Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Just off the University of Minnesota campus, the neighborhood of Dinkytown has seen an uptick in violent crime in recent years. The issue is important to the institution because it is an where many students reside in both apartments and even dorms.
In an attempt to make the area safer for students, the university and city police departments are cooperating on a new campus safety center. Locating the center in Dinkeytown is important because the university’s main police station is more than one-half mile away.
Anyone with a UCard can scan at the main entrance to access the facility to study, receive self-defense training, file police reports, and get legal advice.
“The Off-Campus Safety Center, operated by the Department of Public Safety, brings resources and community to the heart of Dinkytown,” explains the University on its Safe Campus site. “Along with opportunities to connect with UMPD, the safety center will offer community engagement, safety classes, and student space to its visitors.”
As they describe, this isn’t a normal police station. The safety center brings law enforcement to the community, but it also provides a place for students to gather, learn, and feel safe.
There are dedicated study areas and student meeting rooms, and even an area for self-defense training. In the part of the center dedicated for law enforcement use, students can file police reports and get legal advice.
As reported by NBC-affiliate KARE11, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said, “We've heard the concerns … both from parents and students on campus about safety [in] this part of town, and this safety center is an example that we are listening, that those concerns are being heard.”
Anyone with a UCard can scan at the main entrance to access the facility.
The center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 11 p.m.
Topanga provides software to drive reusable container programs in on-campus dining using the institution's existing mobile ordering app and ID card. Working with campus apps and transaction systems, it lets students check-out and return containers, cutting waste and saving money for the institution.
The software is live at 59 campuses across North America and has experienced significant growth in the past two years. Strong partnerships with food service providers including Aramark and Sodexo, continues to help drive adoption.
We have other exciting integrations that we're working on with Transact and other mobile ordering solutions going live in the next few weeks
“We do not manufacture the packaging ourselves,” says Page Schult, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “We're completely agnostic, which allows you to use what you already have on hand, or we can help you procure new packaging for our manufacturing partners.”
Building the option to request reusable to go containers into existing mobile ordering apps is a great addition to the offering. The Topanga Grubhub integration is a popular option, and others are on their way.
“We have a couple other exciting payment card integrations that we're working on with Transact and other order ahead and mobile ordering solutions that are going live in the next few weeks,” adds Schult.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello and welcome to another installment of Campus ID News Chats. I am your host Chris Corum, publisher and editor of Campus ID News. I'll be asking the questions today about an issue that I care a lot about. It's sustainability and environmental protections and issues on campus and how we can affect that, and specifically how our campus card programs, our apps on campus, can help dining services to redirect some waste from landfills.
To get to this topic and answer some questions is my guest, Page Schult. She's co-founder and CEO of Topanga, and her company helps campuses reduce and replace disposable to-go containers with reusable ones. So Page, thanks for joining us today.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
So let's start. Tell us about the importance of reusables and why specifically in campus dining environments this can make a big difference.
So campus environments and campus dining specifically are really interesting for reuse, and that there's kind of a lot of pressures driving towards sustainability.
For example, students are increasingly choosing campuses and schools that have sustainable practices, presidents and major stakeholders at universities are increasingly kind of pushing for more sustainable practices for impact reporting and to really show off these stats to incoming students.
And dining is where a lot of that waste and sustainability is so tangible.
Like it's very, very apparent when food is being wasted or when all the single use to-go packaging is filling up the trash cans across campus.
It's a lot less visible if your science building is running on renewable energy.
I think because of that, sustainability and dining gets a lot of attention because it's really easy to see the shifts.
And reuse specifically is awesome for campus environments because it's really high reuse rates in terms of it's a semi-closed environment.
So the students who are getting to go every day on campus are typically getting to go and then going within a mile radius from where they got that food packaging.
They're going back to their dorm, they're going back to the library to study, and then they're in a position where in the next day or two, they can drop that container off, it can be reused and sanitized just like any other dish, and then it can be ready for another student to get to go.
So that kind of turnover and that kind of built-in client base that's going to keep coming back for more really helps reuse thriving campus environments.
Okay, so what inspired you to start the company? Why this topic and then a few details like how long you've been around, how's it grown, how many campuses are you serving, those kinds of things?
So me and my two co-founders, we started this company in 2020 and it was actually very different.
Today we are a software company, but prior to being a software company, we actually ran a commercial kitchen in Los Angeles where we were packaging food in reusable containers and delivering it to customers like a milkman-style market.
This was an amazing experience because we had to go through the full kitchen certification process.
We were working day in and day out with dishwashing machines and three-compartment sinks and really understanding what it means firsthand to kind of reuse in a fast-paced commercial kitchen.
It was through this that we actually built our software. So we first built our software for ourselves.
That business was going really well, but we said, hey, if our goal is to make as big of an impact globally on reducing unnecessary waste from kitchens, we can do so a lot more effectively by taking the software that we've built and delivering it to other environments versus just continuing to do this ourselves.
So that's really when we made the shift to say what other types of kitchens and kitchen environments and dining programs can we support with this technology?
And through that is when we got connected to two of our earliest clients, Ohio State University and Boston University, and we had some great conversations where we understood that the problems that we had solved for ourselves through our software were problems they were experiencing, and huge pain points they were experiencing, and trying to launch reuse.
So that's been how we got into the campus space. It was accidental, but now it's amazing. It's been a wonderful space to work in.
We're live at 59 campuses across North America and really excited about kind of the growth we've seen in the past one to two years since we've been here.
I have seen some stats about putting in perspective the amount of savings and things that that's been across the campuses. They're pretty impressive to me. Any comes to the top of your mind, I'm sure you know them by heart.
Yeah, there's a lot of different stats that I could throw at you, but I think one that's probably particularly interesting to focus on is one of our campuses like Boston University, where we've been able to show there that this program, the Reuse Pass program, has reached over 90% of the undergrad campus, so it has huge reach across the types of students who are using this.
They've seen in the past year over 78% reduction in disposables, so not just our people trying this program, but they're truly using it day in and day out, and they've seen about $274,000 in program margins versus like just if they were going with single use as they had before or a reused solution without this kind of track and trace system of accountability that Topanga's Reuse Pass program provides.
So that's obviously like a huge school with a huge retail footprint, but the reality is that those kind of stats on how broad of reach we can get on campus and how many kind of single use transactions we can replace with reuse, those are really kind of the crux of what goes into understanding the ROI opportunity for your program, and I will say throughout our sales process, it's really important to us that we're working with schools that believe that there is an environmental and an economic opportunity for reuse, and we'll walk through all of that math and all of that modeling from the get go to make sure we're setting these programs up for success.
Can you walk us through in detail the student experience with the system? You know, I'm going in to get my food in the dining hall and then I can …
So there's actually a few different ways that this can come to life kind of depending on the campus setup, the environment, and what kind of card and mobile ordering providers that they're using on campus.
The simplest form is, you know, it's a non-integrated experience.
Students go to the web app, app.reusepass.com, they sign up using their cell phone number, and then in their Apple Wallet, they kind of get their reuse pass QR code.
And this is a lot like checking out a library book.
Every time they go to, you know, get takeout from their residential dining hall, they show their Apple Wallet QR code, the operator will scan that QR code, scan the QR RFID code on the container, and that kind of completes the checkout experience.
So that's like the most straightforward just out of the box.
That could be live within a few weeks on a campus.
And then we also have a few different layers that we can add on to support more complex and more diverse dining environments.
So for example, like the Boston University school example that I mentioned, they're a huge Grubhub school. We've integrated with Grubhub mobile ordering systems to create an even more like seamless student experience that allows you to kind of order ahead.
You as a student, you go through the Grubhub ordering flow like you normally would, you select that you'd like a reuse pass container at checkout.
At that point, our system is connected with Grubhub, and we kind of get your student ordering data, and we process that so we can see what your reuse pass QR code is.
That same QR code that you see in the Apple Wallet, Grubhub passes us back of house.
And then the team that's fulfilling your order sees that QR code on the chip that prints out, they scan the QR code, scan the QR code on the container, and your order is ready at the pickup shelf where it's already been checked out to you.
So we have a couple other kind of exciting payment card integrations that we're working on with Transact and other order ahead and mobile ordering solutions that are going live in the next few weeks.
So I would say that integrating within the systems that campus are already using is really important to us to ensure that it's a seamless student experience, but also a seamless operator experience.
I was curious, like, you know, we get that level of app fatigue where, you know, do you want to have, you know, the more that can be integrated and partner offerings so that we're not having to download specific apps for a million different things, I think for everybody, even students can be a benefit. So those partnerships are great. I suppose it makes it easy to work with a Grubhub campus or down the road Transact or whatever others it might be, the work's already been done. So the deployment then for that, for a campus that partners with them, you know, the hard work was done on the first one and now the rollout goes more quickly.
Yeah, absolutely.
Having these kind of channel partners and being able to work in a space like the College of University dining space where everybody is really keen on like peer-to-peer learning and just like spreading learning from each other makes it so much easier to kind of continue to iterate and improve our programs as we build.
So that's the student side of things. How about the campus side of things? So I'm watching this, I'm a campus, I've wanted to do this for a long time or I like the idea of it. What do they do?
So from a kind of like, you know, getting in touch and how we could start a perspective, again, like we, we love working within the campus space, we have great partners with Aramark and Sodexo and all of the great service providers.
And so like kind of getting in the weeds and figuring out what type of program you're likely have is really important to us.
We're really keen on setting up potential new clients with existing client partners and having them do like site visits and tour our campuses environment as is possible.
So you can see firsthand what this program looks like and what type of program you want to build.
And I say that because exactly like, if you're just you want to launch a reusable to go program at like one of your residential dining halls, it's like medium to low volume and you really just want to get live and see what's happening.
That's great.
We can get you live in a few weeks and we can start small, really figure out what works and build from there.
Or there's other schools that they'll come to us and they'll say, hey, by 2025, we wanted to be completely zero waste campus.
We have like 10 residential dining halls, like 30 different retail environments, two different mobile ordering and card payment providers.
Like, can you help us get started? And that's where again, the answer is yes, but there's going to be a bit more lead time because you have to navigate those integrations.
What are the shifts in operator and student experiences across dining locations?
How are we going to operationalize like collections and returns these containers?
So it really is designed to be flexible and support you wherever you're at.
I would say the main kind of considerations are one, do you already have packaging or to procure packaging?
We do not manufacture the packaging ourselves. We're completely agnostic, which allows you to use what you already have on hand or we can help you procure new packaging for our manufacturing partners.
That's kind of like one of the big physical sides to getting a program live that will typically start in on right when we're working with a new partner and get those wheels turning.
From there, it's really kind of, again, the scope and the scale that you want to start with versus what you want to grow into.
Typically for some of our larger implementations, we'll come on site, we'll do a site visit.
Like I mentioned, a lot of our team has spent time working in kitchens and restaurants in the past and we're truly passionate, not just about the sustainability side, but also the dining side.
So we'll come on site and we'll help you kind of map out to a tee what this program is going to look like and what the flows are going to look like in your system to make it as streamlined as possible.
So you did mention this at the beginning, but I think that the point came up there when you were talking about you're really the app provider and the software provider, the intelligence and the reporting logistics, all the pieces like that, pardon me, rather than, you know, we sell bowls and lids and things like that.
So give us a little more detail on what's the beauty of the app? What more is happening there? What does the kid get out of it, but also what does the university get out of it or the campus get out of that from reporting and things like that?
I did kind of say this before, but kind of at its core, how the system works is it's like checking out a library book. So it's a one-to-one system of accountability. Each time a container is checked out, it's checked out to a specific student or a specific diner.
That diner then has a full record of kind of their transactions, so to speak, in their ReusePass app. So they can see how many containers they've checked out, from which locations, when and where they're due back, what happens if they're not returned on time.
Some of our schools will charge a late fee.
If a container isn't returned within a specific amount of time, that's where some of these payment card integrations like what we're working on with Transact really come into play to make that charging process seamless, and the student sees that real-time in their app.
In addition to the more fun stuff, such as what has their impact been and how many people are participating at their campus and kind of what is that gamification element that makes you feel good by taking this action to reuse instead of choosing single use.
So it's really kind of the crux of accountability.
Again, it's a web app.
So our goal is not just to have you download an app and have you glued to your phone, but we also have systems in place to kind of send you those proactive nudges and bring the program to life.
So for example, we have an SMS-based nudging program.
So first time you check out a container, you'll get a welcome text explaining the roles of the road, and then each time you have a container that's late or overdue, we'll send you a quick nudge saying, hey, don't forget to return this, click here to find your closest return location.
So in a perfect world, nobody's ever charged a late fee and everything's burned on time.
But we also know not everything's a perfect world.
So that's kind of why we have these systems built.
And then beyond the app, we also have a really robust campus ambassador program, which I think is something that we're really proud of because it allows us to like bring the dining organization's mission of sustainability, like they're doing this for a reason.
It allows us to kind of bring that to life through the students and they'll do tabling activations or they'll paint murals or they'll pick up trash in a local park.
All of these really cool ways to kind of build community around this great cause in real life and kind of bring reuse past to your campus in a way that's not just, hey, I'm checking out a container because the school says I have to, I have to, but it's really like, hey, this is an amazing initiative that campus is doing and it's great to be a part of it.
Awesome. I'm on board with anything we can do to help those kinds of kinds of issues. It was great, Page. I appreciate you joining us. Thanks for the great info and, and I, you know, we'll talk soon again.
Thank you so much.
And of course, thanks to all of you for listening in. If you have an idea for a future episode of Campus ID News Chats, shoot me a note at chris at campusidnews.com and we'll see you next time.
Several weeks ago, we learned Roper Industries, the parent company of CBORD, was acquiring Transact in a deal that surprised the industry. Together with NACCU, CampusIDNews is seeking input from our subscribers and members. While information regarding the purchase is still forthcoming, we are wondering what questions or thoughts you may have.
Responses from NACCU members and CampusIDNews subscribers will be anonymized and used to guide the information gathering process.
We will anonymize and compile the responses we receive into categories, creating a series of overarching questions. It is our intention to use these questions to help guide our discussions, as we seek information on how this may impact our industry and how we can best support the higher ed community.
Please take a moment and send me an email with your thoughts.
Thank you,
Chris Corum, Publisher
CampusIDNews
[email protected]
Xavier University recognized that students were experiencing food insecurity, too often having to choose between eating and paying for other essentials.
“It's not just a Xavier problem, it's everywhere,” says Jennifer Paiotti, Associate Director of Business and Operations for Auxiliary Services. “Some have to choose between books and food – or are they going to be able to drive to campus or will they have to eat a bag of chips at night?”
Auxiliary Services collaborated with multiple campus departments and utilized the Mobile Ordering App, Mobile Credential, and Transact System Enterprise to create the meal share donation platform.
“As higher education, it's unacceptable,” she says.
To address the issue, Xavier created their Food Insecurity Meal Share Program, enabling meal plan holders to donate a meal to a student in need. In just the first few months of the pilot, more than 15% of meal plan holders donated a meal helping nearly 10% of students facing food insecurity.
For campus card programs and auxiliary services, the best part is Xavier launched the program using only existing technology.
Xavier Auxiliary Services collaborated with multiple campus departments and utilized the Mobile Ordering App, Mobile Credential, and Transact System Enterprise to create the meal share donation platform.
Paiotti stresses that any campus card office can take simple steps to help fight hunger on campus.
Click the image at the top of this page to check out the full video.
---------
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi. My name is Jennifer Paiotti. I am the Associate Director of Business and Operations for Auxiliary Services at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
My presentation this week is Hungry to Learn, our food insecurity program that we developed at Xavier University.
We found in 2016 that many people on campus – and it's not just a Xavier problem, it's everywhere – have to choose between books and food or are they going to be able to drive to campus or are they going to have to eat a bag of chips at night.
And as higher education, it's unacceptable.
So at Xavier University, we launched a pilot program this year where we utilized our transaction system through our campus ID services, we utilized our mobile ordering app, and we utilized our mobile ID or mobile credential to create an autonomous food insecurity program.
Students have an opportunity, meal plan holders, to donate one meal utilizing the mobile ordering app and that gets placed into a meal plan donation pool.
We call it meal sharing.
And then students that are battling food insecurity, maybe they were able to purchase a small meal plan, but it's ran out, or they had some dining dollars, or things like that, and they just don't have it anymore.
They're able to go out to the mobile ordering app.
They can request a meal from the meal plan pool.
It is then brought into the system.
A meal plan is added to their mobile ID and they walk in and tap in just like every student.
So there's no kind of peer pressure.
There's no ability to know who's hungry and who's not.
Everybody looks the same and that's why it works for us because we are all for one.
The mobile ordering app, it works exactly like you would ordering a burger.
So you go to the meal share location, you select share a meal, the tender is share a meal so it automatically adds, and then you check it out with your ID.
That's it.
So we have had 16% of students who have a meal plan, we have 16% of them have donated just in this pilot phase from November to now.
And then we have been able to help 9% of students that are facing food insecurity in just this time with many of them repeats.
And the great part about it is that some of these are multiple students who request it so we're able to actually work and collaborate with student success on retention or issues that may be happening outside of the classroom to help further the student success at Xavier.
Starting a process would be relatively seamless on your campus, especially if you're able to collaborate with your transaction partner.
You can create a meal plan that's inside of your system already.
If you have a mobile ordering app that's with your on campus, then you can actually then transfer that data in.
If you are an ID campus, you can easily with an actual still physical ID, you're able to get that meal plan onto that ID or if you are a campus with a mobile credential because it is basically just a meal plan, you're easily able to transfer that to the student.
In the summer of 2023, students at the University of Pittsburgh began grabbing items from an on-campus convenience store and walking right out the door. Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology powers the store and makes this frictionless experience possible. Using artificial intelligence, sensors, and cameras, it identifies the patron upon entry, tracks selected items, and charges the preferred method of payment as the shopper leaves the store.
The Market at Towers – in Pitt’s multimillion-dollar renovated dining facility – was the university’s first autonomous market deployment in partnership with Pitt, Chartwells, Transact and Amazon.
“While we have two other markets on campus, the Market at Towers sits in the center of our campus and is part of our main dining facility footprint,” says Julie Michelle Bannister, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Auxiliary Services, University of Pittsburgh. “It was important to have this first location included with our state-of-the-art renovation of The Eatery complex.”
Just Walk Out has allowed us to reallocate our staffing matrix, removing the traditional cashier and creating Customer Ambassadors. Our staff is now more mobile to stock the store and interact with patrons.
Pitt evaluated different unattended retail vendors before selecting Amazon, but they determined Just Walk Out would work best with their existing infrastructure and partners.
Transact already provided the widely-used mobile ordering app that enables the campus population to place orders from any of the on-campus dining locations.
“Because Amazon was able to seamlessly integrate with our Transact mobile app and accept our declining balance, we felt that their solution was the best fit,” says Bannister.
To enter the market, the user opens their Transact mobile ordering app and scans the QR code on the turnstile’s reader. As they choose their items, the Just Walk Out system uses an array of AI-driven cameras and sensors to detect what is taken from and returned to the shelves. When the shopping trip is complete, the customer simply leaves the store without waiting in line, visiting a cashier, or using a self-checkout station. The app automatically deducts the purchase amount from the shopper’s Dining Dollars, Panther Funds, or Pitt Cash accounts.
Bannister explains that the Transact mobile app currently accepts the stored value tenders, but they are working with their partners to add the meal swap as an option in future semesters.
Transact’s core role was to empower the Amazon technology to process the student campus card as a form of payment.
“Our Mobile Ordering platform not only provides the student with the ability to present their campus credential, but also handles complex sales scenarios, such as specific taxation, coupons and discounts associated with the item basket,” says Keith Kellermeyer, Product Manager, Campus Commerce. “We built a sophisticated way to synchronize menus from Cloud POS to Just Walk Out and certified the entire process with Amazon to ensure reliability and quality.”
To enable the Mobile Ordering app to display the QR code required to enter the store, Transact added additional screens to both the iOS and Android apps, as well as fields to the database and administrative dashboard.
Dining service provider Chartwells was also key to the enabling payments.
Transact’s Mobile Ordering platform enables administrators to set a minimum balance threshold for entry to the store, thus reducing the opportunity for a student to overspend their account.
“We worked directly with Transact and Pitt to build the operational functionality of the store set up and integration with our payment processing,” says Steve Schurr, Resident District Manager, Chartwells.
As a part of this core functionality, there is a minimum balance check to ensure that students have sufficient funds before they enter the store. This reduces the opportunity for a patron to overspend their account and depart the store with a negative balance. To accomplish this, students with less than $20 on their stored value balances – including meal plans, PittCash or Panther Funds – are prompted for another form of payment.
To accomplish this, Transact’s Mobile Ordering platform was modified to enable administrators to set a ‘minimum balance threshold’ for entry to a Just Walk Out location.
In the field, the Mobile Ordering app performs a balance inquiry against one or more of the customer’s campus card accounts. Once the balances of all accounts are returned, the system checks against the minimum balance threshold. If the customer has sufficient funds, the QR code is generated and displayed in the app.
“Stepping through each scenario of processing a payment after the transaction had occurred helped us carefully craft the business rules around when to allow and deny entrance and how to reconcile transactions between systems,” says Kellermeyer.
University of Pittsburgh's Market at Towers
In the past, the Market required four cashiers plus two team members stocking shelves during high trafficked hours.
Because the technology eliminates checkout lines and expedites shopping, the location now serves students 24 hours a day in an even more effective and efficient way. At times it can be staffed as usual, but it can also operate virtually unattended at night and on weekends.
Chartwells manages the operations and restocking for the store. They also serve as the direct liaison with Amazon. Pitt supports the ongoing maintenance and IT support, but day-to-day operations fall mainly to the Chartwells’ team.
“Just Walk Out has allowed us to reallocate our staffing matrix to be more customer focused, removing the traditional cashier and creating Customer Ambassadors,” says Schurr. “Our staff is now more mobile to stock the store and interact with patrons.”
Since the opening week, daily sales have risen steadily. The team credits this in part to the utilization of Amazon's data insights to optimize the product mix. Also key is the staff’s continued education of first-time customers.
“Through team member training and customer education we are seeing a continuous increase in sales since the store opened,” says Schurr. “As we continue to adapt and analyze our business, we are finding more opportunities to grow and engage students.”
In the future, Bannister says they plan to expand offerings to include full grab-and-go combo meal options, which should drive sales even higher.
Just Walk Out’s analytics portal provides insight into customer behavior and shopping habits, enabling a next-gen approach to store programming.
The early success has already brought on the addition of a second location. At Pitt’s Petersen Events Center, an Amazon-powered market enables attendees to purchase concessions without waiting in lengthy lines.
When asked what advice she would have for other campus administrators considering a similar project, Bannister advises to take your time.
“We were faced with a construction project that had additional challenges, and having more time for testing with our staff would have been helpful,” she says. “I also would recommend having a solid communication plan because engaging students early for adoption is important.”
Chartwells’ Schurr agrees that communication is crucial.
He says the student population was somewhat hesitant initially, but they became comfortable as his team engaged and educated them on the process.
The biggest piece of advice he can offer, however, is to leverage the tools available through Just Walk Out’s analytics portal.
“It provides insight into customer behavior and shopping habits, enabling a next-gen approach to store programming,” he explains. “You need to understand that this technology will shift the sales matrix and so you have to stay agile with your offerings.”
In a recent NACCU video interview, Allegion’s Jeff Koziol shared his vision for migrating campuses from brass keys to electronic locks. This will be the subject of his conference presentation at the upcoming NACCU Annual Conference.
“Many students have never held a physical key,” says Koziol. “Yet while some institutions are moving to mobile credentials, there’s many that are still providing students with brass keys for dorm room access.”
Many students have never held a physical key, yet many institutions are still providing brass keys for dorm room access.
Allegion is both a credential provider, and they manufacture readers that address the access control needs on a campus. This includes readers that go on interior doors to enable electronic access via card or mobile credential, effectively eliminating the brass key.
Koziol explains that they do not manufacture readers for vending machines, copy print stations, laundry, or other campus use cases.
“What we have done is filled in with different partner companies like rfIDEAS, Metramodo Smart Lockers, Castles Vending, and a whole host of others to build out that ecosystem and address all those cases,” he says.
In addition to their own credentials, Allegion readers also support both Transact and HID mobile credentials.
“I don’t think a lot of people realize it because they may see us and HID as competitors, but we are also a business partner,” says Koziol. “So if a campus is leaning more in the HID direction with wallet credentials, iClass, or Seos, we have devices that will work with that credential and preserve the investment they have already laid out for their institution.”
For institutions still using legacy ID technology, he says contactless cards can be a good intermediate path to mobile.
To find out why, click the image at the top of this page to check out the video interview. Or learn more about migrating your campus from brass keys to electronic access control here.
The migration from cards to mobile devices continues to heat up in higher education. While it is clear that students hold their phones up to door readers for access control, there are a lot of other applications across campus that rely on the credential. Many applications are obvious – like payments in dining facilities and patron identification in libraries – but there are host of others that are often not so obvious. CampusIDNews publisher Chris Corum catches up with HID's Rick Winter and Tim Nyblom to explore ways to power transactions from payments to privileges. Using HID's standalone and embedded Omnikey readers, all types of non-access transaction can be powered via the mobile credential.
Topics include:
A program designed to increase the rate of matriculation from a local two-year college to a nearby California university is finding great success, thanks in part to a “future student” ID card.
According to an article in EdSource, the Long Beach Promise program guarantees admission to students from Long Beach City College to CSU Long Beach upon completion of their two-year degree. At the start of the program, each student receives a Future Student ID card for CSU Long Beach, granting access the campus library, athletic events, clubs and more.
A similar partnership between Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) and George Mason University is also significantly increasing matriculation from the two-year institution to the university. Key to the program is a series of innovative approaches to make students feel a part of the George Mason community from the beginning of their NVCC studies.
At the start of the program, each student receives a Future Student ID card for CSU Long Beach, granting access the campus library, athletic events, clubs and more.
From their first community college class, they are welcome to use George Mason amenities like the libraries, clubs, and even health care.
The program was designed to streamline the process for transfer students and improve student success rates. Since its inception in 2018, more than 1,500 participants have successfully transferred to George Mason, including more than 400 this past fall.
The rate of continuation is significantly higher than normal rates from community colleges and other two-year programs. More than 90% of the participants graduate within two years of transferring to Mason.
To put that in perspective, a Califonia study found that as few as 2.5% of students intending to move on to a four-year institution upon completion of their two-year degree do so within two years. Just 23% do so within four years.
Working around campus cards, we all have stories about the sweet lady in the airport who showed you her student ID from 1963. She still carries it because it is a tangible representation of the affinity she feels for her school all these years later.
“A lot of research in higher education focused on why students complete or why they don’t complete has included this notion of belonging, feeling a part of the campus,” says Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s higher education center. “And I think the more that you can do for community college students can only help that sense of belonging so that when you eventually do transfer, you feel like it’s your school.”
Our card office team understands better than anyone on campus the powerful affinity that a piece of plastic engenders in a student. The Future Student ID card issued to Long Beach City College students as a part of the Long Beach Promise 2.0 program is brilliant.
That piece of plastic helps students at the two-year college see themselves as part of the four-year institution to which they will matriculate. In both the Virginia and California examples, they are actively encouraged to use the future institution’s library, participate in intramurals, join clubs, and even visit the health center.
From the beginning, this makes them feel like they are part of the larger community. They make friends and they become comfortable on the campus. They form an internal expectation that their two-year experience is part of a fluid educational process.
Traditionally, transfer students have a hard break when they complete the first two years. This inevitably creates a decision point. Do they continue or do they stop? Eliminating that hard break makes transition easier and far more likely.
The Future Student ID seems to work great in these two formalized programs, but could it work in other situations? Could our card offices help transfer students in a less formalized environment, when an official program does not exist?
Beyond transfer students, what would happen to recruitment if high school seniors on an initial campus visit received a Future Student ID from our offices? I would expect that the simple piece of tangible plastic would increase affinity to the institution in the same way that it does for enrolled students.
What would happen to recruitment if high school seniors on an initial campus visit received a Future Student ID from our card offices? I would expect that the simple piece of tangible plastic would increase affinity to the institution in the same way that it does for enrolled students.
This could increase the close rate for admissions visits.
What if we issued a Future Student ID to college-bound local high school students from the local community. With distributed issuance, the card could be issued on site at the high school. To make the experience more persuasive, the ID could grant access to sporting events, libraries, and even things like student-led tutoring sessions.
In each of these examples, there are benefits for our card offices. We would have recent photos on file for the real IDs from the previously captured images.
In some cases, the enrollment process could include education on ID use cases like access control, dining, and flex accounts. This would ease the burden on our office personnel a during orientation.
Working around campus cards, we all have stories about the sweet lady in the airport who showed you her student ID from 1963. She still carries it because it is a tangible representation of the affinity she feels for her school all these years later.
A campus card is a powerful tool. If we keep an open mind, we may find ways to extend its impact to new areas that can benefit both future students and our institution.
If you are issuing Future Student IDs or other unique cards from your office, let me know (chris at CampusIDNews.com) and we can share it with the CampusIDNews community.
To attract and retain modern students in on-campus housing, institutions need to invest in advanced technology such as mobile access, secure credentials, wifi, and apps. In the multi-family housing world, such technologies are called ‘proptech’ (property technology).
In this episode of CampusIDChats, we speak with Jeff Koziol, Allegion’s higher education specialist, and Robert Gaulden, the company’s go-to-market lead for multi-family access.
60% of respondents say they would be more likely to select a new residence that offered mobile access control as an amenity. More than one-third would even pay more
Gaulden’s group at Allegion recently release a study exploring what tenants want from multi-family housing/apartments. The report titled “2023 Multifamily Living Trends: A Study on What Multifamily Renters Desire, Expect and Will Pay More For in Their Residences,” is available for free download.
Important findings include significant increases in the adoption of smart home technology, mobile access control, re-prioritization of amenities, as well as online access for tours, leasing, and communication.
Key to campus card programs and other administrators is the similarity between multi-family and on-campus student housing. Resident preferences and expectations for apartment life likely crossover to on-campus housing.
Among the many proptech topics covered, the group discusses findings related to mobile credentials. Impressively, 60% of respondents say they would be more likely to select a new residence that offered mobile access control as an amenity. More than one-third would even pay more.
To learn more about how proptech can improve campus residences and how campus card programs can play a key role, click on the video image at the top of this page.
Universities are expensive entities to operate and maintain. They are also constantly fighting the need to remain at the cutting edge of technology, student experience, and quality of education.
Meeting all these needs requires significant investment, and the universities that get creative with their funding acquisition can set themselves apart from the rest of the field.
With fewer state dollars, universities are having to get creative. If you're a public institution and you receive 10% of your operating costs from the state, you need to make up the other 90% somehow.
CampusIDNews recently caught up with ASSA ABLOY’s Tyler Webb, Director of Sales, Campus EAC, and Jim Primovic, General Manager Electronic Door Security Sales Group, to discuss infrastructure trends and ways institutions are finding the financial support to undertake new projects.
We explored three key trends in campus infrastructure funding: creative financing for mobile credential programs, public private partnerships for residence halls, and donor involvement for facility builds.
One of the most popular projects universities are looking to deliver – and find funding for – is mobile credentials. Campuses are increasingly making the move to mobile, but it can be a costly endeavor.
Since the launch of Student ID in Apple Wallet, there has been a push for something known as the 100% use case. This requires that mobile credentials can be used everywhere traditional plastic cards can be used.
Some are offering financing to fund a university’s migration to mobile. Zero-percent interest can help an institution reach the 100% use case requirement for mobile credential programs.
The big catalyst for movement was door access, but to achieve 100% ubiquity between mobile credentials and the plastic card, all touchpoints need to be brought in line. This can be a lengthy and expensive undertaking, but Webb points to some new methods for getting this over the line.
“We've seen some credential providers begin to offer financing to fund a university’s migration to mobile,” Webb says. “Zero-percent interest rate financing can help an institution reach the 100% use case requirement without an upfront capital expenditure. I don't think we’ve ever seen this before in this space.”
Campuses are also finding creative ways that provide more flexibility to meet the 100% use case.
“There are, for example, academic spaces that students wouldn't require access to in their freshman year, but they would need to access as upperclassmen,” explains Webb. “We're seeing a phased approach to access privileges that folds in the necessary mobile credential access over time as opposed to all at once.”
By rolling out mobile credentials on a phased approach starting with new students, a campus could meet the 100% use case requirement by outfitting only the locations that these new students must access. Deployment of reader infrastructure at locations not used by first-year students could be delayed until a future date.
Another area where campuses are finding new avenues to fund major infrastructure projects is the public-private partnership, often called a P3.
An increasing number of institutions are turning to P3s to erect new campus housing projects. In essence, a private company agrees to fund the construction of the new facility, easing the budgetary burden and expediting the timeline of traditional residence hall builds.
If you're trying to maintain a one-card experience, the P3 may need security system access, but traditionally, you must be a university employee with sufficient privileges and a .edu email address before you can even log into a system
“Ultimately, what these P3s are trying to do is create the same user experience that already exists on campus,” Primovic says. “But it takes a lot of planning, even in the design and build phases of the project, to get this experience right.”
These properties can either be operated by university staff or by a third-party entity, creating complexities with regard to the management of the access control platform.
“If you're trying to maintain a one-card or one-credential experience, the private entity may need security system access,” says Primovic. “But traditionally, you must be a university employee with sufficient privileges and a .edu email address before you can even log into a system.”
In a P3, who will manage the day-to-day administration of the system as it relates to the new facility? And who owns the data and controls the workflow?
“We’re also seeing campuses that want mobile credentials, but the P3’s may not fully understand what that entails,” says Primovic. “That’s when our team can step in and help guide both the campus and the private entity through the process.”
P3 agreements are growing in popularity, making it a more viable avenue for universities to embark on costly campus infrastructure projects.
“We're seeing P3s more and more frequently across the board,” says Webb. “If the university has an on-campus living component, I think we’re now to the point that a P3 can be in play.”
The prospect of a P3 can be very compelling for a university, considering that somebody else can foot the bill for a project.
“Granted, that entity does make the money for the length of the contract,” says Webb. “But it does alleviate a need in the here and now.”
“It’s all about speed,” says Primovic. “It can take four or five years for the campus to do it themselves, but a P3 can have the same project up and running in two years from start to finish.
There’s also an undeniable premium being assessed for on-campus housing. There’s no doubt that this is the result of convenience and a list of amenities once considered luxury by college living standards.
“Campus housing, regardless of who's footing the bill – the university or a private company – is expensive and costs are almost certain to rise,” says Webb. “The companies in the business of P3 developments know the market really, really well. They know how to set pricing effectively to maximize occupancy and profitability.”
Another tried-and-true method for campuses to acquire funding for security and infrastructure upgrades is through donors.
“Institutions are seeing fewer state dollars, so universities are having to go outside of traditional means for funding acquisition,” says Webb. “If you're a public institution and you receive 10% of your operating costs from the state, you need to make up the other 90% somehow.”
Donors remain an invaluable funding source for universities embarking on larger projects, like residence hall upgrades or new builds. Naming an on-campus building after a major donor isn’t a new concept, but Webb believes the practice will increase as state-allocated funds constrict.
“Campuses don’t necessarily think ‘we want to name new buildings after someone,’ but this is a perfect opportunity, where you have a donor or several donors, and they want their legacy on campus,” explains Webb. “Building something with their name on it is a great opportunity for the university to accept a large donor gift for something that will last.”
This idea of building things that will last is crucial to the future of higher education.
“The need for infrastructure doesn’t go away just because traditional funding sources decrease,” concludes Primovic. “We need creative approaches to obtain funding for these projects, whether they be technology such as access control or mobile credentials or facilities like residence halls and buildings.”
