accessible interfaces. This work focuses on the application of DT technology to DCU (Dublin City University), specifically the DCU C&C (Care & Connect) initiative that was charged with raising awareness of the services, facilities, and increasing feeling of belonging and inclusion across the DCU campuses. Services such as sexual health services, wellness support, and facilities like quiet rooms, sensory pods, and room locations. The use of DT technology has enabled the development of a live Campus Explorer with which students can interact in a user-friendly and easily accessible manner on a web-based interface using mobile phones, tablets or laptops. This paper provides an overview of the DCU Campus Explorer and how it is being used in practice by 22,000 students, more than 3,000 staff plus visitors at https://www.dcu.ie/CampusExplorer .