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| Subject: Proton loyalty schemeSchlumberger, and AES ProdataMIFAREr | |
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Author: Issue 6 February/March 1998THE SMART CAMPUS Newsletter |
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Date Posted: 08:36:38 02/01/03 Sat THE SMART CAMPUS Newsletter This newsletter is about smart card issues and developments and is published by Aston University and thr UK Smart Card Club. THE SMART CAMPUS newsletter is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee Technology Applications Programme. Issue 6 February/March 1998 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents Review of 1997 - and the Future ? Smart Card Club speakers World News An Update on current events Smart Card Workshops Date of next Workshop Education News Staffordshire University Hertfordshire University University of Florida -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome to the THE SMART CAMPUS newsletter. The uses of smart cards are expanding rapidly and the aims of JISC funded THE SMART CAMPUS newsletter are to raise awareness within the UK Higher Education sector of smart card issues and developments. We would welcome the submission of articles on smart card issues from within the education, commercial and manufacturing sectors. Liz Amos - email: e.c.amos@aston.ac.uk Tony Bell - email: a.j.bell@aston.ac.uk THE SMART CAMPUS WWW home page - http://www.aston.ac.uk/is/smartcard/schome.html Management Information Systems, Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, B4 7ET Telephone 0121 359 3611 Fax 0121 359 6158 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Information about Aston University In September 1997 Aston issued a new, multifunction SMART CAMPUS CARD to all students and staff. This card retains all the functionality of the previous "non-smart" card with the addition of the Mondex electronic purse and we will be developing other chip functionality in the near future. The SMART CAMPUS CARD is an Aston University card not a Bank card. The card is printed and issued by the University. Aston is a smart card Demonstrator site. We are keen to share our knowledge and experience with other HE institutions and welcome visits to Aston. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Review of 1997 - and the Future ? A report on the views of several industry speakers expressed at the December 1997 meeting of the UK Smart Card Club. Philip Andreae of Philip Andreae Associates It was a meeting for summings-up and predictions, rather than excitement and hyperbole, and the common theme was the need to think seriously about business requirements. Developments in the smart card market last year were more modest than many expected, according to Philip's review of the year, and for the entirely predictable reason that too little attention was given to the business context. ‘Getting the cards and the terminals right is the easy bit’, he said, pointing out how little most of the experts in these areas know about the wider investment implications of moving to schemes based on smart cards. Take, for example, the vending sector, widely seen as a big growth area. Everyone has been courting Coca-Cola (which is waiting until the number of standards has fallen to two or three), without realising that the high conversion cost for each vending machine would have to be spread over a mere 4,800 tins a year. The cost per sale is just too high. Philip found great interest expressed in electronic purse at a recent conference ostensibly concerned with multi-application cards - an indication, perhaps, of the difficulty in getting the latter off the ground. In the Netherlands, the ChipKnip card is designed to carry up to 45 separate loyalty schemes - but no contracts have been signed yet for renting space. Chipper is doing better, with Albert Heijn ready to accept it and half a million home terminals to be provided in 1998, but this is all about business partnerships and ways of making money from the card by using it as a tool. The telcos think they may have a business case for using smart cards; as more people are finding ways of making calls at prices not dependent on time and distance, the challenge is to increase the total number of calls and to add value by embedding transaction processing in the infrastructure, using smart cards. For credit and debit cards, expectations of a wholesale shift to smart cards have given ground to a more businesslike appraisal of when and where the move can be justified. Both in the USA and in Britain, discussion with major banks such as Chase, Citibank, MB&A, Midland and Barclays has revealed a consensus for making only 10-20% of customers’ cards smart, as a way of cementing relationships. The benefits of smartness for credit alone do not justify the cost, and in the USA the ‘network-centric’ environment, requiring only simple devices for on-line transactions, loads the dice against smart cards with their more elaborate interfaces. Again, Australia expects only some 20% of credit and debit to be combined with purse on a smart card, and Hong Kong (which is interested in purse) intends to target particular market segments. Some comfort for schemes like EMV comes from rising counterfeiting, which has grown by 76% in a year for one UK bank and by 40% compound per quarter for one in the USA. (Criminals are, of course, already working hard on breaking smart card protection.) 1998, thinks Philip, will be the year in which companies reflect on business problems and how smart cards can help to solve them. The procedure used by the telcos (but ignored by EMV and SET, among others) may be adopted: first write the business requirements, in co-operation with competitors, then go out to tender for the best technology solutions. Market competition follows. Other predictions: multi-application will happen, driven by telcos using combi-radio, not cards; retailers will not come in for ages and will want centralised data accessible by network; and the on-line/off-line debate will continue to rage. Making the card pay Neil Dodson of OSI Neil saw the biggest thing in 1997 as the massive increases in the card base and transaction volumes across the world. Things are moving quite briskly, he thinks, in the USA and Australasia - but Europe, with most cards, he describes as ‘a shambles’.The issues which will concern us most in 1998 are: Persuading customers to pay for cards Paying for infrastructure Justifying costs Influencing adoption of smart cards Wondering who will win Deciding how to achieve interoperability Neil did not try to deal with all of these, but he had a lot to say about customers, focused on his idea of the ‘Consumercard’. People will buy these, already branded, in shops, hard-coded with just an operating system or an OS and some applications, such as credit and purse. The card is proprietary but interoperable, and additional applications are loaded on request, by a trusted third party. Different versions of the card will compete, on the basis of earliness of introduction and service levels. How do we reach that position? Neil said that the branding will be done in ‘new ways’, but identified three clear steps. First, industry sectors get together to create an offer; then customers and card acceptors start to insist on interoperability; then customers, familiar with their cards, become ready to pay for specific applications. Like Philip, Neil insisted on the importance of studying the business case - here, of looking into the needs of consumers, and particular of new business areas, such as children, telephony and media. ‘Persuade customers to pay, not for the card but for what’s on it, and put the price at what they think the services are worth’, he said. As to the other issues, solutions follow. Customers will be paying for the infrastructure by paying for services. Costs will be justified by defending market share and the ability to provide more services. Card schemes will influence adoption through partnerships with global service providers, damaging existing relationships but creating new and profitable ones in their place. Finally, interoperability will be driven by customer demand. What the oracle says Mike Hendry The big happenings of 1997 for Mike, independent payments consultant, were the start of important new trials and schemes, formation of partnerships (Mastercard/Mondex, Mondex/Girovend, etc) and launch of products, particularly Multos, JavaCard 2.0 API and 32-bit microcontrollers for smart cards. The Northampton trial, a world first, has done well on card numbers and overcoming resistance, though is rather light on terminals and transactions; VisaCash has got three-quarters of the way towards its targets for cards and terminals, and Mondex is now big in universities. The link with Amex has taken Proton on to the global scene, and the use of smart cards in credit and debit has been rising steadily. What about 1998? Mike had contacted suppliers, consultants, banks etc to take part in a delphi survey. The results were not enough to bet big money on - only ten people replied - but they were certainly interesting. In descending order, the ‘big events’ of the year were the APACS ICC launch, the VisaCash launch and the first SET transaction, while the most important new players in the payments park are thought to be Maosco, Tesco, Sainsbury’s Bank, Capital One, and Amex. The survey showed that the factors driving growth are: Speed of acceptance of electronic purse Success of APACS ICC Fear Standards: EMV and MAOS Hardware advances. Mike pointed out that no-one mentioned value-added services, which he thought ‘should be at the top of the list’. Most people thought there would be between 5 and 40 million smart credit and debit cards by the beginning of the new century - a large range, and Mike opted for 15-20 million as his own best bet. Purse cards would be somewhere in the 1-10 million range, while few respondents expect to see fast growth in multi-application cards before 2005. Bearing in mind these results, Mike outlined six scenarios for the future, all of them possible. ‘Card wars’ would mean destructive attacks on competitors leading to market distrust and failure to grow. ‘Diktat from Number Ten’ involves directives, eg from the Bank of England, that would make it hard to offer new services. The ‘Eurozone layer’ refers to the possibility of electronic purse just for EU countries, matching the common designs for Euro notes and coins. Under a ‘Telecoms take-over’, banks would find themselves surrendering leadership of the market to the telcos, such as Deutsche Telekom and BT, while with the ‘Personal touch’ banks could start using databases derived from loyalty schemes to know their customers better and tailor their product offerings. Closest to Neil Dodson’s Consumercard is the ‘Pick ‘n mix’ scenario: blank cards either given or bought, and loaded by the consumer with selected services. Mike’s view is that no single scenario is likely to be realised fully, but elements of each are likely. Card personalisation Brendan Jones of Racal Airtech Between the mass manufacture of a smart card and its first successful consumer transaction lies P3: the personalisation preparation process, described by Brendan. Developed in conjunction with Visa for use in the UKIS and other trials, it is concerned with generating the cryptographic material needed for operation. The process was devised because of concern over development costs and their negative effect on the chip market. The P3 application is a sub-process sitting on the issuer’s mainframe and interrogating each card record, identifying applications and adding the relevant cryptographic material, to support personalisation and embossing. P3 provides support for applications, ensuring, for example, that a card is compliant with EMV and potentially other applications as they come along. It looks after key management, such as supporting self-identification by issuers, generation of master keys, re-loading of keys for purse and developing data security methods to include keys. It handles card record processing, things like embossing and CCPS applications, looks after application data flow, and generally provides a strong security product, concerned with controlling access and managing shared data. What about the retailer? Phil Mitchell of the British Retail Consortium Philbegan by looking at the issues as they appeared at the start of 1997, and how they had developed. One was the UKIS trials: the role which retailers would be expected to play, the technology investment they would have to make, the impact on point of sale performance, and the benefits smart cards would bring. In the event, retailers were reassured on technical issues and accepted grudgingly the details of the process. But, while 5-600 small retailers, using kit supplied by banks, were willing to take part, fewer than six large companies showed interest, doubting the payback on their investment. Will there, therefore, be enough large retailer experience from the trials to carry the work forward? Assuming that smart card trials are rolled out, the retail issues are point of sale procedures for multi-application cards, cardholder interaction, CVM and, particularly, the technical architecture needed for an integrated EPoS environment. Large retailers which have integrated point of sale with other operations have a variety of approaches, each of which will need to be able to incorporate chip cards. In Phil’s view, retailers should proceed on the following assumptions: UKIS will succeed and roll out from mid-’98 there will be a significant number of cards in circulation in two years a significant proportion of bank-owned terminals will be chip-enabled in two years multi-application cards will be in circulation from the start of roll-out early adopters will receive financial help for EPoS up-grades merchant service charges will be different for chip and stripe in two to five years purse will spread among the public within three years Mondex and VisaCash will predominate, but there will be new entrants purse will take time to spread beyond specialist sectors more retailers will issue smart loyalty cards chip cards are coming, so prepare to deal with the threats and exploit the opportunities. Urgent questions still remain, over CVM, solutions to the need for consistent operation within full commercial choice, and acceptance of competing cards. The main message, with which Phil concluded, is the significance of payment cards to banks and retailers at this time: To banks payment cards are central to business. They make money. They are an end in themselves. To retailers payment cards are peripheral to business. they usually don’t make money. they are a means of selling goods. Retailers simply do not care about cards as much as banks do, so they must be shown clear benefits if they are to support new developments. More about the retailers perspective Peter Cox of ID Data Equally trenchant truths came from Peter, repeating the message that cards are one way of doing something, not a solution in their own right. Retailers want to sell goods, and believe that they can sell more, and make more profits, if they can improve their relationship with customers; part of this improvement can be brought about by better knowledge of their tastes and needs and by careful branding of communications. A plastic card can be a good solution in that it supports a move to retailer banks - but it would be wrong to assume that smart cards are generally viewed as the best solution. The mag stripe card, used in a network-rich environment, remains a powerful competitor. In Sweden, retail pharmacists use them, in spite of the prevalence of chip cards in the country, because it is so much cheaper to move data on-line. This is what matters increasingly to retailers: the fast and cheap movement of data. It is unimportant to a retailer’s concerns whether the object that identifies a shopper (or a product) is a smart card or something completely different. Much enthusiasm has been expended on multi-application cards, but very little of it by retailers. Customers may want a single all-purpose card in their pocket, but retailers want them to carry they own branded card. Partnership schemes are difficult to arrange and have a cost; retailers are happy to share costs with others, but want to keep benefits, and particularly customer data, to themselves. Their interest in smart cards can be explained by a number of factors as shown below: increasing competitive pressure. safeguarding existing customers. expanding and improving profits knowing customers better. building customer trading information. but these factors do not guarantee that smart cards will be the chosen way forward. Retailers want short-term financial gain, based on better targeting and knowledge of customers; a good loyalty proposition, based on the understood elements of status, easy redemption, cash rewards, etc; and methods of developing new services like home delivery and Internet interaction. Smart cards could well be the best key to these new services, but they will have to fight to justify their claim to be the retailer’s best friend. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Newsd VisaCash trial in Irelandevelopments" Allied Irish Bank, Bank of Ireland and Telecom Eireann have chose the VisaCash technology for their electronic purse launch trial in Ennis, Ireland's Information Age Town. During the trial the people of Ennis will be able to use the VisaCash electronic purse to pay for public telephone calls, newspapers, car parking and a range of other small-value purchases. Smart card technology is already familiar to the Irish population, who use telephone CallCards in public payphones. The new card will, however, have additional features; customers will be able to re-load their cards directly from their bank accounts either using special self-service machines installed in public places by the banks, or directly through Telecom Eireann payphones. Plans are already under way to adapt all Telecom Eireann public payphones in the town of Ennis to accept the cards. There are also plans to introduce special phones that will enable customers to re-load their cards from their own homes. The card will also be accepted in a variety of retail outlets in the town. AIB and the Bank of Ireland are working with retailers and service providers to install point of sale equipment to accept the cards. The purpose of the trial is to test customer attitudes, to gauge retailer reactions and to assess the commercial viability of rolling out the service on a countrywide basis. Bank of Ireland, AIB Bank and Telecom Eireann chose Ennis as the trial location for the electronic purse because of its selection as ‘Information Age Town’. Ennis is seen to be an ideal place to test the concept in the Irish market as residents have proved themselves to be open to new technological developments. The trial will be continuously monitored and assessed for a period of 12 months while all three parties involved examine future possibilities for the use of electronic purse. American Express and JCB support SET on the Net American Express and JCB have joined MasterCard and Visa to help lead the implementation of the recently announced Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) 1.0 protocol, which provides a higher level of security for card transactions over the Internet. The companies will form an entity (SETCo) that will manage the SET specifications, handle software compliance testing and address the issues related to the adoption of the global payment standard. Opportunities in South Africa Friends of South Africa have been saddened by the high levels of crime reported in that country, but Derek Rule, Director of the Smart Card Society of Southern Africa, suggests that we look on the bright side. Crime, he says, and fraud in particular provide enormous opportunities to use smart cards and, at the same time, to drive forward suppliers there and their partners from Britain. The basic demographics are impressive. There are forty million people, divided more or less equally between town and country, and they share 70,000 kilometres of tarred road, 23,000 kilometres of railways, 140 kilometres of copper wire, nearly twice as much optic fibre and 600,000 GSM phones - a striking mixture of old and new infrastructure. Crime figures are just as striking. Visa reports a lost/stolen card fraud rate that is four times the world average, there are huge unpaid debts to public utilities - Soweto alone owes nearly 1b Rand - and there are 3.5m counterfeit passports and 1.5m pensions paid out to dead people. With high levels of violent offences and growth of organised crime, the police would dearly like to be able to turn their attention away from fraud and towards these more threatening developments. The solution, as they see it, lies in technology. For example, there are plans to release 100,000 petty criminals on parole, using bangles fitted with GPS monitors to confine them to specified areas. Retailers, doing their bit, are trying to reduce shop theft by implementing loyalty and payment schemes in smart cards, so getting rid of cash. Shebeen owners in the townships can pay for their beer in advance with smart cards, eliminating both opportunities for cash theft and the disappearance of debtors. Using technology to fight crime has produced some impressive results, but there are many areas to explore. The country has 2M smart cards for Pay TV, and has risen from 18th to 12th largest user of the Internet and e-commerce in six months. Smart cards in payments, loyalty, leisure, vehicle monitoring - the list of uses is almost endless. ‘Americans reject smart cards’ The Smart Card Forum has conducted a study, in co-operation with the US convenience store industry, which shows that over 12,000 retailers are not keen to adopt smart card technology and believe that consumer demand is insufficient to justify the investment that would be required. Australia not too happy either Although Australia is reported as leading the export market in smart card technology, the inhabitants are slower off the mark when it comes to adopting the technology in their own country. It would seem that the idea of carrying personal information around on a card is not too appealing, and Robyn Linley, Director of the Technology Innovation Research Centre at Wollongong University of South Sydney, blames the Government’s botched ‘Australia Card’ plan as one of the main problems. The Australia Card was to carry health, identity and citizenship details. However, plans were dropped by the then Labour Government as the idea became more and more unpopular. Not helping either is the efficient electronic funds payment system which is currently in operation. Retailers are reluctant to convert to smart card technology when the payment system is working so well. Smart card developers are not put off. Over the next 12 months, the plan is to get Australians using smart cards for telephone calls to book airline tickets, as well as for home banking. Telstra Corp launched smart cards for payphones in Adelaide last month and Mondex Australia is planning to introduce Mondex in the second half of 1998. Proton integrates loyalty scheme Proton, the smart card platform developed by the Belgian consortium Banksys, has 25 million cards in circulation, making it the world's largest electronic purse scheme. Plans are now being finalised to integrate a smart loyalty system, XLS, from French company High Co. Technologies which will fit the requirements of future large-scale customer loyalty programmes as well as being relevant in simple, single-retailer environments. The XLS application is platform-independent and is centrally accounted, providing merchants with information about customers’ spending habits. Software company High Co. Technologies holds international patents covering the method in which electronic coupons are stored and processed through smart cards, via a Web site or directly at a supermarket check-out. The company has also patented the instant advantage acquisition mechanism, which allows retailers to give a variety of rewards depending on the regularity of their customers’ visits. French airline AOM success The XLS loyalty card system is also used for a frequent flyer application run by French airline AOM. The card was introduced in April at all AOM destinations and credits are awarded at check-in according to the destination and class of travel. Points can be exchanged at any time for free tickets or upgrades, and plans are being discussed for including hotels, car rental companies and other airlines. Jean-Marc Janaillac, Co-general Manager of AOM, says ‘The smart card clearly represents major cost benefits when compared to the magnetic stripe card’. Smart ticketing in Meurthe et Moselle The Conseil Général de Meurthe et Moselle has introduced a contactless automatic fare-collection system which is being used by 30,000 school children on 210 buses in the Nancy region. The new scheme is intended to raise public awareness that, due to rising costs, public transport can no longer be provided free of charge. 10% of the expenses will be covered by the parents, and 90% will still be financed by the Conseil Général. Families with low incomes will be exempt. The Conseil Général also gains useful information about the number of rides per student, utilised bus capacities, accurate revenue collection and further cost-reduction potential. The ACCUEIL 54 scheme is based on MIFAREr technology and has been implemented by the French system integrator Applicam. The Magic 9000 personalisation terminals are provided by Schlumberger, and AES Prodata is supplying the TP4100 driver consoles. The data collected from the bus terminal is transmitted to a central server via the GSM network. Smart leisure in Taiwan resort The Flamingo Club, a well-known recreation and leisure activity resort in Taiwan, has launched a Club membership card incorporating the MIFAREr contactlesss technology. A number of financial services will be provided by project partner Chung Ching Bank of Taipei. 5,000 combined bank/membership cards and 8,000 sole membership cards will be issued over the next few months. Get fit and get smart The Oklahoma State University (OSU) Athletic Department and Precis Smart Card Systems are rolling out last year's smart card application. The ‘Spirit Cash’ Card can be used to purchase $15-worth of goodies at sporting events such as football, basketball, wrestling and baseball in Lewis Stadium, Gallagher-Iba Arena and Reynolds Stadium. 10,000 cards will be issued during the athletics season in 1997/8; they can be purchased during and before the sporting events. The cards are sponsored by the Bank of Oklahoma and feature current and former OSU athletes. For further information contact: Mercedes trials smart car card Daimler-Benz is working with Schlumberger to develop an ‘adaptable smart card’ for use with future production of Mercedes-Benz cars. It is intended that the cards will provide greater flexibility for Daimler-Benz, allowing service organisations to identify each vehicle precisely, track service history and access data provided by the on-board systems. Initially the system is designed to simplify maintenance. However, the card features an open software architecture, so further applications can be added. The trial system is being developed using the Java-compatible Cyberflex product from Schlumberger. Phase 2+ smart SIM for home and leisure If you think the smart card SIM is used just for identification, security and accounting, think again. Schlumberger has a new technology that enables mobile telecom operators to offer extra application programmes to suit an individual customer's requirements. Telephone user interface and communications resources can function as a tiny network computer offering the subscriber home banking, utility bill payment, betting and lottery services, flight bookings, etc. Schlumberger's smart card SIMS are believed to be the first to meet the latest iteration of the GSM specification that controls the vast majority of the world's digital cellphone networks. The cards are compatible with a new set of mobile phone commands and tools which effectively allow the SIM to operate as a master. Known as Activa, the proactive SIM card can now operate autonomously, calling on the mobile to perform actions such as menu-directed sequences. The first Activa SIM cards to be released offer 16k of memory. Gemplus launches GemClub loyalty card Gemplus has launched an innovative new microprocessor card entirely dedicated to loyalty applications. GemClub is based on an innovative operating system with specific commands which can act as a pocket calculator and not just a bonus-building vehicle. GemClub can convert business figures into points and reward the customer according to criteria such as frequency of visits, total amount spent and types of product purchased. This provides retailers with a simple yet effective way to reward existing customers and gain new ones through precisely-targeted loyalty programmes. Enhanced capacity enables it to operate without a terminal, saving retailers time and expense on application development. Prototypes are now available and full-scale production is scheduled to start in December 1997. German banks use Philips Semiconductors cards Philips Semiconductors has been chosen as one of the main suppliers for the EuroCheque-Karte/Geldkarte scheme in which the majority of German bank-account holders will be issued with a smart bank card. The cards feature both the traditional magnetic stripe and a Philips Semiconductors security controller IC, the P83C868, for the high security banking facilities. This means that new system applications can be introduced gradually into the existing banking infrastructure. The chip also allows additional applications to be added in a high security environment. The security controller IC provides 20kbyte of ROM, 8kbyte EEPROM and 384byte RAM. Voltage and frequency sensors, and a 32byte FabKey are among the security features that make it one of the most secure smart card controllers on the market today. ICs are programmed during manufacturer with an electronic key using the FabKey procedure which is unique to Philips. The FabKey can then be used as a chip identifier, as a type identifier, as a quality control marker for tracking purposes and as a transport key. Gemplus signs licence agreement with Innovatron Manufacturers of electronic hardware will not have to pay any more fees to Innovatron for the use of the GemCore® component kit, thanks to Gemplus which has signed a licence agreement with Innovatron. GemCore® allows quick, easy and cost-efficient integration of a smart card interface into any type of electronic equipment, enabling the systems integrator to reduce development time. The agreement enables Gemplus and Innovatron to make GemCore® a global solution, integrating not only all technical and functional aspects but also all legal considerations. Danmont celebrates 5th successful year Danmont, the Danish electronic purse scheme, recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. Danmont has come a long way since its initial launch in September 1992. Although the take-up rate began particularly slowly, 500,000 transactions now take place every month. The most recent application has been implemented at the Esbjerg Training College where 500 students can use their cards in the canteen, for public payphones and in vending machines. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Education News The academic environment Tina Theis, Director of the Process Improvement Programme (PIP) at Staffordshire University Tina talks about how a smart card implementation could help HE. She and her team have been given the task of finding ways to improve the effectiveness of existing administrative procedures, and have identified the smart card as playing a central part in the strategy. No decision has yet to be taken on which card to use, or how exactly to implement the strategy within the university - but it is clear that the opportunities (and the needs) are immense, and likely to involve a closer relationship between learning institutions as well as between town and gown. The challenge is formidable. The University has 16,000 students on six sites, more than a third of them part-time, and is facing the constraints of capped funding, increased student numbers and expectations, and the trend towards mergers with FE colleges and creation of regional networks of post-school education. Moreover, students currently hold an average of seven cards, most of them dumb, and they still do not ensure that buildings are secure and registration details accurate. The ideal would be a single multi-purpose card, that can be produced (and replaced) very quickly and cheaply, and which can deliver most or all of the objectives shown below while standing up to attacks from some of the most ingenious hackers in the country. What a smart solution should deliver improved registration process simplified issue of cards reduced card-issuing cost improved building access and security accurate recording of student attendance and progress up-to-date access to financial information student self-management improved service to remote and part-time students electronic purse Most of these objectives include benefits for both the university and its students. For example, better access control would not only keep unentitled people from campus facilities, but also allow part-time students access to libraries during unstaffed periods. It would be useful to be able to record student attendance at classes, as much to identify welfare needs as to ensure that course requirements are met, but this is a very contentious area on which progress is slow and under negotiation. Staffordshire is in touch with other Universities on the use of technology for improved administration. Although most institutions come up with fairly similar requirements, and there are ideas around for ‘super universities’ combining several existing bodies, there is no central initiative from the Department for Education. Any common specification would have to come from the universities themselves and would be very worthwhile in view of the benefits of sharing data throughout a student’s education and with bodies such as the Higher Education Statistical Agency. Other developments could be with the local community, particularly with shops, landlords and transport companies. The vision of a smart card at the centre of a system controlling, administering and enabling a student’s education is clearly very exciting, but it will be some time before Staffordshire’s detailed choices become clear. Staffordshire University is planning a single-function card for September 1998 which will combine the existing uses of the University ID, library and union of students but without smart capabilities initially. Smart applications will follow. Some practicalities of the campus card Gaby Vago of ICTS One striking point made by Tina concerns timescales. Students get their A-level results in August, confirm which university they will attend in September, and need their registration card in late September or early October. How can this be done? Gaby adds another time constraint; if students lose their cards, containing practically their entire life-support system, they must be replaced within 24 hours, not the 14 days currently achieved by Mondex. (Ed. most Universities appear to manage replacement Mondex cards in 3/4 days, Aston replace Mondex cards on demand) This is one reason why the company, which is extending its access control expertise to handle other campus functions, decided that a university needs its own inside bureau for printing cards. The other main reason is cost, and their is strong evidence that technology costs can come down if the supplier wants the business and knows that the customer has absolutely no financial leeway. For example, although smart cards can cost ten times as much as mag stripe cards, ICTS has built a system for 1/3 of the price of an on-line system. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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| Re: Proton loyalty schemeSchlumberger, and AES ProdataMIFAREr | part2 | 08:37:40 02/01/03 Sat |