Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Washington-based campus card provider Blackboard Inc. says some 14 colleges, universities and K-12 institutions, have selected the Blackboard campus commerce and security management platform. These institutions have joined hundreds of others which have signed up for campus ID card technology, on- and off-campus payment solutions, facility access control and other security solutions.
Some of the organizations that have recently selected Blackboard include: Cushing Academy, a K-12 boarding school in Ashburnham, Mass.; Endicott College, Beverly, Mass.; Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colo.; Jones County Junior College, Ellisville, Miss.; Maine College of Art, Portland; New York Law School, New York City; Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho; Phillips Academy, Andover, Grades 9-12 boarding school, Exeter, N.H.; Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, Calif.; Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Fla.; Shenandoah University, Winchester, Va.; Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico; University of Arizona, Tucson; and Wallace State Community College, Hanceville, Ala.
“We had a wide range of needs, including the ability to process financial transactions at campus shops, minimize the need for cash at vending and laundry machines, provide door access, manage campus printing in support of our sustainability initiatives, and provide a tool to take and manage student attendance,” said Valerie Roman, director of technology at Phillips Academy. “We were looking to address these needs with an integrated solution which could be phased in over time. We partnered with Blackboard based on its long track record, solid financial standing, strong customer base, and high customer satisfaction.”
With the integrated Blackboard Transact platform, institutions can streamline business operations and increase revenue while meeting a wide range of commerce and security needs. Specifically, the platform enables organizations to:
Facilitate campus ID card issuance; on-campus, off-campus and online commerce; cashless payment processing for dining, bookstore, vending, laundry, copy and parking services; financial reporting; self-service account management; and
Monitor all campus and student activity with integrated door access control, video surveillance and mass notification capabilities.
Monroe College, with campuses in New Rochelle and the Bronx in New York and St. Lucia in the Caribbean, has tapped Higher One to issue refunds electronically to its students. This marks the ninth higher education institution in New York to sign up with the New Haven, Conn. financial services provider.
“Monroe was looking for a new way to process refunds to help eliminate the lines in the bursar’s office,” said Monroe’s Daniel Sharon, director of Business Services.
Like all schools serviced by Higher One, students have multiple ways to receive refunds from the College, including two electronic options: direct deposit to the OneAccount, a no minimum balance, no monthly fee, FDIC-Insured checking account provided by Higher One, or an ACH transfer to a bank account of the student’s choice. This also means Monroe can reduce the number of paper check refunds it normally issues.
“This will mean faster refunds for our students,” said Sharon, “and shorter lines in the bursar’s office so that we can assist with real questions. We expect a large majority of students to sign up to have their refunds deposited directly into the OneAccount.”
When it comes time for the College to distribute a refund, Monroe simply sends Higher One a list of student names and refund amounts along with a wire for the total amount of the disbursement.
One byproduct of Texas Tech’s adoption of a refund management system from financial services provider Higher One is that the cards provided to students will give international students, or students with poor credit, the ability to have a checking account, according to one school administrator.
The Lubbock, Texas school began converting its tuition refund process this semester to the new system using the Easy Refund Card provided by Higher One that allows for faster student refund processing.
Read more from the college’s Daily Toreador newspaper here.
An anti-skimming law went into effect in California Jan. 1. According to the Consumer Federation of California, SB 31 by Sen. Joe Simitian prohibits the reading of a contactless ID card without the individual’s knowledge and consent. The law covers cards issued by government agencies, health insurance companies, schools and others.
The federation claims that unauthorized readers can “surreptitiously read and skim the personal information stored on a device—such as a birth date, digital picture, or unique identifier number—all without the knowledge of the RFID holder … which can be used to facilitate identity theft or to stalk and track the whereabouts of an individual.”
Read more here. The bill was signed into law in October at the same time that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed another Simitian measure that would have placed restrictions on RFID-enabled cards.
About 18,000 current and former students at Ohio State University have discovered that their names and Social Security numbers were inadvertently posted to a server that was accessible via the Internet. While no abuses have been reported, the school has offered those affected 12 months of free credit protection.
Officials said the information was provided to a contractor to print student health ID cards and was never intended to be placed on an Internet-accessible server. Only students enrolled in the school’s insurance program from fall 2005 to summer 2006 are affected. Read more here.
The Utah Transit Authority Jan. 1 will officially launch its new fare collection system that includes contactless credit cards. In addition, the new readers installed on its 520 buses and at 35 rail platforms will also accept prepaid cards, such as student ID cards and UTA’s own electronic passes.
Passengers with the credit cards, student IDs and electronic passes “tap on” and “tap off” when boarding and exiting UTA’s vehicles. Tapping when they exit opens a two-hour transfer window, which means they can board another service and tap on without getting charged again, said one UTA official. Read more here.
New student privacy regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education enable universities to use ID numbers, but not Social Security numbers, in student directories as long as they can’t be used to access education records without another form of authentication, such as a password.
In one proposal, regulators wanted to treat ID numbers like SSNs, but that would have meant expensive retrofitting by many universities and that idea was later scrapped. The Chronicle of Higher Education notes that campus officials still need to make sure that student records, such as grades, aren’t posted just by student ID number.
The new regulations also give schools room to figure out how they can best protect a student’s information.
Bowdoin College students and faculty returning from winter break next month will be receiving a new ID card expected to increase on-campus security. The Brunswick, Maine school is in the process of converting to a new one-card system from campus card provider CBORD.
The new card will serve as both the students’ ID card and key card, allowing them to access buildings and dorm rooms. It will also allow the online transfer of funds for use in laundry facilities, vending machines and cafeteria services.
“The one card system allows us to monitor and control access to various buildings and modify privileges on an as-needed basis from our communication center,” said one school administrator.
Read more here.
Time and attendance, identification and access authorization are three of the applications available on the campus card used by students at the University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy. Other applications on the card supplied by Swiss contactless card provider LEGIC Identsystems, include electronic payments, a library card, Internet access, voting card and printing and copying.
Based on two sector solutions–access control and time and attendance by Interflex as well as the electronic payment system by Automaten Seitz–the university has developed an additional range of solutions which have been seamlessly integrated with its own university information system. Previously separated systems have been brought together to guarantee an all-round service for students and staff.
As soon as students enter the university or registers, they receive a personalized smart card with their photo, name and library number. With one press of a button, the account is registered in the science network, library permissions are created, access authorizations are granted and the card printed and coded – all in less than five minutes.
To ensure the service remains as transparent as possible, users can view all data via the Web. Further, the campus card can be blocked using an online application.
The LEGIC smart card itself displays the dates in which the card is valid. This is in a rewritable field so if the card is renewed, the new dates can be printed on the card. The Bozen campus card is also expandable. Additional applications can be added at any time.
The University of Nevada at Las Vegas RebelCard has been expanded to include 21 off-campus locations. The RebelCard Services Center works with Philadelphia-based Off-Campus Solutions to negotiate which restaurants will accept the card.
“The most important thing is that students use their cards,” said a school administrator. “The more they use their cards, the more deals we can negotiate for students.”
