“Students generally have their phone in hand unlike the plastic card. We would often see students searching for their Action Card in pockets or book bags, or swiping cards the wrong way,” explains Brooks. “With mobile credentials, it’s a very smooth movement to complete the transaction. It’s been very helpful in higher traffic areas such as athletic events and meal-plan dining areas.”

As Brooks points out, a quick scroll through social media returns a number of posts highlighting the issue of forgetting or losing the plastic Action Card. “Yet they always have their phone to lament that on social media,” she says. “Ultimately, mobile credentials on the phone was important to our students so we needed to take action and create a progressive, mobile transformation of our Action Card credential.”

Meeting student expectation

From the student perspective if it’s not fast or easy enough to use, it’s likely that students won’t interact with it. Moreover, the experience must be consistent – i.e. using a phone here, and a card there can cause friction.

Blackboard has designed its solution to address both areas by ensuring that Mobile Credential transactions are supported everywhere the plastic card had been used in the past.

The speed of the transaction and how students navigate the process is also paramount. "Students want to engage quickly and move on; they don’t want a hindrance to their daily flow,” says Kent Pawlak, Product Management at Blackboard. “It’s about creating environments where the student experience is wholesale in terms of familiarity and ubiquitous use.”

That message rings true at Alabama, where even the provisioning process focuses on a flexible experience. “We've found that students prefer self-service options that don’t force them to take action during standard business hours, and Mobile Credential fit that category of service very well,” says Brooks. “Once a new student has registered for orientation and uploaded an approved photo, they can instantly provision their Action Card to their iPhone and/or Apple Watch.”

The student experience is a core element to making mobile credentials a viable transaction option on campus. “We’ve really focused on minimizing transaction friction and making sure that students keep up with the fast-paced world to which they’ve grown accustomed,” says Pawlak.

In addition to providing a service that meets students at their technological expectations, the move to mobile credentials and the ecosystem that underpins it, could also provide new opportunities for the campus card office going forward.

“With a solution as powerful as this, we’re seeing an ability for card offices to elevate their role on campus as not just a utility provider but also as a strategic part of the overall institution," adds Pawlak. “It’s giving card offices a seat at the table across multiple decision-making processes. That’s a powerful message for card offices and card professionals.”

To learn more about Blackboard Mobile Credential, register and tune in for the upcoming free webinar on Thursday, February 21st. The hour-long webinar will cover all the need-to-know details about Mobile Credential.

Attendees will hear about the efficiencies that campuses can realize from Mobile Credential, as well as the buzz the solution has been generating amongst students. Attendees will also learn about the process behind the development of Mobile Credential and hear a detailed rundown of the product, how it’s used, how it’s provisioned, and how universities can brand it for their specific campus.