Card, mobile credential, payment and security
The University of Georgia has begun the process of moving from legacy, proximity student ID cards to more secure contactless smart cards.
University officials stress that the move to contactless smart cards will give UGA the ability to improve security for students, faculty, and staff, provide greater flexibility and convenience to cardholders, and lay a stronger foundation to build in future card services and functionality.
The university began issuing the new contactless credentials during this summer’s freshman orientation. To date, the UGACard office has issued more than 10,000 cards to students and faculty across campus, with 6,500 going to incoming students.
The university's move to contactless is still a work in progress. UGA began the process of installing contactless card readers at campus residence halls in July, with the last of the residences being outfitted in late August and early September.
According to the UGACard website, the changeover officially took effect June 1, 2018 with the campus now issuing MIFARE DESFire EV2 contactless credentials to all new and incoming students. The contactless cards will also carry a price increase:
The conclusion of contactless card reader installations will effectively end all proximity card use on campus. Any student, faculty, or staff member at the University of Georgia can obtain the new contactless smart card at the UGA ID Card Office.
Just one semester on from launching a food truck program at its satellite Virginia Science and Technology Campus, George Washington University is expanding the availability of the mobile eateries. George Washington first decided to deploy food trucks at VSTC back in February, and now following positive reviews and usage, the university has extended the service to a second semester.
As reported by the GW Hatchet, the food trucks will now make trips to the VSTC every Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with plans currently being formulated to offer more frequent availability than the initial pilot program last semester. The food truck program is designed to provide students with accessible dining options and promote a greater sense of community on the relatively isolated campus.
The food truck vendors have not entered into any official contracts with the university. The four different food truck concepts will rate and make one-day visits to the campus. The food trucks will remain on campus for a few hours at a time, serving students, faculty and staff.
“Given the consistent attendance when food trucks visited and the many enthusiastic comments shared from VSTC students, faculty and staff last spring, GW is continuing to schedule food trucks this fall semester,” said Alicia Knight, the senior associate vice president of operations, in a GW Hatchet interview.
GW Dining will now increase the number of days the food trucks are on campus to two or more days per week depending on customer demand. GW Dining is also considering additional food trucks to be added to the program.
The university promoted the pilot initiative twice a week on social media last spring, as well as posted hard-copy signage in campus buildings and on the VSTC campus shuttle.
Thanks to @gwdining for making sure we've got a good food option this week on our #Virginia campus! #GWU #nursing pic.twitter.com/8O0xu7QYzT
— GW School of Nursing (@gwNURSING) September 18, 2018
Prior to deploying food trucks, students and faculty at VSTC were limited to a Chick-fil-A, Starbucks and Taco Bell for on-campus dining, with the only other quick option being a nearby shopping center. The introduction of the food trucks has immediately benefitted those on the satellite campus, with many now regularly opting for the trucks.
“The students are definitely making use of it,” said Ryan Tunkel, the assistant director of admissions for the School of Nursing, in a GW Hatchet interview. “You definitely see them on the days the food trucks are here with that instead of walking around with Chick-fil-A bags or Taco Bell.”
Those on the VSTC campus are also older than the average undergraduate student population, which lessens the viability of a full-service dining hall. The food trucks, meanwhile, are capable of providing a limited, but varied, lunch menu without the cost of a dining hall facility.
In the second of a three-part video series detailing hardware and software solutions from card system vendor, Blackboard, hear from the company's Senior Director for Platform Strategy and Product Management, Kent Pawlak as he talks about the company's retail offerings.
In this installment Pawlak details the wide range of form factors available to support a campus' retail environment, including point-of-sale registers and equipment. Also hear about the system that supports this hardware and how campuses can leverage these solutions to the benefit of both the university and its students.
In addition to this installment, be sure to check out the other entries in the series:
Leading online food ordering and delivery marketplace, Grubhub, has announced an agreement to acquire university-centric mobile ordering and commerce app, Tapingo.
The companies have entered into a definitive agreement that will see Grubhub acquire Tapingo for approximately $150 million, subject to standard closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018. Further details regarding the financial impact of the acquisition will be discussed on Grubhub's third quarter earnings call.
Having forged more than 200 campus partnerships, Tapingo now supports tens of thousands of student mobile transactions each day, and has amassed more than half a million active users at on-campus cafes, restaurants, and cashier-less stores nationwide.
The acquisition of Tapingo will see the company's mobile network paired with Grubhub's existing restaurant marketplace and delivery capabilities to bring greater convenience to students and assist campus restaurants in capitalizing on pickup and delivery orders.
"We are excited to add Tapingo, a company that shares our vision of bringing greater convenience to diners and improving the restaurant ordering and pickup experience through technology," says Matt Maloney, founder and chief executive officer of Grubhub. "We value the college student population, many of whom we hope become life-long Grubhub diners with their first order. Tapingo makes students' lives easier, allows merchants to efficiently capitalize on online ordering, and enables colleges and universities to give students the technology they've come to expect."
Tapingo's platform is custom designed for campus use, with direct integration into college meal plans and point-of-sale systems. The platform supports seamless ordering and accurate, real-time updates on wait times.
The Tapingo platform also streamlines operations and increases in-store efficiency for campus restaurant partners including Taco Bell, Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, Panda Express and Jamba Juice, along with food-service providers Aramark and Sodexo.
"Joining Grubhub is an important step forward for Tapingo. Grubhub is the industry leader in food delivery, allowing us to provide even greater value to our campus partners and student diners with access to Grubhub's technology and delivery expertise," says Daniel Almog, co-founder and chief executive officer of Tapingo. "By joining forces with Grubhub's network of over 85,000 restaurant partners that offer online delivery and pickup, we'll continue to serve our loyal diners long after they graduate from college, which has always been our aspiration."
Automatic Laundry, a laundry service provider to college and universities in the Northeast, has recently upgraded the student laundry equipment at Bentley University in Waltham, MA. The update at Bentley will see students use the company's proprietary LaundryConnect Pay app, a closed-loop mobile payment system.
To use the system, students can first download the LaundryConnect app from either the Apple App Store or Google Play store. Then, after loading an initial balance either via debit or credit card, students can activate the laundry equipment using their smartphone’s existing Bluetooth capabilities. Given that cell signals aren’t always the best in basement laundry rooms, the company made it a priority that cell phone service not be a requirement to start the laundry equipment.
Automatic Laundry partnered with Bentley to replace an increasingly obsolete and expensive laundry system. Students can now load funds anywhere and at any time straight from their smartphones, and seamlessly purchase laundry services without having to physically handle coins, cash or use a card.
“Given the importance of smartphones to our student customers, it only makes sense to align the payment system with the way they manage their daily lives," says Scott Scarpato, Automatic Laundry’s President.
The company's mobile platform accepts all major credit card brands, and all transactions are TLS 1.1 or higher encrypted by user smartphones when connecting to the company's PCI-certified transaction host for the latest in transaction security.
“The University was facing the prospect of incurring a significant capital expense to upgrade their legacy system," adds Scarpato. “We were able to offer the University our LaundryConnect Pay app, which allowed Bentley to circumvent a large hardware expense and ongoing support fees while at the same time enhancing the overall student laundering experience.”
Since launching the platform campus wide in August, approximately 3,000 students have downloaded and are using the app at Bentley.
Princeton University has updated its mailroom services with new, self-service package lockers. The new package lockers have been in operation in the university's Frist Campus Center since late this summer.
As reported by the Daily Princetonian, students can open the lockers via automated kiosks at the mail center or directly from their smartphones via the Princeton Package Lockers app.
Prior to the new locker system, Princeton's mailroom operated like many campus mailrooms across the country -- long lines of students waiting to receive packages from mail center staff on limited hours of operation. The introduction of automated lockers, as at other institutions, is designed to provide more flexibility and convenience in mailroom operations, as well as relieve some of the workflow for mailroom staff.
Now, Princeton students are sent an email notification that includes a specific locker location. Once at the locker, students can either use their university ID card, or a specified PIN included in the email notification, to release their package without the need of mail center staff.
For those students that download the Princeton Package Lockers app, the lockers can be opened directly from a smartphone. Prior mailroom procedures dictated that package pickup could only be done in person at the window during manned hours.
The lockers have also expanded the package pickup window to 134 hours per week, compared to just 59 hours per week under the previous system. Students are given one full business day to pick up their parcels from the automated lockers, at which point parcels will be removed from the lockers and moved to a separate Oversized Package Room for pickup.
Students can currently pick up packages from the new lockers between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday or between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays.
With the release of iOS 12, Apple has issued a revised version of its iOS Security Guide detailing new features and system improvements. Included in the white paper are details about Apple's newly announced student ID functionality.
According to a report from Apple Insider, the company has made some refinements to student ID cards. Specifically, NFC-enabled cards provisioned on iPhones can be used even when iOS isn't running as a result of low battery. According to Apple, this means that a device in need of a charge may still have enough power in reserve to conduct Express Card transactions -- which the student ID card is included in by default.
According to the new iOS Security Guide, when a student ID card is added to Wallet, Express Mode is turned on by default. Student ID cards in Express Mode interact with accepting terminals without Touch ID, Face ID, or passcode authentication -- a feature designed to save battery.
Students will have the option to tap the "More" button on the front of the ID card in Wallet to turn off Express Mode and disable this feature. However Touch ID, Face ID, or a passcode will be required to re-enable Express Mode.
Student ID support, which is new in iOS 12, enables students, faculty, and staff to provision their ID card to Apple Wallet through an app provided by the issuing institution. Issuing apps are required to support two-factor authentication for account access, and adding student cards to Wallet automatically enables Express Mode. The procedure for adding a campus card is expected to mirror that of adding credit or debit cards from a card issuer’s app.
In addition, issuing apps must support two-factor authentication on the accounts that guard access to IDs. A student ID card may also be set up simultaneously on up to two supported Apple devices signed in with the same Apple ID.
The white paper also offers insights on how to disable or remove a student ID card from Wallet. Student ID cards can be removed by:
• Erasing the device remotely with Find My iPhone
• Enabling Lost Mode with Find My iPhone
• Mobile device management (MDM) remote wipe command
• Removing all cards from the Apple ID account page
• Removing all cards from iCloud.com
• Removing all cards from Wallet
• Removing the card in the issuer’s app
The full rundown of security refinements for iOS 12 can be viewed in the company's recent iOS Security Guide.
The latest installment in NACCU’s Talking Campus ID Tech series is devoted to advanced card technologies, including contactless, NFC and mobile. Hear from Barton Lawyer, assistant director of IT at Duke University, as he discusses a wide array of modern card technologies, along with their inherent benefits to campuses and student alike.
In the video, Lawyer provides a detailed explanation of the difference between prox and contactless, the technology underpinning NFC, and other credential form factors like wearables, and how these technologies can be implemented on your campus. Lawyer also talks about Duke University's move to contactless credentials.
The campus identification and transaction industry’s professional association, NACCU, takes great pride in its ability to educate members and the entire higher education community. That’s the idea behind the association’s “Talking Campus ID Tech” video series.
The video series details key campus identification technologies and features subject matter experts from the NACCU member community talking about key topics like this installment dedicated to barcodes.
The videos are presented by NACCU and produced by NACCU and CR80News. The full series can be viewed at NACCU.org.
Beginning this fall Bowling Green State University has switched is copy and print provider to Papercut, ending its previous partnership with Pharos Remote Print. The changeover took place during the summer months, when all campus printers and multi-function devices were replaced with new devices powered by PaperCut software.
As reported bu the BG Falcon, the move to Papercut will enable students to print from their personal devices to university print stations. The decision to change printing providers came, in part, due to a new university contract that included new printer hardware as part of a new campuswide agreement.
Having been nearly a decade since the university's last printing overhaul, the new FalconPrint system replaces legacy desktop print stations with new touchscreens, card readers and faster printing. Also key to the upgrade was that Bowling Green's old Pharos system did not support printing from mobile devices. The new PaperCut system supports print jobs from iPhones, iPads, Android devices and Chromebooks.
The new printers also have an app ecosystem, much like the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store. This enables university IT to integrate additional capabilities to the printers without replacing any printer hardware.
Color printing is also being revamped under the new system. Specifically areas of campus that previously did not support color printing have been outfitted with new, color printing hardware.
Color printers are also now able to detect when a black and white page has been queued up and will automatically switch to black and white mode, and crucially, won't up-charge students for color. This dynamic price feature charges based on each page, as well, not the overall print job, saving students money when printing documents with both color and black and white pages.
Printing prices remain unchanged for students at $0.05 per black and white page and $0.18 for color. The university is set to reevaluate the pricing model again in January 2019.
The Bulldawg Box Program is the University of Georgia’s answer to food waste and disposable containers in campus dining halls. The program is now available on campus for all students on a university meal plan..
As reported by The Red&Black, the Bulldawg Box program had already registered 115 students as of August 27. The program gives students reusable to-go boxes made of 30% recycled material. The university is also keeping track of how frequently the boxes are being used, and initial reports suggest the to-go boxes are being checked out by an average of 15 students each day.
In addition to cutting back on food and disposables waste, the program is also hoping to provide students that have difficulty making it to a dining hall due to busy class schedules an alternative to getting a solid meal.
The Bulldawg Box program offers two distinct options: existing meal and next meal period. In the existing meal period, students have 15 minutes to fill their container and leave. The next meal period option, however, enables students unlimited time to eat a meal in the dining hall and then fill a container before leaving.
To receive a box, students first inform the dining hall cashier that they wish to use a Bulldawg Box. Then, using the university’s iris cameras, students verify themselves so that their accounts can be charged accordingly.
Students must have a meal plan to participate, but there is no buy-in fee for the to-go boxes. However, lost or damaged boxes do result in a $5 replacement fee. As for the items student can load their to-go boxes with, certain bottles, jars or containers may be prohibited, but diners are otherwise free to take any food as long as the box will close.
The program was first introduced in a pilot phase during the 2018 spring semester. A volunteer group of 98 students were asked to attend an orientation session and take a minimum of three to-go box meals per week to test the viability of the program. Additional University of Georgia dining halls may be integrated over time depending on student usage and demand.
