Mobile, too, is part of the cool factor that students have come to expect from their universities. “What we’re seeing from most campuses at the moment with regards to mobile is that in the short term it’s going to be used a secondary credential to be used more for convenience than anything else,” says Brooks. “For an Identity Roadmap, a campus needs to start laying out policy ideas stating if it wants to charge a fee for that and how it will issue that mobile credential.”

Another vital policy to include in the Roadmap is how your campus plans to implement mobile. “From a reader standpoint, you need to look at what version of mobile you want to use,” Brooks explains. “Will it be NFC based or Bluetooth based, or will it be something that is software based that a campus integrator is providing?”

Even if a campus doesn’t want to implement biometrics or mobile at all, then it’s equally important for a campus Identity Roadmap to dictate that. “Again, it’s about having all identity stakeholders on the same page when these technology decisions inevitably reach your various departments,” adds Brooks.

Office renovations

A Campus Identity Roadmap can address more than just credentials, readers and card technologies. Card technology has changed over the years, but so too has the way cards are issued. As a working document, the Roadmap should include these card office processes.

“Right now we’re seeing a bit of a paradigm shift in how campuses are issuing cards. Specifically, campuses are moving away from the old bank-teller model with lines at individual printer stations,” Brooks says. “Now we’re seeing the emergence of the Apple Store model and feel, where students come in grab a cup of coffee, wait in the lounge, employees come out to greet students and take the photo.”

Card offices are becoming more of a service provider to students, using existing space for far more than just card operations.

Campuses across North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia have all taken to this new service-centric model for card issuance, and it’s a trend that will only continue to gather steam.

“A lot of the new ID softwares are moving to the cloud, which gives you a little more freedom to move around your card office space and not be stuck in one stationary area,” explains Brooks. “We’re seeing card offices becoming more of a service provider to students, using that same space for more than just card operations. This also opens the door to issuing at other satellite locations around campus.”

It’s important, then, to include in the Roadmap a vision for where your card office wants to be in the future, and what that office should look like. “To accomplish this, card offices need to look at network-capable card printers, as well as the cloud-based software,” explains Brooks. “Decision makers should also look at office space and layouts to have a plan for how they may want to reconfigure their space in the future.”

Be ‘all in’ on decision-making

Along Brooks’ considerable travels to campuses across the globe, there’s a noticeable difference between campuses that have engaged in the road-mapping process and those that make disjointed, department-based decisions.

“We recently worked with one university that had disparate departments that were free to do whatever they wanted. They just installed whole new access control system with prox readers,” recalls Brooks. “Other campuses that we’re working with have formed committees in advance as part of their migrations and they’re going to know what they want and time frames for implementation. The latter campus is going to save a significant amount of money by comparison.”