Breaking the Campus Bubble: Informed, Engaged, Connected

This paper introduces UniVote, a system supporting mobile phone-based interaction with public displays. The case study carried out at Lancaster University indicates that the campus "bubble" in which students live can lead to feelings of isolation within an insular community cut off from the outside world. UniVote makes use of a voting system to help elicit user involvement, keep users informed of campus- and world-wide events and news and create a sense of community. Findings of this preliminary study suggest that the campus “bubble” can indeed be broken, and the voting component of the system particularly fosters interaction and human connectedness.