# A Methodological Approach for the Smartification of a University Campus: The Smart ESI Use Case
###### Abstract  
As the term smart begins to move away from inflationary usage, mostly related to communication capabilities, and towards a more effective dimension, there is room for research into the systematic process of transforming the things that were not originally designed to be _smart_. Such a process is referred to as stratification, which evokes the digital refinement of an existing product by embedding digital technologies and smart services. The state of the art shows only a few articles that investigate such methodological approaches to provide smartness on several application domains (e.g., home appliances, buildings, cities), while the smart university domain has not been deeply faced up yet. Based on the hypothesis that a methodology synthesizes a set of suitable procedures oriented to simplify the process of measuring the degree of smartification, we propose in this work a methodology that uses technological and academic criteria for designing a tool to measure the smartification of universities. The main conclusions of this work are the following: (1) The review of the current state of the art related to smart universities and smartification reveals the need for a new vision for a more adequate and accurate assessment of the degree of smartness of universities; (2) A formal method based on Multiple-Attribute Decision Making and case study research aimed at assessing the degree of smartification within the scope of smart universities; (3) A demonstration of the feasibility and application of our method to quantify the smartification degree of the School of Computer Science (ESI) at the University of Castilla-La Mancha under the project Smart ESI; and (4) A valuable method that allows equal comparison between smart universities through a set of standardized indicators, which offers the opportunity to analyze in depth the strength and weakness, and potential achievements of any smart initiatives. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first approach aimed at assessing the extent of the smartification process in smart universities through a formal method. The outcome of this research can benefit different stakeholders: university community, researchers, and, ultimately, the digital transformation of society. smartification; methodology; smart university; MADM Article  
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oriented to increase the degree of urban development. In this context, initiatives such as providing grants to replace contaminant cars, to substitute bubbles in lampposts with LEDs, or more kilometers of bike lanes [2] are denominated smart in spite of they may completely lack the technology and services that provide a certain degree of smartness. Such initiatives generally overlook or do not draw enough attention to the need to incorporate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as part of the smart city materialization. Similarly to the smart cities domain, there is no common agreement on the definition under the term smart university and, also similarly to smart cities, it is commonly accepted that it differs from the traditional university in the employment of ICT, including automation, control and management systems, AI or IoT in order to accomplish the mission of the institution. Another example is found in the smart buildings domain. According to [3] a smart building is a set of communication technologies enabling different objects, sensors and functions within a building to communicate and interact with each other and also to be managed, controlled and automated in a remote way. Buildings represent one of the most critical infrastructures both in cities and in universities, due to the fact they concentrate the largest expenditure on utilities such as energy and water. In fact, it is also known that the energy consumption in buildings represents one of the largest shares of total consumption, around 40% in the EU according to the Directive 2010/31/EU [4].