Following on from our previous post in this series surrounding Healthcare, today we’re looking at how ID cards can be used in the Education sector to best effect.
The main objective in this industry is to protect staff and students. ID cards help to reduce risk and allow people to study and work in a safe and secure environment without unnecessary distractions. They help increase efficiency in terms of tracking where students are in the building and improve accuracy by logging time and attendance, saving valuable staff admin time in reporting.
Traditionally, ID cards have been used in education purely as a means of identification in its simplest definition – for example to indicate which school an individual is from, which event they are attending, if they belong to a particular group on a school trip. And so on.
This visual identification – which is little more than labelling – does not serve much of a function. Nowadays, ID cards can have multiple applications within an educational establishment:
The ability to quickly issue ID cards is a fast and effective way to make sure all students and staff have the proper identification as early as possible in the school year. Our solutions eliminate the time required by traditional methods to process and print.
Here are some specifics:
Photo ID
All personnel on an educational campus should be carrying some form of visual ID, most commonly in the form of an ID badge worn about their person. Authenticating an individual who is trying to gain access to a campus or who is located in a protected area can be achieved using visual verification, provided the card has enough effective secure visual elements in place. Typically this includes a photograph, but to prevent counterfeiting, the card should also include an additional security feature such as a hologram, UV printing or better still a hard to copy feature such as Magicard’s HoloKote watermark that can be uniquely tied to the school.
Physical access
Protecting campuses and safeguarding students has become a critical operation for all educational establishments from kindergarten through to universities. Smart cards, each issued with unique keys to provide access to campuses, faculties and individual classrooms, are now a fundamental requirement for staff, visitors and increasingly for students of all ages. Cards are typically presented to an authenticating reader, linked to a physical access control system (PACS) which verifies and grants access to an individual.
Data
The chip on a multi-application student ID smart card can be used to securely store important personal information including details of next of kin, emergency contacts and medical information such as blood group, allergies or details about medication.
Time and attendance
Students and staff movements can be tracked and monitored using a smart card linked to a time and attendance system. This not only verifies whether students are in the right class at the right time, but also can monitor absence, sickness or in the event of a mustering scenario in an emergency, can verify that all the students are accounted for
Logical access
By adding a logical access application to a student or staff ID card, educational establishments can grant access and monitor use of electronic data such as coursework, e-learning resources and even examination submissions. Other IT assets such as printers, Internet browsing or email communications can also be secured and monitored with this method.
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