Recent stabbings at two Massachusetts area colleges have prompted schools to reexamine their security plans as they attempt to maintain long-held values of public access, according to a local news report.

At Regis College, Weston, Mass., an 18-year-old was stabbed to death in a parking lot outside a dormitory. At Boston College, police stepped up campus patrols, after a student was stabbed in the abdomen outside a dormitory. Authorities are still looking for the persons responsible for both of these attacks.

Security specialists say the attacks underline the reality that even secluded campuses are prone to violence from outsiders and schools need to take aggressive steps to keep their students safe.

The Middlesex district attorney’s office recently held a statewide summit for college administrators, law enforcement officials, and mental health counselors to brainstorm strategies to protect students.

“There needs to be more of an investment in campus security,’’ said Jonathan Kassa, who directs Security On Campus Inc.“Unfortunately, this highlights that crime does occur on every campus and students need to be aware of it.’’ Security on Campus Inc. is lobbying state lawmakers to require private colleges to make more campus police records public, contending that colleges under report levels of crime.

To read the full report click here.

Evolis, a provider in solutions for plastic card personalization, has introduced ultra-high frequency Gen 2 RFID encoding options within its single and dual-sided card printers - Pebble and Dualys.

The Evolis Pebble and Dualys ultra-high frequency printers support a range of applications in various vertical markets, including identification, access control or tracking.

• Identification of employees, customers, visitors, or students at entry and exit points of secure areas.

• Access control in high-security premises or locations where crowd control is an issue such as ski resorts, cruise ships, amusement parks or events.

• Tracking of people and assets throughout facilities with the same readers.

Evolis partnered with TransTech Systems, Inc., a provider of ID badging and access control solutions, to introduce its first ultra-high frequency card printing solutions to the market.

“We have tested the Evolis Gen 2 card printers for applications such as amusement park, event and cruise ship passes,” says Jeff Kruse, general manager at TransTech Systems. “We look forward to introducing these solutions to a wider audience.”

On average it can take a college students 132 days before they realize they have become an ID theft victim, says Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, in a local news report.

“For persons ages 18-24, its takes up to five times longer to discover that their identity and their credit score may have been damaged,” added Cordray.

He recommends that students monitor bank accounts and credit card statements for suspicious activity and check credit reports once a year, even if they do not have any open accounts. “Students in dorms should lock up important documents and never loan debit or credit cards to friends,” he added.

The Ohio attorney general ended by suggesting students to route sensitive mail to their parent’s home or a post office box, instead of school mailboxes.

To read more click here.

Students at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will soon be able to add money to their Cougar Cards from any computer with Internet access, according to the university’s student publication.

SIUE students use money on these cards to purchase food from vending machines, pay for parking and to copy and print documents around campus.

Students currently add funds to their Cougar Cards via machines in laundry rooms of the residence halls and other areas around campus. The machines only accept cash, something not all students carry with them. Once the system is online, the campus plans to do away these machines.

“Students won’t have to come in and make deposits, they can just go online,” said Lora Miles, associate vice chancellor of student affairs. “And parents wanting to make deposits can just do it online and give their kids some extra cash.”

Miles said the online system should be up this spring and they will begin phasing out the CSVT machines soon after.

To read the more on this click here.

New card readers installed at University of Missouri dining halls are said to make checking student meal plan balances easier for students and staff, according to the student newspaper.

With the new system students simply swipe their card to receive their balance, which means students don’t have to rely on a staff member to receive their balance. .

Before, students were calling the campus dining services office, which students say is inconvenient because it is only open during certain hours. “The offices were receiving so many phone calls that it had to bring in more people just to answer the phones,” campus dining services spokesman Andrew Lough said.

Lough also said that future plans include an online ID card system, which will enable students to login to a Web site for balance inquiry and to update their meal plans.

To read more click on over here.

Higher One, provider of financial solutions to education institutions, has made a deal with Portland State University and Southern Oregon University to do away with some of its fees, according to a columnist at The Oregonian.

When the universities’ Higher One contracts came up for renewal, administrators negotiated that the 50-cent swipe fee be dropped from the card. The PSU One Card, Portland State’s official student ID, is branded with a MasterCard logo, which means students can tap funds at an ATM or wherever MasterCard is accepted.

However, students complain about the unusual fees that come as a result of doing so.

Higher One and the universities have started a campaign to encourage students to use the credit function of the card instead of the debit function, according to the columnist. Students who swipe the card as a “debit” and enter their personal identification number would get charged a 50-cent fee each time.

By choosing credit Higher One receives a higher interchange fee from the merchant even though they will be losing out on the 50-cent fee from students. The 50-cent swipe fee could be reinstated if the universities campaign to get students to use the credit functionality isn’t successful.

Higher One has been criticized in the past because of its fees. The company charges an abandoned account fee of up to $19 a month, if a student doesn’t use an account after nine months. They also pay $2.50 when they don’t use a Higher One ATM, which are located only on college campuses.

Update: Following the original posting of this piece, CR80News spoke with Scott Gallagher, director of communications for Portland State University.

He said that the fee drawing the most student attention is the 50-cent charge for PIN-debit transactions. This was a topic when Higher One renegotiated its contracts with Portland State and Southern Oregon universities, he adds, stressing that student input was a key driver to get Higher One to drop the fee.

In exchange for dropping the PIN-based debit fee, Gallagher says the universities agreed to encourage students to choose signature-based transactions when using the Higher One card. The schools have put information on their Web site encouraging students to “swipe and sign” instead of entering the PIN. Higher One receives a higher interchange fee from merchants when signature-based transactions are conducted. This, it appears, is intended help to offset the foregone revenues from the 50-cent fees.

Portland State encourages students to use the Higher One-provided service to transfer financial aid funds to their own bank account, Gallagher says. Materials passed out during financial aid seminars detail the different options students have and depositing aid into the actual Higher One account is just one. At PSU roughly a third of the student population direct their funds to the Higher One account, he says.

To read the full column click here.

Present at the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU) 18th Annual Conference, April 17 – 20, 2011 in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the most important event in the campus card industry and its quality relies on the presentations made by industry professionals like you.

The deadline for proposals from institutional members and corporate members is Monday, October 4, 2010. The proposal should include the session title, description and learning outcomes. Educational Sessions are 60 minutes in length and should include time for questions.

If you are interested in presenting, please visit http://www.naccu.org/2011/callforpresenters.htm for more information or to submit a proposal.  

Students in Chongqing, China can use their mobile phones as cards to borrow books from libraries, purchase meals, and gain access to dorms, among other things, according to People’s Daily Online.

The multi-service platform, developed by Chongqing Telecom, is a one platform that combines the functions of a dining card, student ID, library card, access card and other necessary cards on campus and replaces it with a mobile phone.

A similar system combined the functions of bus cards and bank cards into a mobile phone. Chongqing Telecom’s new service platform expanded the services to include those to include those found in a campus environment.

The system has already been piloted in schools and will be expanded to the public early next year.

To find out more click here.

Loyola University Chicago is making plans to expand its Rambler Bucks program to include off-campus businesses, according to the Loyola Phoenix.

Currently, the Rambler Bucks program, which turns a student’s campus card into a prepaid debit card, can only be used to purchase goods and services at on-campus marketplaces.

“It’s a request we’ve gotten for a long time, for students to have more flexibility as to where they used their Campus Cards,” said Kathleen Steinfels, systems administrator for the campus card office. “Its also an advantage for safety once its publicized that the students won’t be carrying as much cash or credit cards around with them.”

The program is said to start small, including a McDonalds and Subway in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. There are no plans to expand the program outside of dining establishments into convenience stores such as CVS, due to the program’s experimental nature.

“The first phase should be implemented by the time students return from fall break,” said Steinfels.

To read more click here.

Tufts University in Boston is issuing new IDs to students that will bring more features and added technology, according to The Tufts Daily, an independent student newspaper at the university.

The new IDs will institute separate student ID and JumboCash numbers for juniors and seniors who still have a single number for both purposes, bringing Tufts in compliance with a 2008 Massachusetts law aimed at combating identity theft.

Under the law, financial data must be kept separate from personal information. Since JumboCash numbers are linked to stored-value accounts, they are classified like credit cards under the law and must be kept distinct from student ID numbers.

The new IDs will also feature an internal chip to facilitate access to dorms, and replace the university’s previously used fob technology. The university also plans to expand the use of the IDs, enabling them to be scanned via a simple tap instead of requiring a swipe.

To read the full story click here.