The Role of IoET Within Higher Education During the Past Decade : A Single Case Study of Jönköping University

Abstract: The Education Industry is crucial to the development of societies and their economy, consequently, it is important to understand how technological advancements affect the industry and its stakeholders. Research has been made on this topic, mainly focusing on the concept and framework, implications for the Education Industry, and possible societal transformations, but few focus on the implementation and evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the education industry, the Internet of Education Things (IoET), especially within higher education. Living in the Information Age, it is important to understand how things that provide access to power(as in information) are implemented and evolve. The purpose of this research is to study the IoET in the Swedish higher education reality, to provide a deeper understanding of the rapid changes in the industry, the evolution, and development of the IoET model as well as the outcomes over a ten years timeframe for the institution, by answering the research question“How did the implementation process of IoET evolve?”. The research was conducted implementing a qualitative exploratory approach, using a single case study adopting grounded theory and thematic analysis, with an interpretative approach that allowed the interviewees to voice their experiences and perspectives on the phenomenon. It was found that the past decade, especially the last five years, has meant pervading IoET transformations on multiple levels within the university, such as the teaching and learning, privacy and security, classroom environment, and energy monitoring, as well as digital connectors. These transformations were found to have strong connections to external pressure, internal pressure, regulations, centralisation, and most recently COVID-19. Each of these motivations was found to be related to the different transformations mentioned above, which also has meant different paces of transformation, and in turn different outcomes. We found that the increasing pace of these implementations has made the level of satisfaction decrease among the different stakeholder groups.