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As education costs continue to rise, institutions are look for ways to consolidate, improve efficiencies and do more with less. Cutting costs and maximizing staff productivity are major keys to achieving this, but the quality of education and student security are primary issues to consider. A recent survey conducted by Campus Safety magazine indicated that more than half of university and college faculty members feel safety and security programs are lacking at institutions of higher learning. These facilities need ways to continually improve quality of learning, increase security and streamline campus services.
One holistic solution that can be applied to multiple areas of the university environment is Smart Access Card technology with contactless, proximity-based radio frequency identification (RFID). This technology offers long-range reads and fast identification with a broad scope and wide array of applications. With this solution, students can utilize a single smart card for everything: campus security, services, and administrative information.
With Smart Cards, universities can easily implement secure visitor management systems using temporary ID cards issued on demand at registration desks and trackable throughout the campus. These ID cards are part of the complete campus-wide access control program to protect dormitories and student centers as well as keep lab equipment and research departments secure.
Instead of labor-intensive manual attendance tracking, Smart Cards can also be used to track attendance numbers of large groups in a single session, reducing the amount of tardies and cutting administrative time. Students can also be granted individual- or group-level access to libraries, printer and supply rooms, labs and after-hours studios. And for a total campus solution, meal credits can also be loaded onto the Smart Card, along with funds to cover books, supplies, and even campus parking.
With print-on-demand (POD) barcode, RFID, magnetic stripe, graphics and photo options, organizations can create and deploy a Smart Card system across multiple facilities and applications. Users can opt to print in barcodes or embedded RFID, encoding key information such as photos, graphics, holograms, fingerprints or other biometrics. On-demand, in-house card printing can help institutions improve efficiency and security at multiple levels by streamlining records management, simplifying registration and attendance protocols, and control access campus-wide.
Zebra Technologies’ ZXP Series 3 card printer is one option for your educational customers to explore. Its high-performance ribbons enable high-speed, high-volume card printing for maximum throughput with better image quality. Smart Card and magnetic stripe encoding options are available, and users can print on one or both sides of the card in color or monochrome. For more information about these and other Smart Card resources for government and educational applications available from BlueStar and Zebra Technologies, visit us.bluestarinc.com/zebra.
