Interconnected computational devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) context make possible to collect real-time data about a specific environment. The IoT paradigm can be exploited together with data visualization techniques to put into effect intelligent environments, where pervasive technologies enable people to experience and interact with the generated data. In this paper, we present a case study where these emerging areas and related technologies have been explored to benefit communities, making their members actively involved as central players of such an intelligent environment. To give practical effect to our approach, we designed and developed a system, named Smart Campus, composed of: i) an infrastructure made of sensors to collect real-time data in a University Campus, and ii) a rich web-based application to interact with spatio-temporal data, available in a public interactive touch monitor. To validate the system and grasp insights, we involved 135 students through a survey, and we extracted meaningful data from the interactive sessions with the public display. Results show that this Campus community understood the potential of the system and students are willing to actively contribute to it, pushing us to better investigate future scenarios where students can participate with ideas, visualizations/services to integrate into the web-based system, as well as sensors to plug into the infrastructure.

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New media and devices are offering huge possibilities for the enhancement and the enrichment of heritage experiences, improving the users' involvement. In particular, tourists equipped with their mobile devices are invading cultural attractions, sharing pictures and comments (together with hashtags and geo-localized positions) on social networks. These represent an unofficial source of data, which can be integrated with the official ones provided by GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) and cultural heritage institutions, enriching them. At the same time, travel planners and mobile applications related to cultural heritage can play an interesting role in the development of smart cities, when they are integrated each other, engaging the user in touristic and entertainment activities, letting him/her be a source of cultural resources. This work focuses on equipping users (citizens and tourists) with a system providing support in computing personalized urban paths across cultural heritage places (monuments, palaces, museums, and other points of interest (POIs) related to cultural heritage in the urban environment) and in sharing multimedia resources about POIs, by exploiting gamification elements with the aim of engaging citizens and tourists. A mobile application prototype has been implemented, showing the feasibility of the proposed approach and exploiting crowdsourcing activities as a source of information for cultural places and works of art.

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