Autor(es):
Ramos, Rui A. R. 
; Rodrigues, Daniel Souto ; Mendes, José F. G.
Data: 2009
Identificador Persistente: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/18447
Origem: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Assunto(s): Campus web; University of Minho; Information system for monitoring quality of life
Descrição
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.
