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Investigating the Impact of the Internet of Things in Higher Education Environment

The developments in information and communications technologies (ICT) come with changes in all the fields of life, including the education system. At the same time, the IoT (Internet of Things) is turning ever more important as regards the overall benefits that it brings to smart cities as well as the education system. Starting March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused fast-paced changes in education and forced the ICT integration in higher education. Despite that, the IoT is still at the beginning in the education system and the impact of its adoption is far from being fully understood. This article is aimed at describing a smart education environment and the extent to which the IOT is conducive to this desideratum. The paper also identifies and describes the most important benefits and challenges related to the adoption of the IoT in higher education. In order to analyze the impact of the IoT adoption in the education environment, the authors propose an assessment model based on six hypotheses, including their definitions and descriptions. They are validated against the Romanian higher education system, as well as a set of survey data. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used in the study to validate the suggested model as well as to determine how the adoption of the IoT relates to intra- and extra-university connectivity, to attracting additional resources, to the teaching and learning activities, to data security and integrity as well as to education policies. The last part of the paper dwells on the analysis of a set of survey data and of the hypotheses shaped herein. The paper also includes recommendations, as well as the main conclusions, limitations and future research directions. It contributes both from the theoretical and practical perspective to the development of smart universities in the future.