Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Beginning this fall, the University of Florida will enable its students to receive mobile orders from a student-staffed food delivery service. The service is called Byppo, a Gainesville-based startup that provides food delivery with students staffed as delivery drivers.
According to a report from The Gainesville Sun, Byppo gives student delivery drivers a chance to make extra cash without leaving campus, while giving those who place delivery orders the ability to have food brought directly to them.
Byppo has partnered with UF’s Gator Dining to provide the food delivery service, which will offer delivery from up to ten dining locations on UF's Gainesville campus.
UF had been considering a campus food delivery service even prior to the pandemic, at a time when food delivery apps were gaining momentum, but food delivery services only grew in popularity over the past year. When Gator Dining was presented with Byppo through UF's Innovation Hub -- the university's startup business incubator -- deployment became more realistic.
“I think the biggest win for this whole thing is it's really for UF by UF,” says Timothy Bucolo, director of Gator Dining. “As we continue to grow the program throughout the fall semester you’re going to see more and more locations added to the platform.”
The food delivery service is currently limited to campus eateries, with all delivery drop-off spots located in populated, well-lit areas of campus, like dorms and libraries.
Byppo will limit food delivery methods to energy-efficient scooters, public transportation, bikes and walking. Student delivery drivers will be responsible for their own transportation.
Gator Dining and Byppo have plans to expand services throughout the academic year, with UF’s dining hall fare a potential future addition to the delivery service.
Starting with the 2021-2022 academic year, the University of Georgia Dining Services will offer custom dining plans enabling students to choose the number of meal swipes and declining balance funds they receive. The parameters of the customizable dining plan will be based on students' housing status, academic year, and how often they plan to eat in campus dining commons and retail dining locations.
According to a report from The Red & Black, students will leverage an online meal plan builder to designate the number of meal blocks and Paw Points -- UGA's declining balance tender -- they receive. The announcement of the custom meal plan comes as the university returns to a normal campus dining experience.
Georgia Dining Services partnered with the university's Student Government Association on the initiative.
“Students choose exactly how many swipes they need, how many Paw Points they need, and it's also within their price range,” says Bryson Henriott, the SGA deputy chief of staff. “It really hit me that probably a lot of students were in this situation. They just wanted more flexibility and affordability when it came to purchasing a meal plan, especially for those students who were not first years living on campus."
UGA Dining Services launched a pilot, 180 meal block plan during the 2020-2021 academic year to test the viability of a customizable meal plan. Deemed a success among students, UGA Dining Services added the pilot offering as a new meal plan option and expanded its features to existing dining plans.
Meal plans at UGA are now offered as customizable 5-day or 7-day "All-Access" plans, "Commuter" plans and "Upper-Level Student" plans. The 5-day and 7-day All-Access meal plans are available to all students and provide unlimited access to dining commons.
On the declining balance front, students can choose to receive between 0-250 Paw Points per semester, rather than having to choose an option with Paw Points upon the initial meal plan purchase.
The aptly names Commuter Block plan is available for students living off-campus. The plan allows students to choose between 65-125 meal blocks and 200-650 Paw Points.
The Upper-Level Student meal plan is available for upper-level students only, living on or off campus. This plan offers a choice between 140-180 blocks and 0-300 Paw Points per semester.
In the second installment of the Technology and the Evolution of Campus Dining series, we explore the dining environment at the University of Rochester with the university's Director of Campus Dining and Auxiliary Operations, Cam Schauff.
The University of Rochester was one of the earliest adopters of mobile ordering technology, deploying the service on campus to help ease lines at the campus Starbucks and help students order coffee. What quickly followed was a realization that the university could could use mobile ordering as a tool to help in a number of other ways.
Hear how Rochester, post COVID, used Grubhub mobile ordering to adapt. "My biggest concern was figuring out how to serve students that couldn’t or didn’t want to leave their dorm rooms," says Schauff.
During COVID-19 and through quarantine, Rochester used the mobile ordering platform to improve student service. Hear how Rochester launched its off-campus program and leveraged both the students' optional spending accounts as well as the campus meal plans to pay for food on campus and order food from off-campus restaurants.
Schauff and his team worked closely with Grubhub on unique use cases for the mobile ordering platform, including offering reusable flatware and straws at cost in the app for students to help reduce waste.
Another example: "Students wanted to order coffee in a reusable mug so we figured out how to do it via the mobile ordering system," says Schauff. "No one had ever done this via the Grubhub platform and no one had ever done it at a Starbucks."
"Today we see about 50% of our business coming through the mobile ordering app," adds Schauff.
Check out the other episodes in the Technology and the Evolution of Campus Dining series:
Trusted identities solutions provider, HID Global, has added a new advancement to its Signo line of readers, incorporating biometrics into the HID Signo Biometric Reader 25B. The biometric reader is designed to capture and read fingerprints in real-world applications and conditions.
The reader is the latest addition to the company’s Signo line and adds an API for integration with access control software solutions from HID partners. This enables a single point of biometric template enrollment through an access control system, with templates then able to be pushed to all connected devices simultaneously.
The new solution reliably reads fingerprints of all types, including those that are hard to read like wet, dry, dirty, or worn fingerprints. The Signo Biometric Reader 25B uses HID's patented multispectral imaging technology to capture fingerprint images from both the surface and the sub-surface of the skin to deliver consistent read performance regardless of environmental or skin conditions.
Key features of the Signo Biometric Reader 25B include:
The HID Signo Biometric Reader 25B supports a variety of contactless credential technologies including Seos, iCLASS SE, iCLASS, MIFARE (Card Serial Number) and HID Mobile Access virtual credentials. Each device supports Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth out of the box.
The reader is paired with the web-based HID Biometric Manager software that performs configuration and management of the reader, including firmware updates over the network. The software also enables enrollment of user's fingerprint credentials for use in both 1:1 verification and 1:N identification.
HID Global will be presenting a pair of webinars as part of the National Association of Campus Card Users' (NACCU) Virtual Expo Showcase. The two virtual events will cover the move to mobile and physical security at university healthcare and research facilities.
We caught up with HID's End User Business Manager for Higher Education, Tim Nyblom, to discuss some of the topics to be covered in HID's upcoming webinars. Nyblom will present, alongside others, on both virtual events.
Thursday, June 24, 2021
11:00 a.m. Eastern / 8:00 a.m. Pacific
Registration is now open.
There is a lot of focus around increasing physical security and trying to balance expectations or modern conveniences as it relates to the student experience. At the heart of that discussion is mobile.
"Institutions want to move away from the legacy systems and unsecure credential technology like proximity or mag stripe to higher security encrypted credentials and mobile first deployments," says Nyblom. "This requires a detailed look at their current infrastructure and working to complete a use case assessment on a path forward for their campus."
This session will also provide a primer on the HID Mobile Access platform, and what can it provide for a university.
"HID Mobile Access is where security and convenience meet," says Nyblom. "It allows universities to go mobile on their terms with multiple paths forward to reach their ultimate goal."
HID Mobile Access is designed to offer customers and the market freedom to evolve with the rapidly changing mobile device industry, says Nyblom. "A university can expect to see more choice, more freedom and more confidence."
"From smartphones to wearables and tablets, mobile devices are ever present in today’s campus environment, always on, and serve a variety of purposes," adds Nyblom. "Mobile is today's go-to technology offering convenience and portability, and is a logical step in the evolution of access control."
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
1:00 p.m. Eastern / 10:00 a.m. Pacific
Registration is now open.
A large number of universities have their own medical and research facilities. And while an entire student population may not require access to these environments, there are certainly unique challenges posed to campus access control from which a campus can learn.
"Unlike a campus environment, it’s been standard protocol in most university healthcare and research institutions that staff must wear an ID badge for visual representation," says Nyblom.
"With desires to increase physical security and looking into modern technologies like mobile, the question becomes: how do you enable greater coordination between people, departments and leverage access control technologies to meet security and policy requirements?"
Trends in the healthcare and research campus environments could provide valuable lessons for the traditional academic campus experience. While these environments can be different from the academic campus, there are some common threads when it comes to physical security.
"University healthcare and research facilities are known for innovative programs and technology, and physical security should be no exception," says Nyblom.
"It's paramount to enact a strong defense against outside threats," he adds. "This includes safeguarding different facilities and sensitive areas based on varied needs, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and improving overall health and safety for staff and patients."
In this edition of CR80Chats, we kick off our Technology and the Evolution of Campus Dining series with Grubhub by discussing all things mobile ordering with Grubhub Campus' Head of Industry Relations, Ben Anderson. Mobile ordering has cemented itself as a must-have service for modern students, but with new challenges posed in 2020 along with a pandemic, Grubhub Campus and its services have taken on new meaning.
We discuss the full range of mobile ordering use cases and how the technology has evolved over its lifespan to match the ever changing expectations of the student experience on campus.
This interview is the first of a 6-part video series with Grubhub Campus and its clients from both the university space and other verticals. The series will delve into the technology underpinning modern dining, and provide a candid look at how campuses can maximize mobile ordering both today and in the future.
An intro to mobile ordering and the evolution of the technology and offerings over the past decade in closed ecosystems like university campuses, healthcare, stadiums, and more.
A newly coined term to describe delivery only food locations, hear how to maximize the use of ghost kitchen facilities to serve more than just the standard food options, locations and hours.
Hear about ways to improve throughput at the cashier by changing the traditional bottleneck -- the point of sale -- with self-service kiosks, mobile ordering, and flexible payment options.
Maximizing the value of meal plans is a vital aspect of mobile ordering for on-campus students. Hear about the role of meal plans in mobile ordering and ways campuses can leverage them to adjust and better serve students' current needs.
Students are turning to food delivery on their own away from campus, and universities are recognizing this reality and the need to implement delivery for campus commerce. Hear why dining operators should take advantage of their proximity, meal plans, and established relationships with students to introduce delivery.
Following COVID, it's estimated that 50-75% of the changes made by campus food services to meet the challenges of the pandemic will be permanent. A three or five year technology plan may not be relevant anymore.
Taking a look forward in time at where mobile ordering in the university campus space is headed.
Check out the other episodes in the Technology and the Evolution of Campus Dining series:
Apple reportedly is making fresh strides with electronic passports, another sign of how one of the biggest Big Tech operations is helping to fuel progress with digital ID.
According to PatentlyApple.com, the tech firm recent filed with the U.S. Patent Office an “application from Apple titled ‘User Authentication Framework,’ about authenticating a user with a mobile device beyond Face and Touch ID and into the area of an e-Passport.”
[blockquote align='left']Passengers can prove their pandemic status while also offering digital versions of their passports for authentication
[/blockquote]
This latest move from Apple comes as digital passports gain more mainstream use around the world, adding efficiency and security to airport and other travel authentication methods.
As for Apple, its latest patent application — number 20210105265 — is an invention that “describes embodiments in which a person may present identification information through an iPhone (or other mobile device) instead of presenting a traditional form of identification,” according to the report.
As described by Apple in the application, the technology works this way: “The computing device receives a request to store credential information of an identification document issued by an issuing authority to a user for establishing an identity of the user. In response to the request, the computing device sends, to the issuing authority, a request to store the credential information, the sent request including the first signed attestation to indicate an ability to perform a user authentication prior to permitting access to the credential information. In response to an approval of the sent request based on the first signed attestation, the computing device stores the credential information in a secure element of the computing device.”
In related news — as more evidence about how mobile devices such as iPhones are playing bigger roles in global digital ID and e-passport efforts — the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, has launched what Reuters called “a digital travel pass for COVID-19 test results and vaccine certificates” compatible with Apple devices.
According to the IATA, the travel pass “is a mobile app that helps travelers to store and manage their verified certifications for COVID-19 tests or vaccines. It is more secure and efficient than current paper processes used to manage health requirements (the International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis, for example). This is important given the potentially enormous scale of testing or vaccine verifications that will need to be securely managed.”
The technology is being tested on London-to-Barbados flights from Virgin Atlantic, according to reports. Passengers can prove their pandemic status while also offering digital versions of their passports for authentication.
Campus payments and transaction system provider, Transact, is presenting a free virtual expo to discuss mobile credentials. The "Enabling mobile credential driven experiences on your campus" event will be hosted by The National Association for Campus Card Users (NACCU) as part of the Association's Virtual Expo Showcase series. Attendees of the event will learn how institutions can align their long-term vision for mobile credentials with a first-class student experience across both Apple and Android devices.
The event will take place Tuesday, June 15 at 1:00 p.m. ET and will be presented by Scott Dennison, Senior Director of Product Management at Transact. The event is free to attend for NACCU members, and registration is open now.
The first launch campuses rolled out Transact Mobile Credential nearly three years ago. In that time, much has taken shape with regards to the implementation and provisioning of mobile credentials. We caught up with Scott Dennison to discuss some of the topics to be covered in the upcoming virtual expo.
"Transact is noticing a consistent trend that most schools have at least a moderate level of interest in mobile credentials because students consistently state their expectation for a modern mobile first student experience," explains Dennison. "Presenting an 18 year old with a mag stripe, or worse yet a brass key, is somewhat akin to handing them an AM radio."
In addition to providing a secure, modern alternative to the campus card, Mobile Credentials have also been used as a branding and recruitment draw for incoming students.
"Mobile Credentials are helpful in creating a 'wow' factor with new students," says Dennison. "One of our largest Mobile Credential clients has incoming freshmen test their mobile credential during orientation, and the reaction is consistently one of amazement."
"We recommend using mobile credentials during prospective student tours and meetings," adds Dennison. "Have the tour guide demonstrate it’s use during tours, and have the presenter mention it as a proof the university is working to create the modern experience expected by students."
In the years since launch, mobile credentials have enjoyed positive feedback and adoption rates from students on participating campuses.
"Transact sees consistent proof of mobile credential interest by students in the form of extremely high adoption rates by incoming students," adds Dennison. "Depending on school policy and marketing, it’s common for 80-90% of incoming students to immediately adopt the mobile credential."
As more campuses move to mobile credential, the implementation process has been honed; meaning there may not be a better time than now to consider the move to mobile.
"Transact’s experience implementing mobile credentials on numerous campus helps shorten the implementation timeline by consulting prior to the sale on campus system interoperability," explains Dennison. "Often campus can perform much of the necessary peripheral system upgrade work prior to mobile credential implementation."
For more on Transact Mobile Credential, tune in for the "Enabling mobile credential driven experiences on your campus" virtual expo.
Campus payment solutions provider, Transact has partnered with student hunger non-profit, Swipe Out Hunger, to address college student food insecurity. Together, the two organizations will devote resources to better ensuring college students’ success by addressing some of the burdens that hunger can pose to students.
Nationally, one in three college students faces food insecurity. Food insecurity can impact a student’s ability to focus in the classroom, increase the risk of dropout, and lead some to feel isolated from the campus community.
“Students should not have to choose between an education and eating,” says Rachael Sepcic, vice president, Transact. “Our mutual goal is to increase awareness of college hunger, an issue that the majority of people in the U.S. have not really heard about in a public forum.”
Through the new partnership, Transact will donate meals and distribute information about Swipe Out Hunger to campus representatives nationwide through a series of “Food for Thought” informational events.
Transact is also exploring a solution to enable institutions to leverage the Transact platform to address student hunger. This could include product and solution integration to facilitate the distribution of meal funds to students experiencing food insecurity across Transact’s client campuses.
“This partnership with Transact will allow us to not only raise the visibility of the issue of college student food insecurity, but also reach and welcome more campuses in our movement to end student hunger,” says Rachel Sumekh, Founder and CEO of Swipe Out Hunger. “Transact’s leadership demonstrates the pivotal role companies can play in supporting students.”
Transact will share key information with its campus representatives through a combination of in-person and virtual events. For every higher education representative who participates in the “Food For Thought” series, Transact will donate one meal to Swipe Out Hunger for college students experiencing food insecurity.
With the summer upon us and students away from campuses for the extended holiday, campus administrators can leverage this valuable time to learn and implement new solutions. To help narrow things down, campus ID solutions provider, ColorID, will host an informative webinar series covering all of the biggest campus ID solutions.
Designed to provide an informational and engaging look at campus ID technology, ColorID's 6-Part Summer Series will be broken out into distinct sessions and topics. One of the voices on the webinar series will be ColorID's Vice President, Products and Technology, Todd Brooks.
CR80News caught up with Brooks to discuss the series in more detail. Here's a quick preview of what attendees can expect from each of the six sessions on offer:
Monday, June 14th @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[1 hr session]
This polling session will enable attendees to help shape the topics and product categories to be covered throughout the remainder of the series.
"Everything we can think of that card offices would be interested in – who is coming back, remote card and supply ordering, exploring new technologies, desktop or cloud software, supply chain disruptions, funding issues, what changed during the pandemic? It's all on the table," says Todd Brooks, Vice President, Products and Technology at ColorID.
“We’re very excited to launch this 6-part series with a one-of-a-kind poll driven webinar. We’ve always had polls during our webinars, but this webinar is 100% polls," Brooks says. "This will allow attendees to compare notes with their peers on a number of topics related to the campus card."
Wednesday, June 16th @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[45 min session]
In this session, attendees will learn more about what managing identities really means to the average campus card office, and why it's so important.
"Many institutions rely on their campus card providers to manage their credential lifecycles and provision those credentials in other campus systems," explains Brooks. "Many schools tell us that this doesn’t always happen as hoped and many systems, both commercial and home-grown, tend degrade over time."
"We've found that credential management has become an art in itself and that done well with the right tools, can make life better for everyone," he adds. "This is especially true as more external systems are appearing on campuses, with more and varied credential types."
Monday, June 21st @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[45 min session]
This session is devoted to the top considerations for campuses looking for a desktop ID software, including whether or not staying on the desktop version is the right choice for a campus.
"Desktop software has served most ID card producers well for a long time," says Brooks. "Desktop software can continue to be a good fit for those institutions with limited budgets, or for those that have competent systems already in place that cover many identity management functions."
Wednesday, June 23rd @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[45 min session]
Learn the benefits of cloud-based card issuance.
"New approaches to printing IDs are addressing some of the challenges that have arisen. For example, more schools are encoding and/or reading chip cards inline, looking for more distributed approaches to printing cards, and hoping to gain more control over their printer fleets," explains Brooks. "We'll cover Windows updates and networking challenges among some of the newer threats to keeping card issuance systems working well every day."
Monday, June 28th @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[45 min session]
This session will cover the kinds of questions ColorID asks a client when helping to determine the credential that best fits their environment.
"We'll walk attendees through the vital questions, like which kind of credentials are you using now? What do you hope to use in the future? And what infrastructure do you have to work with and/or change to get there," says Brooks.
Wednesday, June 30th @ 1:00 p.m. EDT
[45 min session]
In the final installment of the series, ColorID will cover some of the key elements campuses need to consider when selecting the right card printer for their credential.
"ID printers are appearing with new features to support inline encoding and contactless card reading, multiple hoppers, new lamination processes," explains Brooks. "Plus, printer manufacturer mergers are having an effect on availability and support. So finding a reliable printer, and making sure it does what your school needs, isn't as simple as it was a few years ago."
For more information about topics, speakers and session info, check out the webinar series registration page.
