Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Whether it’s misinformation, concerns over personal data or a general reticence over the implementation of new technology, biometric solutions on campus are still not pervasive. And yet, successful university deployments of biometrics for access control, privilege control and authentication have already demonstrated the power of the technology.
At a global level, solutions like Apple’s Touch ID and others have made biometrics something of a mainstream technology. And with college students among the most avid users of these consumer devices, comfort levels with regular use of biometrics has improved.
“We have seen the improvement in biometric applications in the security markets over the years, and we strongly feel that the improvement of hardware and software in the security markets pushed the phone providers to include biometric sensors in their phones, not vice versa,” explains Tim Ortscheid, government & business market manager for biometrics and access control for ColorID “From the consumer’s viewpoint they see the biometric readers in the phone and become more accepting of it in their daily lives.”
Alongside this evolving perception, the solutions themselves are improving. “It’s important to note that biometrics used for mobile phones are usually used as a one-to-one or a one-to-few biometric match,” Ortscheid explains referring to the fact that it is easier to check if two templates match rather than identify a template from a massive database. “But even high-end biometric products used for access control or real-time identification of an individual can now provide a one-to-many match in just seconds.”
“Iris biometric applications, for example, can match an individual’s iris in a database of over a million in a second or less. There is a very distinct difference in the applications being used for phones and applications being used in the security markets,” Ortscheid explains. “Just because a device may use a fingerprint or iris, doesn’t mean it’s using the same algorithms and sensors as higher end security products.”
As biometric solutions continue to mature, campus administrators need to understand how the technology can be deployed, as well as the nature of the technology as it relates to the security-convenience spectrum.
“There can be a trade-off between security and convenience. If the main goal is convenience, the university should choose a system that is very easy to use, fast, and doesn’t require the use of a second factor of authentication – such as a card or PIN,” explains Todd Brooks, director of product management at ColorID. “The system should also have low false rejection rates or have the option to set those levels.”
Canada's Carleton University will make the jump to smart cards for its student U-Pass transit credentials following a successful pilot program conducted last summer.
Per a report from The Charlatan, moving the U-Passes to smart cards will begin this summer and will coincide with new fare gate infrastructure and transit lines set to open later this year. OC Transpo officials say that from a student perspective there will be little to no difference between the old and new U-Passes, only that the new smart cards will feature embedded chip technology that will enable them to be tapped at fare gates or smart card readers on buses.
According to Carleton University, the Universal Transit Pass -- or U-Pass for short -- is a bus pass offered through the University at a discounted rate. The U-Pass carries a compulsory fee for all students enrolled in full-time classes.
With the new credentials, lost cards can also be “hot-listed” or cancelled, reducing the misuse of cards. Previously, OC Transpo employees could not verify card status and thus could not identify students who were no longer eligible for the U-Pass.
The new smart cards will also feature a lower replacement cost in the event of loss or theft. The current replacement cost is $25, with the price increasing for each subsequent replacement. With the new smart cards, however, this cost will be fixed at $25 with no rise for subsequent replacements.
Transitioning to the smart card system will be executed in two stages, with the first round of smart cards having already been issued as part of the pilot project and remaining valid until April 30, 2018. Following the second round of issuance, students will be able to keep theit same U-Pass card for the remainder of their time at Carleton University.
At the end of each semester, students will renew their passes at extender kiosks located on campus. Renewing the credential will ensure the cards will be valid for the following semester. The student U-Passes are non-transferable and cannot be shared, and the renewal process at the start each semester will update the credentials with new expiration dates so that the same cards can be reused.
Food trucks on campus that leverage student ID card integration opens a new opportunity for dining services to align with the latest in dining trends and fold in new service capabilities. It’s an opportunity that Duke University and Ohio University have both pursued with impressive results.
This podcast is just a short preview for Duke and Ohio's full food truck stories. I had the pleasure of participating in the “Supporting Student ID Card Payments at Food Trucks” webinar on behalf of CR80News, and learned first hand of each campuses are impressive food truck operation.
In the podcast, leaders from the two universities highlight why they launched food trucks and how the campus card plays a key role:
Enjoy the podcast and then check out the full food truck webinar for more.
The average campus card informational video tends to be brief, packing as much information as possible into a short, tight production. And most of the time this formula gets the job done.
Sometimes, though, it's worth the time and effort to produce a full, comprehensive campus card video. That's what Sam Houston State has done with it's "Bearkat OneCard Services Orientation Video." The team at SHSU left no stone unturned with its informational video, covering the full range of functions that the card supports along with all the card FAQs, off-campus capabilities, financial aid disbursements and refunds, as well as card issuance, activation and replacement processes.
In addition to covering all the card basics, the longer video format opens the opportunity to show key areas around campus where the card is frequently used. Encompassing all the need-to-know information for your campus card in a single video may require a longer format and some additional effort, but the result is a single source for nearly every card related enquiry that your campus community may have.
By Tom Stiles, Identification Systems Group
Your campus card program is not just one system from one vendor. It is an ecosystem of cards, systems and databases that all need to work together. And when it comes to maintaining that ecosystem, service is paramount.
While there is discussion of which service model is best for your campus – on-site from regional dealer, depot service, or a hybrid mix – you need to consider your overall campus card system to best guarantee service for your various solutions from different vendors. These can include everything from one-card and ID badging to door access and housing solutions. You need to evaluate and determine which components are best supported remotely and which are better served by on-site attention.
If you have a problem, it often is not the card printer! For the ID system alone, the issue may be a cable, camera, printer ribbon, cardstock, or even a database connection to name a few. What if the cards are not operating correctly in a certain campus system? Is it the card, the reader, the software or the database at fault? You need a local card management expert to visit and help diagnose where the problem lies. The local technician can help with testing of the cards, confirming database connectivity and many other possible issues. This independent set of eyes can also help reduce potential finger pointing from various component vendors.
The purpose of the regional dealer is to support their local customers. A glimpse into their office shows shelves full of card printers, software, ribbons, plastic cards, replacement parts and more. Regional dealers also house an office with a full staff, a service and training department, diagnostic equipment, and decades of experience.
While the benefits of local service may be evident, there is a range of integration support that local service through the ISG and its family of dealers can deliver. We’re available to our customers to consult on a range of topics including:
Smart card, EMV card, and mobile expertise
ISG dealers work closely with colleges and universities on integration projects that require expertise in data connectivity, smart cards and smart phones.
Database connectivity
Often, a customer needs to connect an ID system to a central database like Banner or PeopleSoft. In other cases, schools want to populate the photo field in the central database or share cardholder data with other systems like door access control, housing or food service so that cards are immediately activated or de-activated.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison is considering a new policy that would allow eligible students to use federally issued food stamps to pay for meals on campus.
As reported by The Journal Times, University Housing officials are currently working on a plan that would enable students and other individuals receiving aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to use their government benefits at campus dining halls and other dining locations.
A concrete program could be in place as soon as the start of the fall 2017 semester. Should the initiative reach completion, it would make UW-Madison the first institution in the country to accept food stamps for use in on-campus dining establishments.
Student advocates pushing for the program suggest it’s a way for the university to better meet the needs of low-income students, while also helping to better include those relying on government assistance by enabling them to eat at dining halls with their peers.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the federally funded benefit program formerly known as "food stamps." Benefits provisioned through SNAP are loaded onto an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card, similar to a credit or debit card.
University officials are yet to fully work though the logistics of the proposed program, so no official start date has been announced. According to the Journal Time report, University Housing must apply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval to become a SNAP retailer, and federal inspectors will have to visit campus dining facilities.
Federal regulations also limit what types of food may be purchased with government assistance, meaning University Housing and Dining departments will have to go through all of the items it sells to determine what would be eligible to sell to SNAP cardholders.
The University of Connecticut held its latest "Give a Meal" event on its Storrs campus March 2, and saw a significant number of students donate their flex passes during the dinner hour event.
As reported by student publication, The Daily Campus, some 3,317 UConn students participated in the meal drive, which was held at the dining facility. In addition to the donated meals, university Dining Services partnered with the UConn’s Community Outreach program to collect donations for a number of local organizations including food pantries, homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
The donation process was made seamless for students, as they were asked by staff members at the time of swiping into the dining facility if they would like to also donate a flex pass. A seemingly common sentiment among those students that donated was that a number of flex passes are typically left over at the end of each semester and students would rather see them donated and put to good use than simply expire.
The number of swipes donated during the March event represented a .5% decrease in donated swipes compared to the event held at the same time last spring, the proceeds do, however, mark a 14% increase over the spring of 2015. The 3,317 swipes donated during the spring event join the 1,960 swipes that were donated in the fall 2016 event.
Specific figures aside, UConn Dining Services says that the number of donations generated during the recent event is around the average amount that the event tends to yield. One caveat to the donation program is that students are limited to donating only a single flex pass each. Dining Services limits donations to a single meal because dining services itself is limited to how it they can donate as the donations come from department revenue.
The amount donated is determined based on the raw food cost for a meal, which equates to approximately $2.50 per swipe. UConn dining services uses the swipe to determine how much it will donate based on the raw food cost.
UConn Dining Services has been running the "Give a Meal" program since 1987 and the university's Community Outreach has been participating since 2012.
The University of Cincinnati has built an effective and efficient means to increase throughput at its campus dining facilities with a clever use of existing hardware and a few additional, cost-effective components.
A card office "life hack" that a number of campuses could benefit from, check out how Cincy built its red light, green light verification hardware and how it's being deployed at key campus locations to revamp previously slow-moving queues.
If your campus has devised a "life hack" for its card office, card system, or similar auxiliary environment, send a tip in to CR80News and it could be featured!
Virtually every institution regardless of its size has some sort of sustainability or “green” initiative on campus. It boils down to a desire to minimize unnecessary waste and cut potential cost associated with older, less environmentally economic practices.
Green-campus initiatives abound in food services and dining halls. No matter how you cut it, dining facilities can be wasteful operations with piles of uneaten or neglected food and scores of single use take-out containers used by on-the-go students.
But campuses are finding a solution that effectively kills both these birds with a single stone. OZZI is a system that leverages automated kiosks and reusable, returnable takeout containers to both cut campus waste and alleviate costs previously devoted to disposable containers and flatware.
On many OZZI campuses, the student ID card is helping to power this new environmental initiative.
The OZZI sales pitch is fairly straightforward – help a campus reduce landfill waste by collecting reusable eco-containers in lieu of disposable products and cut costs associated with waste hauling and the purchase of single use paper or Styrofoam containers.
One OZZI campus, Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, reports spending $60,000 per year to purchase disposable to-go boxes. In addition the campus spends a significant amount on the removal of the waste, which includes both custodial labor and the solid waste bill.
A typical campus OZZI deployment sees the company’s reusable containers placed in the dining hall for students to fill with food at which point the student reports to the cashier to checkout.
The containers, themselves, are durable, and feature bar codes on the bottom so purchases can be tracked. Each container will withstand roughly 200 washes before being recycled again. The containers are not meant to be washed by students before being reused; rather they must be sanitized between uses by a university’s dining services department.
Despite much of the campus card landscape having already been discovered, there's still the odd opportunity for card programs to chart new territories. One of the more recent examples we've identified in our coverage is the emergence of campus food trucks at colleges and universities.
Campuses nationwide are embracing the food truck, and all signs point to the good for these mobile eateries to seamlessly slot into a university's existing food service operation. Food truck deployments are solving a wide variety of campus challenges, boosting universities' town-and-gown relationships and introducing new dining variety to the campus community.
Equally interesting, though, is how campuses are choosing to navigate the payment process at their newly established, mobile diners. Sure, cash and standard debit/credit card payments are common, but an increasing number of institutions are integrating their campus card system and the student ID at the food truck till. It's a trend that has many university food service operators salivating.
ID card integration at the campus food truck represents a new opportunity for university dining services to revamp or simply fold in new service capabilities. It's an opportunity that Duke University and Ohio University have both leveraged to great effect. And now you can hear about these projects and how they were executed straight from the source, as representatives from both institutions delve into the details of their campus food truck rollouts.
Together with CR80News and Blackboard Transact, the "Supporting Student ID Card Payments at Food Trucks" webinar details:
Campus food trucks are only growing in popularity and if it hasn't been an internal topic of discussion in your office already, it likely will be soon. The "Supporting Student ID Card Payments at Food Trucks" webinar represents a great resource for the food truck discussion and is packed with valuable info on how to deploy and execute a food truck program on any campus. In addition to hearing how two universities have deployed food trucks with significant success, you'll also learn the six key reasons that campuses across the country are turning to food trucks as a means breathe new life into student dining. Check it out.
