Administrator: Smart cards on campus’ horizon

Students accessing dorms, the NPAC, labs throughout campus, and purchasing meals and snacks from campus food outlets with a single ID might be a reality at Chadron State, Chief Information Officer Ann Burk said.

Burk listed a bevy of improvements made to the college’s information technology infrastructure, and outlined future goals and projects Monday afternoon from her Miller Hall office.

The core function of students using IDs with smart-card technology is building access, including dormitories and the NPAC. Burk said that the technology is flexible enough to enable future innovation such as allowing students to make on-campus purchases.

Some capabilities of the card depend on the coordination of contractors that are housed on campus, such as the Eagle Pride Bookstore and CSC’s Creative Dining Services.

Similar technology is already used by other schools, enabling students to make on- and off-campus purchases by linking their IDs with their bank accounts like a debit card.

Burk said she understands the potential for smart-card technology, and wants to provide a solution so that if the college chose to offer off-campus purchasing capabilities, the technology would be in place.

“We will want to ensure that the smart-card solution we choose provides this flexibility,” Burk stated in an email interview earlier this week.

Burk said smart-card technology is a priority established by the Student Senate and funded by students’ technology fees. Burk said she expects the new ID system to be in place by the end of the year.

“I would like to have students walk away with smart cards by December, so that they can use them in the spring,” Burk said.

The college allocated $60,000 from the technology fee fund for smart-card conversion, Burk said.

Other IT improvements over the summer include bolstering the campus’ virtual infrastructure, updating classroom and lab technology, and expanding the hours of the department’s help desk.

The technology in select classrooms was upgraded, allowing faculty to make wireless presentations from mobile devices. This change enables greater classroom mobility for the faculty, Burk said.

In addition, the campus’ virtual infrastructure was also upgraded with new hardware aimed at decreasing system downtime and increasing data storage.

Data travelling to and from CSC is now load-balanced between two main connections. One is serviced by Century Link and travels through Network Nebraska; the other is serviced by Great Plains Communications and travels along fiber optic lines.

Though a technically complex process, the load-balanced approach essentially provides reliability and availability, Burk said.