Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Auburn University has joined the now dozens of universities that are permitting students to use their campus ID cards to pay for fares on popular transportation app Uber.
The program is the result of an agreement between Uber and card system vendor CBORD. A deal was finalized with Auburn after the university’s auxiliary services fielded a proposal by the two companies.
The deal was first established back in 2016, making Auburn one of several universities to have joined Uber's campus card initiative, including Vanderbilt University, the University of San Francisco and Seton Hall University.
According to The Plainsman, the Uber deal offers plenty of benefits for students. By allowing students to use their student ID, the Tiger Card, students may be less likely to drive while intoxicated and instead opt to ride with Uber. Additionally, Auburn Auxiliary Services officials point out that adding Tiger Cards as another payment method for Uber could help decrease parents’ worries, as Auburn students now have another option to get home safely.
According to Uber, in order for students to use the service, students simply need to download the app on their phone, choose their school, and then provide their student ID card information as a payment method. It will also be easier for students to keep track of how much they spend on Uber rides and other expenses they pay for with their campus ID card.
As students continue to leverage their smartphone for daily activities, along with transit apps becoming the go-to method of quick, local travel, more campuses will likely partake in the program. Uber encourages institutions whose campus cards are not linked to Uber to sign up for a place on the company's wait list.
Under the name HID FARGO Connect, HID Global unveiled what it calls the industry’s first cloud-based card issuance solution for the personalization of both ID cards and mobile credentials.
If you present an ID card printer to the Internet it is an unsecured device so you need to protect it ... The HID FARGO Connect Console serves as the secure element between the printer and the network.
By replacing the old paradigm of standalone printers tied to dedicated PC workstations, this new offering enables secure personalization of ID cards from any location and from any web-enabled device. It lets system administrators remotely monitor and manage consumables, as well as introduces greater visibility into the entire credential issuance process.
“HID FARGO Connect is the biggest innovation that the ID card issuance industry has seen in more than a decade, and with it HID is changing the way cards and credentials are issued forever,” says Craig Sandness, Vice President and Managing Director of Secure Issuance with HID Global.
In traditional card printing environments, one ID card printer was typically controlled by one dedicated workstation. In this new environment, ID card printers are connected to the Internet just like networked paper printers commonly are in offices. For secure ID printers, this topology has been largely avoided for its security limitations.
The HID FARGO Connect consoles serves as the secure element between the cloud and the Internet-connected ID card printers
With HID FARGO Connect ID card printers are edge devices on the network, or more accurately on the cloud, and can be communicated with through secure web-enabled devices.
“If you present an ID card printer to the Internet it is an unsecured device so you need to protect it,” says Sandness. “The HID FARGO Connect Console serves as the secure element between the printer and the network.”
This physical piece of equipment, called the HID FARGO Connect Console, functions as a gateway between the cloud and the printers, holding the Identrust digital certificates and ensuring that only trusted instructions are delivered to the printers. According to Sandess, one console can support numerous printers, and he says that they have already driven as many as six printers from a single console with the capacity to run more.
He adds that they never store personally identifiable information (PII) in the cloud environments.
Aligning with the popular Apple Store concept and experience, card office employees outfitted with tablets now meet students proactively. The personalization data and photo can be captured from anywhere in the office or out.
Today, the solution is able to support a couple of key one card and security systems providers, but the intent is to open it up to the entire channel, explains Robin Tandon, Director of Product Marketing of Secure Issuance at HID Global.
The HID Global physical identity and access management platform, Quantum Secure, is an early example of a security solution that supports HID FARGO Connect. In the education vertical, one of the leading providers of campus ID card solutions, CBORD, is already supporting the technology.
Among the first issuers to use HID FARGO Connect is Kent State University, a CBORD campus card client. According to university officials, the issuance of thousands of student IDs during orientation has been streamlined and the student experience improved through its shift to the new cloud-based approach.
A number of college students across the country have reportedly been lured into a credit card scheme that preys on their willingness to help fellow students in need. According to the Better Business Bureau, numerous universities have reported losing thousands of dollars in fraudulent purchases made with stolen credit card information at campus bookstores.
Investigations in to the matter have revealed a similar pattern in each of the cases that sees a perpetrator claiming to have lost their student ID card, and coaxing unsuspecting students to provide their valid student ID as a voucher for the fraudster. The fraudster then makes their purchase, in many cases buying high-end electronics, with false credit card information that matches their false identification.
FBI investigators believe campus bookstores represent valuable targets for fraudsters, and this scheme in particular, as they tend to offer special discounts for students who may also not see anything wrong with helping a stranger claiming to be classmate.
The FBI released a public service announcement this past June through its campus liaison agents warning of the credit card scheme. The announcement issued the following tips to help protect against the scam:
Campuses began reporting the fraud scheme last April having sustained losses of several thousands of dollars in each occurrence. Fraud of this nature serves as a reminder that the campus card can serve as a valuable link in the identity chain, and as such should be treated with the proper caution when making purchases and vetting identities.
A student at Ivy Tech Community College's Madison campus in Indiana stole student campus card numbers and used them to make thousands of dollars in fraudulent purchases on the campus' bookstore website.
As reported by local news affiliate WDRB, Indiana State Police have arrested the 20-year-old student from the neighboring town of Versailles, Indiana. According to police reports, the suspect is also a student at the Madison campus where she stole the ID card numbers from fellow students. It remains undetermined how the suspect obtained the student ID numbers.
Police were first made aware of the fraudulent activity in early September by Ivy Tech administrators, following a string of suspicious purchases made on the college's online bookstore. College officials noticed that multiple shipments, totaling more than $7,000, had all been shipped to the suspect's mailing address under various other student names.
The purchases were subsequently tracked back to an IP address at the suspect's apartment in Versailles and also matched the suspect's student login information. Once the fraud was uncovered, the Ivy Tech officials were able to block roughly half the purchases and issue refunds back to the students whose accounts were compromised in the fraudulent activity.
The suspect is now facing charges of identity deception, theft and fraud.
Northern Illinois will discontinue guest passes in its campus dining halls. After offering the service to students for the past three years, the passes were deemed to be both expensive and underutilized.
As reported by the Northern Star, the guest passes were previously issued to students with meal plans, with each student receiving a total of ten passes to use each semester. The number of guest passes was believed to be too great and was not in alignment with industry standards for similar programs.
In addition to cutting costs associated with providing meals to students and others using the passes, students were reporting people gathering in residence halls asking students with guest passes to scan them into the dining halls for a free meal. This situation was reported to have occurred numerous times with some instances seeing non-students asking to be scanned into the dining facilities.
The removal of guest passes isn't expected to have any significant impact on the general student population. According to stats compiled by university dining services, only 18% of students used a guest pass during both semesters last year. Further, less than 20% of students used all 10 guest passes, and a total of 500 students didn’t use any of their allotted guest passes at all.
Underpinning the end of guest passes is a falling number of student meal plans being purchased. In 2014, some 5,000 students purchased a meal plan, but that figure has dropped to roughly 3,500 student meal plans purchased this academic year.
Students are still able to bring guests into dining halls via a new family pass only now a student must fill out a request form 24 hours in advance to receive the pass.
Despite guest passes being discontinued for the 2017-18 academic year, NIU dining services insists that meal plans are reevaluated on a yearly basis. The university will monitor the new dining policies and make further assessments at the end of the academic year.
Use of the campus card for off-campus purchases is one of the most crucial value-added service students can enjoy from their ID card. Moreover, off-campus programs provide universities with the unique ability to better integrate with their surrounding communities and foster the all important town-and-gown relationship by opening up the opportunity for local merchants to provide their services to students.
But forging a truly successful off-campus program takes time, effort and commitment that campus card administrators don't always have at their disposal. With this in mind, we recently spoke with the University of Pittsburgh’s Julie Bannister on how Pitt has been able to grow its off-campus program into one of the more extensive in the country, with a total off-campus spend of more than $1.5 million annually.
In our latest on-demand webinar, hear how Pitt managed its program from a few merchants in its early days, to a full roster of more than 55 local merchants. At the heart of our discussion is the key decision to either self-operate your institution’s off-campus program, or opt for managed services from a third-party partner. Hear specifically how Pitt has used managed services from Blackboard Transact to create an extensive network of off-campus merchants, drive a wide array of card deposits, market its program to the community and boost sales both on and off campus.
Key takeaways:
Access this free, on-demand webinar now and learn more about the history of Pitt's off-campus program, and how your institution can apply some of the same growth strategies.
Erie, Pennsylvania's Gannon University is overhauling its campus copy/print system, giving students the ability to remotely print from their laptop, tablets and phones, as well as cycle out aging printer hardware.
As reported by the Gannon Knight, the university has contracted with vendor ComDoc to manage the new copy/print project. As part of the overhaul, a total of 110 new multi-function Xerox print, copy and scanning devices have been installed to help streamline an update printer hardware on campus. The move consolidates the Gannon IT Services printer fleet from 600 units to under 200 total devices.
Some of the legacy printers will be kept as spares or used for expansion as needed, but the update in hardware was sorely needed, as it's estimated that some of the devices on Gannon's campus had been in use for as long as 15 years.
University officials say that moving to the new copy/print system is cost neutral for Gannon. “The real benefit is bringing efficiencies to students providing the ability to print, print color, copy, scan, email and some fax, and do so from locations all over campus," said Kurt Spence, applications manager for Gannon ITS, in an interview with the Gannon Knight.
It's expected that further savings will be realized by forcing duplex, black and white copies and monitoring print behavior to better educate and manage consumable costs.
The new system will see each print job released to a printer on the network that will be identified once the student swipes their Gannon ID card at the card reader attached to the printer. After swiping their ID, the device will show the print jobs that are waiting to be released along with the cost of the jobs.
Students will continue to have a 600-page per semester print limit for the 2017-2018 academic year, and by default printers will print in black and white. A new feature for the coming year, however, some printers will support color printing but will carry a double charge.
As part of its copy/print overhaul, the university is also committing to keeping its print devices less than five years old. The university also intends to improve sustainability by adding eco boxes in strategic campus locations to collect used toner cartridges and other consumables.
ASSA ABLOY has partnered with the University of East Anglia in the UK to better protect its students from on-campus theft and crime by implementing the company's Aperio access control solution.
Formed in 1963, the University of East Anglia is located in the city of Norwich and serves some 15,000 students. In order to boost security for UEA’s latest campus residence hall, Crome Court, campus officials decided on a system from ASSA ABLOY. The new residence hall houses 231 en-suite rooms that are primarily rented out to post-graduate students.
Also key to the new residence hall project is a commitment to environmental responsibility, and the building was specifically designed by UEA to reduce environmental impact. With this in mind the university felt it was vital that the chosen access control solution should also be in line with this goal.
The university sought a system that could guarantee electronic locks that were built to serve the unique demands of the student accommodation, while also ensuring student safety and security. Other requests included a stylish, affordable component design that fit the environmentally advanced profile of the new residence hall. To aid in the process, Gallagher, ASSA ABLOY Access Control’s OEM’s partner, helped to identify the best security solution for the university.
The residence hall's doors have been fitted with Aperio E100 online escutcheons, with installation training provided on campus by ASSA ABLOY. Students now open their doors with smart cards instead of metal keys. The battery-operated Aperio locks also emit significantly fewer CO2 emissions than wired locks, fitting with the campus' environmentally conscious aims.
University staff can also control doors from a web-based interface or mobile phone. “Unlike other systems, Aperio provides audit trails online, allowing for real-time monitoring,” says Jason Boyce, Sales Manager at Gallagher. “The fact that Gallagher and Aperio devices can operate with the same data on the card has allowed for tighter integration, which saves the customer money.”
In addition to the current installation, Aperio are offering the capability for additional doors to be integrated into UEA’s Gallagher system over time as required.
Parking apps have cropped up at campuses large and small across the US in recent years, offering students and campus visitors more flexibility and convenience when it comes time to top up their meters. The same holds true north of the border in Canada where parking app, HonkMobile, has established itself as the clear frontrunner in the region with some 20 university and college campuses across the country now on board.
College students are undoubtedly reliant upon their mobile devices, and are now using smartphones for an increasing number of purchases. In fact, HonkMobile has reported that its year-to-date transactional dollar volume at higher ed campuses is up 30% this year from 2016 and the fall semester has only just begun.
As with other parking solutions, the cloud-based app allows students and staff to search and pay for a parking space, as well as top up the parking meter all from a smartphone, tablet or computer. Drivers also receive a notification 15-minute before their parking expires at which point the app offers the ability to buy additional time remotely.
The company also says it routinely integrates with campus cards as a method of payment within the app to allow students to seamlessly access and pay for parking. The app is accepted at over 800 locations and 150,000 parking spaces across Canada and the United States, and from a single account, drivers can pay for parking anywhere HonkMobile is accepted across North America.
HonkMobile is now available at the following institutions across Canada:
The University of Southern California is issuing a new USCard to first time and returning students this fall. The university has moved to proximity cards as a first step in transitioning away from magnetic stripe.
As reported by The Daily Trojan, the new cards will be used for entry to both exterior doors of select university buildings and interior bedroom doors in apartments and residence halls. The new USCards will feature both a magnetic stripe and proximity chip, and more than 50 buildings have already been outfitted with either full proximity card readers or multi-technology readers.
Prior to the start of the 2017-2018 school year, the USCard office notified returning students due to live in USC Village -- the university's newest residential and retail facility -- that the new proximity card would be necessary so as to avoid added confusion on move-in day.
“If an individual needs a new ID card because the building or facility requires the use of a proximity card, they can change out the current ID card,” said Peter Tom, Student Account Services Director, in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “However, students must bring in their current ID card to initiate the exchange.”
Accompanying the physical card, students can also download the official USCard app, launched in the summer of 2016, where they can add discretionary dollars, check meal plan balances, present a digital copy of their ID or deactivate a lost or stolen card.
Last year, the USCard office issued nearly 20,000 credentials to students, faculty, staff, guests and visiting scholars. According to Tom, the campus could issue as many as 15% more cards this year as a result of the increased use of the new proximity card readers.
