In the big data era, the construction of University information systems has attracted great attention with multimedia technology and computer technology at the core. At present, the number of universities achieving the level of "smart campus” in China has reached nearly one hundred, whereby students can complete new registrations and a variety of payment services directly on the Internet.

More than 9,700 new students experience the "smart campus"

Recently, Tianjin University first applied "smart campus" technology to the opening ceremony, where more than 9,700 new students of 2016, including undergraduates, master's and doctoral students in the two campuses experienced a "two-way interactive live" opening ceremony. Freshmen did not have to rush between the two campuses, and they are able to experience a virtual “first lesson of the university” 22 kilometers away. The University, in effect, split the opening ceremony process, completed by the two campuses cooperating, so teachers and students could see the video from another campus venue via a big screen, and interact with "the other half" of teachers and students dozens of kilometers away with the guidance of the hosts.

A 2016 freshman of the College of Management and Economics majoring in e-commerce, Wang Fei said: “Originally, I thought the opening ceremony was just the President and teachers giving a speech via video and did not expect to see another campus live. I think it is a very novel way of interaction and this experience was very exciting!” Kang Kai, a new student in  2016 in the School of Computer Science and Technology at Tianjin University, said“The live broadcast was very smooth, with basically no delay, and the students thought the experience was very good, as the interaction between the two campuses was very natural”.

Tianjin University has two campuses, Weijin Road Campus and the Peiyang Park Campus. In order to improve the efficiency for teachers and students, from the beginning of the design and construction of the new campus the school used "the smart campus" building concept to create a dual campus information exchange and communication technology channel.

“This interactive broadcast was the first for the double campus university, where the venues of the two campuses are connected directly by a  switching system, achieving signal real-time acquisition using seven cameras at each venue; At the same time, using network streaming media technology, the collected audio and video signals are transmitted in real time through the network coding and decoding equipment ”, Wang Congbin, a teacher of Radio and Television Broadcasting Center of the university said. He added, “At the beginning of the construction of the new campus, the network plan was completed and the network environment of sufficient bandwidth was erected between the new and old campuses, so the delay of the live video is very short, basically within a few seconds”.

Intelligent systems covering every corner of the campus

Double campus synchronous video broadcasting technology, is the just one part of "smart campus" system. It is understood that the university's "smart campus" system mainly reflects a highly intelligent information system and green campus with the theme of "low carbon and energy saving".

The new campus construction uses new technology such as cloud computing and cloud storage, making it  more convenient for teachers, as they do not  need to carry their computers to copy  courseware, just needing to login to the "desktop cloud system computer terminal in the classroom to enter their personal computer". Students can ride using public bicycles on campus; intelligent lighting systems automatically adjust the light according to different occasions and people flow, and also use natural light to adjust the indoor illumination; the student dormitory network can identify different mobile phones and computers equipment after "lights out" (as computers are not allowed to use electricity, although charging a mobile phone is permitted); even achieving cross campus video interviewing in the “recruitment season”. In addition, the information publishing system can reach the whole campus for information dissemination, and so no need for students to put up posters anymore. Real-time energy monitoring and entrance guard systems, ensure campus safety.

The university "smart campus" system includes in the network, seven centers and eighteen subsystems, to provide a full range of services for teachers and students. Seven centers involve an information and network center, a data center, a multimedia teaching center, an energy monitoring center, a security center, and an information dissemination and campus broadcasting center. Eighteen subsystems cover energy monitoring, monitoring camera, emergency calls, electronic information releases, campus access, campus cards, etc.

The former head of the "smart campus" planning, Liu Feng said: “Traditional network construction only needs to install an application system, build a network and pull a bunch of fibers. The new campus has created a bearer network, with optical fiber once installed in place, all applications are on a network and each system not interfering with each other, so avoiding duplication of construction.”

At present, more than 49,000 points have been established at the Peiyang Park Campus, including 5,430 wireless APs (network access points). Therefore, WIFI (wireless local area networks) signals can be searched for anywhere, no matter whether you are in a teaching building, a dormitory, office area or in the playground.

"The network design of our campus is quite humanized. There is a network interface beside every bed in the dormitory, so we do not need routers", an undergraduate of 2014, in the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Sun Heyao said.

One-card campus life

From borrowing books, having meals in the canteen, buying electricity and water, registration, through to access control, a campus card can easily solve people's daily needs on the campus. In the event the card is carelessly lost, since the campus card platform uses the network management system, you only need to submit a report to the management center. All the data on the card will be transferred onto the new one. Unified management of data protects the teachers' and students' personal information, and at the same time, people are not inconvenienced.

At present, Tianjin University student self-service system is on-line, in the dormitory, canteen, as long as you have a campus card, registration can be completed. Self-registration system uses the campus card password for authentication, it is easy to understand and operate with high reliability, and the process only takes a few seconds. Although the system was on-line for less than a week, 16,174 students completed registration. The tuition withholding rate reached 90%.