QR Code Assisted Information Dissemination on Educational Campus – A Prototype

Educational campuses boast a rich diversity of vegetation, tree and plantations of interest. However, the proper identification and further sharing this information with students and other interested stakeholders demand separate efforts. To approach this issue, conventionally, institutes consider affixing information regarding a particular plant / species to the respective tree. This approach suffers multiple trade-offs. Larger type size of letters costs supplemental information of the respective species and paragraphs of information requires shirking of type size of letter which eventually hampers the engagement of the visitor. In order to address these issues, we have attempted to automate this task using Quick Response codes in multiple phases. In the first phase, we attempted to prepare the database of the floral diversity. Subsequently, we integrated this database to a user-friendly Android based mobile-app. This app utilizes the phone camera and allows the user to scan the QR Code. Once the QR Code is scanned, this app decodes the QR Code and if a successful match is found to the unique entry of in the plant database, it is capable to display the information of the scanned species on the mobile screen. For this prototype, we generated unique QR Codes for each of the identified plant species as entered in the database and then these QR Codes were affixed to the select set of vegetation, trees and plants after proper verification and validation. We asked the stakeholders install this app and encouraged them to obtain the information related to different trees across the campus. An informal follow-up survey was conducted where majority of stakeholders reacted affirmatively regarding the usefulness of the prototype in gradually building individual knowledgebase.