Presentation of Swiss Research Partnership Projects
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Hochschule für Technik Zürich |
Campus Navigation System for Visually Impaired Students
Project Location
Gazi University, Ankara (Turkish Republic)
Initial Position and Motivation
Visually impaired students at a university have two kinds of problems to defeat: the study’s curriculum and the way information is made them available. Best practices for helping visually impaired students are available but quite often inconsistently implemented.
In a developing country, the difficulties for visually impaired students are even higher, due to the lack of both ergonomic know-how and financial support for deploying specific help measures.
Project Goals
Within this project a pragmatic, ergonomically well founded measure in order to support visually impaired people at Gazi University will be implemented and deployed. Technical as well as ergonomic know-how will be transferred to Gazi University.
Project Description
A Campus Navigation System based on mobile technologies (e.g. RFID or Wireless LAN) and smart mobile devices will help visually impaired students looking for a room or location within the university campus.
Basing on the most recent research and industry results in the mobile-technologies-field, as well as basing on the lessons-learned in former projects, HSZ-T will conceive and develop a new, modern and flexible architecture with the objective to satisfy the special requirements of the Gazi University campus. A cost-effective technical solution is one of the core issues of the project.
Project Partners
Gazi University is the leader of the Turkish universities carrying out its educational and research activities with 25 faculties, 21 colleges, 18 research centers, 5 institutes as well as 60 thousand students and more than 3000 academic staff.
Hochschule für Technik Zürich (HSZ-T) is a member of Zürcher Fachhochschule. Teaching at HSZ-T focuses on the technical disciplines Architecture, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering.
HSZ-T’s department for applied research and development is located at Technopark Zurich and engages ca. 12 full time employees, as well as a variable number of part-time employees and researchers from all around the world.
Expected Results and Benefits
The expected technical result of the project is a new and innovative Campus Navigation System for Visually Impaired Students at Gazi University. Furthermore expects Gazi University a growth of the visually impaired student’s number in the 5-8 years after project completion. HSZ-T is expecting new technical (i.e. mobile- and web-technologies) and ergonomic know-how from the proposed project.
Project Duration
24 months
Contacts at partner organization
Güler, Inan, Prof. Dr.
Head of Department
Tel: +90 312 212 39 76
Fax: +90 312 212 00 59
Elmas, Cetin, Prof. Dr.
Tel: +90 312 212 39 62
Contact at Hochschule für Technik Zürich
Serafini, Giovanni, Dipl. Inf.-Ing. ETH
Tel: +41 (0)43 268 26 89 Fax: +41 (0)43 268 26 91
e-mail: giovanni.serafini@hsz-t.ch