Application of Ambient Intelligence in Educational Institutions: Visions and Architectures

The ambient intelligence concept provides a vision of society of the future, where people will find themselves in an environment of intelligent and intuitively usable interfaces. The manuscript applies this definition to the specific environment of higher education in the context of the Czech Republic. The existence of the so-called Generation Y and characteristics of included individuals represent the main rationale of this paper. In particular sections of this paper, three visions that focus on intelligent assistance for graduation thesis preparation, smart lecture halls, and smart university campuses are described, and related architectures are depicted. Furthermore, results from a survey evaluating three main aspects - feasibility, willingness to use, and accessibility of technologies - of these visions are presented.