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So when Suffolk University needed a solution that both eliminated time-consuming, manual processes and also provided a single point of contact for both hardware and software queries, CBORD and Allegion stepped up to the plate.

Suffolk, serving 6,500 students across three campuses in the heart of Boston, had launched CBORD’s Odyssey campus card solution years ago, and student satisfaction had long been the catalyst for its card system initiatives. “The card system was upgraded to Odyssey when Suffolk opened its first residence hall," says Mikhail Ilin, manager of campus card services and adjunct professor at Suffolk University. "That later created a need for a comprehensive card services program, as our students needed to be able to pay for meals and buy food off campus.”

The system developed between CBORD and Allegion has made a major difference at Suffolk, and was recently highlighted on CBORD's website,

The challenge

Over the years, Suffolk has continued to expand its use of CBORD’s campus card solutions, implementing additional features and modules to meet evolving requirements. These solutions have enabled Suffolk to update a number of its services, but there remained one important function that was still being done manually.

“We had a standalone access control system that didn’t integrate fully with Odyssey. There was a custom bridge built by the Odyssey team to update the standalone access control periodically," explains Ilin. "It was a lot of work to get that going at the beginning of every semester. We would have to enter information for students by hand and create their access manually.”

The CBORD and Allegion solution

Suffolk needed a solution that would both eliminate time-consuming, manual processes and also provide a cohesive solution with a single point of contact for both hardware and software.

“We wanted to move away from the environment where locks and readers are provided by one company and the software is provided by another company,” Ilin explains. “When issues came up, there was confusion about which company to contact. We wanted to eliminate all of that.”

Suffolk turned to CBORD and became an early adopter of CBORD’s access control solution. “We were probably one of the first customers running CS Gold and CS Access with Odyssey,” Ilin says. “We had instant integration with access control. I have to do an upload once, and the two systems talk with limited action on my part.”

Having decided on the software solution, Suffolk then needed to consider hardware options and card format. Allegion readers communicate with CBORD’s systems and read a variety of card formats, giving Suffolk flexibility and insight into student behavior and access usage.

“Allegion solutions are in place throughout campus. For access control, we currently have 114 doors secured with a combination of MT11 and MTMS15 Allegion readers, mostly in our residence halls," explains Ilin. "The remaining readers secure our computer labs, fitness center, as well as biology, chemistry, and physics labs to protect expensive equipment and to know who goes in and out and when."

A joint effort

On the Odyssey side of the operation, Suffolk uses Allegion readers in two Value Plus Reload Stations that enable students to load money onto their campus card accounts. Suffolk also has Allegion MT20 readers located at 50 print release stations and at ten POS terminals, allowing students to tap their cards instead of swipe.

Suffolk's desire to upgrade was driven by industry standards for credentials, and the realization that the trend is now toward smart, secure credentials. “When we switched to CBORD’s access solution, we went with Schlage MIFARE DESFire ID cards and the feedback was very positive," Ilin says.

As Ilin explains, time savings and improved efficiency are among the biggest benefits of the switch to CBORD and Allegion for access control at Suffolk.

“Instead of my team spending three days to enter student access information, I am able to upload it in five minutes," he says. "We have realized significant positive impact on efficiency and have been able to do more with fewer human resources.”

With the university upgrading its first residence hall with 200 Allegion AD-400 online locks this summer, Suffolk is already seeing the benefits. “We anticipate cost savings as we move away from physical keys,” Ilin says. “Res life spends a lot of time and resources distributing keys, getting them back, repairing keys and locks, and dealing with lockouts. We can now eliminate all that with a tap of the card."

Suffolk will also benefit greatly from the elimination of brass master keys. “If someone were to lose a master key to a building, it would cost a lot of money to replace every single core. With online locks, it’s not a problem if a master key is lost,” Ilin says. “Simply turn it off and within minutes we’re good to go without added costs.”

For more on Suffolk University's card system, and its work with both CBORD and Allegion, check out the full CBORD case study.

The companies behind the innovative robot deliveries at George Mason University have rolled their solution onto a new campus as Northern Arizona University robots hit the pavement. Students can now order food for robotic delivery after NAU deployed a fleet of more than 30 autonomous robots.

According to an official university release, the robot delivery program at Northern Arizona is being operated by a partnership between food-service vendor Sodexo, and Starship Technologies, the company that developed the robots. Students at NAU can now place food orders for delivery by the rolling robots from several retail partners around campus.

Northern Arizona is the second university to deploy the delivery robots, following the January announcement that George Mason University would be the first higher education campus to trial the solution. Since the go-live date at George Mason, the initiative has been deemed a success and has led to an extra 1,500 breakfast orders being placed and delivered autonomously.

Northern Arizona, Sodexo and Starship hope the convenience of the delivery bots will lead to increased consumption of breakfast, as studies have linked breakfast consumption with improved academic performance.

The delivery initiative is open to all of Norther Arizona's 25,000 students and faculty. To use the program, users simply download the Starship app to place orders for food and drinks, with deliveries anywhere on campus in just minutes.

Students place an order through the Starship app, drop a pin on an interactive map to mark a delivery location, and can then follow the robot along on the same interactive map to track the the delivery bot's location while en route. Users then receive a push notification when the robot arrives and unlocks the roof compartment of robot to retrieve the order. Each robot can carry up to 20 pounds.

For now, users at NAU must pay with credit or debit cards, but deliveries will soon work in conjunction with the NAU student meal plan. Until then, the university is offering a $2.00 off promotion by entering “HELLONAU” in the promo code field on the Starship app.

To help spread word of the initiative, students can also snap a selfie with the robot on their first order, share on social media with @starshiprobots, and post it in the NAU Starship Delivery Facebook group to receive a $3 off promo code. Each standard delivery thereafter carries a $1.99 delivery charge.

“Northern Arizona University is proud to partner with Sodexo and Starship to bring this creative and innovative technology to our Flagstaff campus,” says Rita Cheng, President of Northern Arizona University. “This new robot delivery service complements the service on our premier residential campus and serves to enhance the exceptional dining and food offered to our students, faculty and staff.”

It's nearly that time of year again for the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU) to convene for its Annual Conference. The premiere event for the campus card industry, the NACCU Annual Conference is the perfect resource for card office professionals wanting to learn more about their industry.

This year's conference is being held in Hartford, Connecticut April 7-10 at the Connecticut Convention Center.

Conference registration is still open, and the roster of exhibitors continues to grow. Conference attendees will have the opportunity to speak with companies in the NACCU exhibit hall, and learn about new products and services.

For those who have already registered, the official NACCU 2019 Mobile Event App has launched, detailing the calendar of events, educational session information, and more.

The educational sessions on offer run the gamut of card office topics and are listed by block so attendees can decide which sessions to attend in each block. The roundtable sessions, in particular, offer a great environment to learn and collaborate with fellow card office professionals. NACCU Gold sessions are also a great resource, and are presented by the Association's Gold level corporate members.

In addition to the on-site activities, the conference also features additional experiences in the form of a campus tour of Central Connecticut State University on Monday, April 8 and a post-conference tour of both the ASSA ABLOY headquarters and facilities and Quinnipiac University on Thursday, April 11.

The NACCU 2019 Annual Conference is a major event, and the team at NACCU have once again pulled together a great show schedule. If you're interested in attending, be sure to visit NACCU.org for registration info.

There's a growing body of research indicating that classroom attendance is inherently linked to student academic performance and success. In fact, it's one of the cornerstones of a student's engagement with campus.

Old Dominion University is the latest to implement an attendance solution, and has done so by constructing its own hardware solution in house. As reported by the Southside Daily, Old Dominion officials have created a check-in device that logs student attendance and provides information instantly and electronically to faculty members.

The system also enables faculty members to reach out to students with repeated absences to offer help, tutoring or counseling. After an initial test pilot conducted this past fall semester, the devices are now set to be made a permanent installation to help boost attendance and performance.

The task of creating an attendance solution fell to a team of seven Old Dominion IT members back in January 2018. Their task was to develop an accurate, inexpensive way to track student attendance.

The resulting piece of hardware is a check-in device that the Old Dominion team believe to be completely unique within higher education.

Prior to the new, automated attendance solution, faculty members had been keeping their own attendance. Some faculty were leaning on solutions that required students to purchase software for their smartphones that would allow them to check in at the front of class. But the new system developed in house is seen as a better, more universal solution.

The check-in devices were first used last fall in 92 math and science classes. Students check in at the attendance reader by swiping their student ID card or scanning a QR code from within a smartphone app. The attendance readers each have 7-inch displays and are deployed at the entrance to classrooms.

Attendance information is processed and immediately sent to faculty members. The early results according to faculty have been promising, with some reporting an improvement in both attendance and academic performance.

In freshmen biology classes, student grades reportedly improved significantly compared to the previous fall semester.

“In the large lecture rooms attendance has always been a problem, and that was reflected in the course final grades. I saw more students in class this fall,” said Tatyana Lobova, master lecturer in biology at Old Dominion, in a Southside Daily interview. “And when students learn directly in class, they are far more likely to succeed.”

The university says that the system has been so successful that every ODU class will deploy an attendance reader by the fall of 2020.

Transit functionality on the campus card has long been tricky business. Despite the fact that transit capabilities have been successfully implemented on campus cards, there have been as many or more misses.

When we examined this conundrum in our 2015 coverage "Getting a lift with the student ID," we spoke with professionals across the industry in an attempt to decipher exactly why this campus card use case is so elusive. What we discovered was that technical, financial, logistical and political issues can all serve to confound what is ultimately a well-intentioned idea.

One of the larger issues universities may face when trying to implement transit is that the campus might be using a different card technology than the local transit agency. With various transit companies using MIFARE or DESFire, and a university potentially leveraging iCLASS, prox or mag stripe, the integration becomes quite an undertaking.

Another challenge universities face when integrating transit functionality is navigating relationships with outside stakeholders. Partnerships with off-campus entities can be a challenge, particularly when you talk about large-scale projects that rely on public funding and the introduction of new technologies and processes. This is certainly the case with public transit, where the fare collection infrastructure refresh process can take years and cost many millions of dollars.

Not surprisingly, the fragmented nature of many transit systems makes it difficult to navigate. Compounding the challenge even further is that transit projects often require multi-modal support – train, bus, shuttle, etc. – and involve multiple jurisdictions in the decision making.

To hear some success stories and learn how campuses can navigate the transit integration challenges, check out our full "Getting a lift with the student ID."

Seton Hall University recently completed renovations on a new, round-the-clock study space. The After Hours Study Space has been made possible in large part by the campus card and a door access reader.

Seton Hall's University Libraries has designated the room to give students unlimited accessibility after the main library has closed. The After Hours Study Space is a joint initiative funded between the university's Libraries and Office of the Provost in response to students' repeated requests for a safe study and work space that's available during overnight hours.

University officials say that a number of students had expressed their concerns about limited accessibility to the university's main library, which closes down after regular business hours. That limited access was only further exacerbated during peak study periods like those around exam weeks.

The biggest challenge for the University was offering a space that was both comfortable and safe, yet still efficient enough that it allowed for adequate resources to support students' study needs. Also key to the initiative was a need to provide ample security to everyone who would use the room in the late evenings and early mornings.

The answer to those needs is the After Hours Study Space located on the main library's second floor. The space has been configured to be adjacent to Dunkin' Donuts, which also offers 24-hour service five days per week.

Access to the space during the library's overnight hours is limited to current Seton Hall students with a valid campus card, as the perimeter door to the space is now equipped with a card reader.

Because the room has doors that enter both into the library and to an exterior walkway, the university is able to lock down access to the room based on the time of day. During regular operating hours the space is accessible only from within the library, while after hours the room is accessible only from the exterior door.

The After Hours Study space operates as follows:

A student ID card policy implemented at Loyola University New Orleans has been the cause of some frustration. The policy, which took effect back in January, fines students who fail to present a Loyola ID when entering a campus residence hall.

As reported by The Maroon, students that fail to present a valid Loyola Express Card will receive a warning for the first offense, with a $15 fine being charged to their account for any subsequent incidents. Per the Loyola University New Orleans website, all students are required to carry their Express Card with them at all times. Resident students must identify themselves upon entry to any residence hall.

The ID card policy was implemented to improve campus safety and better regulate access to residence halls. Resident students first use their Express Cards for electronic door access at perimeter entrances. Once inside, students must show their ID card and building sticker denoting their residence to the desk assistant on duty each time they enter the residence hall.

Amy Boyle, director of residential life at Loyola, told The Maroon that the ID card policy technically permits the university to charge students as much as $100 for an initial violation of the rule, and $150 for each subsequent offense with a university conduct hearing. But the fines have been adjusted to more reasonable levels in practice.

“We adjusted that rather than pushing students through the conduct process for failure to show an ID to incur a $100 fine," Boyle said in a Maroon interview. "We feel it is more realistic to start at a lower threshold and reserve conduct hearings and larger fines for more severe breaches of the policy violation.”

The idea behind the policy is to both better lock down access to campus residences, as well as help to hold the campus community accountable in keeping student IDs in possession at all times. Boyle said that the effects of the fine policy are still in the data collection phase, but that less than ten fines have been issued to date.

Maryland's Washington College has now made the student ID card a necessary component of its Safe Ride service in an effort to improve the program through examining frequency of ridership.

As reported by The Elm, an email from Student Affairs was circulated to students informing them that Safe Ride had partnered with the college's department of Risk Management to install ID card readers on Safe Ride vans. The Safe Ride program at Washington College is a free transit service run by students for students. The service provides a safe alternative to get back to campus without having to walk or drive.

The card readers will be used, in part, to record the number of students who leverage the service and better determine Safe Ride’s busy times so that the program can hone its services and improve accessibility. The addition of card readers will require students to scan their ID each time they board, as well as notify drivers of non-student guests when using the service.

The inclusion of the college's Risk Management department will address insurance compliance for the transit service. Safe Ride needs to know who is in the vehicle at all times in the event that something bad or unexpected were to happen.

The inspiration for the Safe Ride overhaul came straight from the top, Washington College president, Kurt Landgraf.

“President Landgraf says that we need to make data-informed decisions. So, if we are asking for increases in budgets or additional services, we have to be able to support it with numbers,” said Candace Wannamaker, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs, in an Elm interview. “I’m pretty hopeful that with the readers in place, we’ll be able to provide the data to get them the budget that they need to operate in the way they want to operate.”

Card reader data could affect the service in a few ways, including changing hours of operation or increasing scheduled hours. Other areas of improvement that could benefit from card reader data include additional supports for drivers and funding for things like van maintenance.

Drivers also have a reporting resource, which may revoke a student’s ability to use Safe Ride for students who either misbehave or otherwise abuse the service. Despite the implementation of card readers on each Safe Ride van, college officials stress that students who forget their campus card will not be denied a ride.

Ohio University’s meal swipe donation initiative will return after a successful pilot phase last year.

As reported by The Post Athens, Ohio's meal donation program enables students to give up to three meal swipes to fellow students experiencing food scarcity. Last semester, the meal swipe donation program brought in some 500 meals for Ohio University students in need.

Jenny Hall-Jones, senior associate vice president and dean of students, said the meal bank could increase its donations by an additional 500 swipes this semester.

Hall-Jones said the meal bank is working on its campus marketing to spread awareness about the meal swipe donations. If every student with a meal plan donated just once, the meal bank would have more than 7,000 meals.

The university chose the week prior to spring break to run the donation program, as many meal swipes go unused in the lead up to students leaving campus for the break.

Students experiencing food insecurity can apply online to be a part of the program. After an application, students meet in person with Kathy Fahl, assistant dean of students at Ohio University, who is in charge of the program. Fahl approves the students for the program, and if deemed acceptable, and meals are loaded directly onto their student accounts.

Meals that are donated to students in need can be used at any point throughout the semester at any OU Culinary Services location. Donated meal swipes will expire at the end of the semester in which they are awarded.

The University of Connecticut One Card Office is now providing students with the option to have a preferred name printed on the backs of their campus cards.

According to a report from The Daily Campus, the One Card Office had been fielding requests from students to have a preferred name on the Husky One Card in place of their legal names. All students IDs now automatically have the display name on the back under the heading “Preferred Name."

If the students has not chosen a preferred name that differs from the legal name, then the preferred name on the back of the ID will default to the cardholder's legal name. The preferred name on the Husky One Card is not the preferred name in student admin portal.

“We recognize many cardholders go by a name other than their legal name; however, the UConn ID can also be used for voting in Connecticut,” said Stephanie Kernozicky, One Card Office manager, in a Daily Campus interview. “Therefore, it is necessary to have the legal name on the card.”

With the decision to maintain legal names on the One Card in place, the UConn One Card Office reached out to peer institutions to see how they go about displaying both legal and preferred names on IDs. The result of the research led the One Card Office to print preferred names on the back and maintain legal names on the front of the cards.

The university also created a webportal for students to quickly and conveniently input their preferred names.

“The name that people call you or know you by is meaningful and significant," added Kernozicky. "We are happy we were able to comply with the need for voting identification, as well as add a component to the UConn ID that was meaningful to the cardholder.”

The standard $20 fee will be applied for students who want a new ID with the preferred name on the back.

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