Campus web based information system for monitoring quality of life : a case study applied to the University of Minho

Abstract

Universities have been recognised as an active agent in the society development and evolution. One of the marks of this acknowledgement was the Magna Charta Universitatum. This document sustains that their role is to promote cultural, scientific and technical development of new generations, as well as the whole society, providing permanent training. It also says that such education should teach and train future generations to respect the great harmonies of their natural environment and of life itself. Joining that relevance to campi extension and to the university community dimension, the quality of life in campi became a critical feature for the management and sustainable development of that type of urban areas. In addition, there is a consensus about the fact that Portuguese Universities are leaving a period of continuous building growth, incoming in a cycle of stabilization and consolidation. The demand tends to be satisfied. So, a new process shall emerge where the physical expansion will be substituted by a quality and sustainable process where the equity will become more relevant. Also, the quality of teaching and research activities in Universities are somehow related to the quality of the spaces where they take place, either when considering the buildings' facilities, or when taking into account the campus area. Some authors have concluded that the students' perception of their overall academic experience and the campus environment is related to academic accomplishment. Furthermore, keeping and increasing the quality of life in public spaces is also recognised as a critical aspect concerning the urban sustainable development perspective. When analysing characteristics, form, dimension and organisation of university campi, it can be concluded that they can be seen as urban spaces. This fact is often enhanced by their location: in urban areas or even merged in the city. In this context, a model for the evaluation of the quality of life based on concepts for urban spaces is presented. Its main purpose is to provide conceptual bases for the implementation of a decision support system that evaluates the campus quality of life and its sustainable development. The process integrates the users' perception and provides the ability to assess the impact of future interventions on the campus quality of life using scenarios. Those scenarios can be created by a tool included in the system and enabled to measure, through indicators, changes in campus. The evaluation of the quality of life variation that would result from the scenario execution will serve as a decision support tool for campus management when studying several possibilities. The case study explores and shows the web based information system for monitoring the quality of life of the Gualtar Campus of the University of Minho, located in Braga, Portugal. Basically, the model aims at determining a global index of the Quality of Life in the Campus (QlC) variation, comparing different moments in time. The system embodies two main functions related to its sustainable development process: (i) to inform the community, allowing any user to know which are the considered indicators and their actual values, and how the QlC has evolved; (ii) to serve as a decision support tool, mainly in facilities planning and management, thus allowing to compare the impact of several scenarios on several quality of life dimensions, through an evaluation that integrates the users' perception.