Located in close proximity to a high road, the University of Hertfordshire was finding it difficult to control its stream of visitors and, ultimately, the security of the campus. As a result, the University suffered from thefts of expensive faculty IT equipment as well as students’ personal items. The rise in theft was bad enough, but when the University’s insurance premium was increased as a direct result, the University decided to actively tackle the issue by seeking ways to improve campus security. The University was looking for a solution that would not only enhance security but would also reduce management costs and increase overall efficiencies.

The Project
Following consultations, the University of Hertfordshire chose to implement Fortress’ Smart Campus Solution. The flexible nature of the solution allowed the University to stagger the launch on a faculty-by-faculty basis and in some cases on a building-by-building basis. The bite sized roll-out meant that staff and students found it easy to adapt to the new technology while Fortress had the opportunity to test the solution fully before further roll out.

Stage one of the project involved Fortress specialists creating a single, integrated database for all university departments including registration, finance, library and the various faculties. Once a central database was created, it was possible to start streamlining student registration processes and begin to issue smart cards to students and staff.

Access Control was the first application from Fortress’ Smart Campus Solution to be rolled out, and the first stop was the University’s Law School and Halls of Residence at St. Albans, where 10,000 smart cards were issued to staff and students. Following on from this successful launch, the University opted to roll out the Solution to other faculties where additional applications were activated and more students and staff issued with cards.

The Solution
Fortress’ smartcard Issuing Station allows the University to control every aspect related to the issuing of cards. All cards are programmed and distributed via the University’s own central ID office, which has been equipped with Fortress’ Issuing Station as well as integrated card printers. The printers both print and encode the cards in one go, enabling a quick and accurate card issuing process.

The ID office was so efficiently managed that it was even able to provide bureau services to organisations other than the University, such as local schools, creating a whole new revenue stream for the university. This lucrative and fast growing activity eventually grew to a point where the University created its own spin-off company to deal with the business.

To achieve maximum efficiency with the access control application, each faculty was equipped with a “hotel style” management system – the Modifier Station. These Modifier Stations allow the faculty administrators to easily allocate their students with the correct building and classroom access rights according the students’ curriculum. The Modifier Station also enables quick and easy changes to access rights for classrooms and laboratories, extending card validity and even limiting access rights.
Each student card was equipped with a magnetic stripe and barcode.

This kept the solution costs low as the Smart Campus Solution platform was simply integrated to the existing library system and magnetic stripe based access control. The old access control system was gradually retired, with faulty magnetic readers being replaced by smartcard readers over time.

Student Registration
The University of Hertfordshire were also interested in creating a student and staff self enrolment system that would be used for registration throughout term. Fortress’ Integrated ID Unit was implemented to this end. Now, students and staff simply enter their registration details into the database when enrolling at the university or when they commence employment respectively. The information is immediately transferred to the smart issuing station. Once the student or staff photograph has been taken, the picture along with their information is printed onto a smartcard. The whole process, including the information registration takes less than 10 minutes!

Crucially, Fortress’ system is designed to work all year round and can handle the strain when network loads are very high, making it the perfect solution for electronic registration and, as the same system is used all year, it is easy for temporary staff to learn.

Time Attendance Monitoring Solution (TAMS)
As the government only grants the university funds for nursing school students who attend at least 70% of the classes, it is crucial for the University to be able to accurately record these student attendances and be able to present this data in the required manner.

Fortress’ Time Attendance Monitoring System, installed in the faculty hallway, enables the University to collect the nursing school students’ attendance information, and, for the first time, obtain computerised reports detailing each and every student attendance during the term and year. These reports were crucial to the University for receiving maximum government funds.

After a successful roll-out at the nursing school, the University requested for the TAMS to be extended to include more students from more faculties. The solution has since been rolled out in stages and now covers most of the university students.

Detailed student attendance information is now available to the University staff on an
on-line basis and represented in conjunction with the student curriculum as well as the student personal file.

About the Smart Campus Solution
Access Control and Time Attendance applications are only two facets of Fortress’ multi-application Smart Campus Solution. The solution is designed to provide maximum flexibility and growth over time allowing universities the freedom to stagger the activation of applications as and when the university is ready, including a
faculty-by-faculty roll out scheme, without having to re-issue cards.

Further applications include e-purse for use with all food, vending machines and retail outlets on campus, printing and photocopying, interoperability with third parties (including local transport systems) Allowing students greater freedom and benefits with the added simplicity of one student card while universities get great benefits including more efficient governance and Fortress’ unique financing model.