I know what’s good for you…

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I like to try and get 10,000 steps into my daily routine and weather permitting I am usually successful. I have started for example parking further away, getting off a stop early on the tube and walking the rest of the way, walking further to get coffee or lunch.

It was whilst talking to Jisc’s Matt Ramirez about the intelligent campus space that I realised that it would be useful if my iPhone (which I use to measure the steps) could be more helpful in helping me reach my daily steps target.

If I ask Siri how to get somewhere, it helpfully tells me the shortest route, or the closest place. I did wonder if I could get Siri to help me reach 10,000 steps by rather than showing me the closest place for coffee, show me a place (that serves decent coffee) but the round trip walking would result in me walking 10,000 or 5,000 steps.

This got me thinking about how an intelligent campus could (with consent) support learner’s health and wellbeing.

Imagine the scenario where a learner has requested the university intelligent agent to help them be more healthy. The learner arrives on campus and asks Siri or their university intelligent agent where can I get on a computer, the university intelligent agent doesn’t send the learner to the closest free computer, but recommends the learner go to a computer lab on the other side of campus.

After two hours the university intelligent agent then recommends the learner take a break and provides a voucher for a free or cut price healthy snack and drink in the coffee shop on the other side of campus.

The result, the learner is given the opportunity to walk further and eat healthy foods through incentives on their device.

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The university can use the resulting data (with consent) to analyse what interventions are successful and which ones aren’t.

Overall the result will be learners who are healthier, potentially happier (wellbeing) and this could have an impact on the overall learning experience.

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