Identity Management Solutions for High Schools & Post-Secondary Education

ADVANTIDGE works with colleges and high school districts across the country to instill confidence in school IT to address key areas that keep students and staff safe, thus allowing their administrators to focus on education. Maintaining campus security is critical for any community and a growing challenge in today’s world.

At ADVANTIDGE, we offer a variety of solutions to improve the security of educational facilities, including:

• ID Issuance and For Staff and Students
• Efficient Student and Attendance Tracking
• Visitor Management Solutions
• Physical Access Control Updates and Upgrades
• Digital Security with Multi-Factor Authentication

ID Issuance For Staff and Students

Today’s technology allows your student photo identification cards to be multi-purpose cards. A single student identification card can be used for applications such as food service and bookstore account management, access to computers and other technology, access control to athletic facilities, tracking library ID card check-out, health center ID badges, as well as at-a-glance photo ID.

This is easily managed with an onsite school ID system that includes ID software with a database that stores images of every person who has access to school grounds. The ID card software manages different templates based on the roles of the staff and faculty in addition to each grade for the students. School ID cards typically have a name, photo, identifying number, school logo and a barcode which allows for automation with other systems. Other features include barcodes, QR codes, mag stripes, prox and smart cards.

With an onsite photo ID system, student, faculty, staff, and visitor IDs can be produced on-demand using photo ID printers with very little wait time. Students can have their photos taken and receive their printed ID cards within minutes—without involving an outside vendor. Plastic ID badges serve to visually identify students, staff, and visitors at a glance. There are many techniques for adding visual verification and security to your school photo ID cards to provide authorized entrance for school activities and on-campus snack bars.

At some campuses there is a push for automated payments using student photo ID cards that can be scanned by a POS system. Using ID Cards with a magnetic stripe, barcode or smart chip allows schools to use student photo identification cards as stored-value debit cards for campus food service, the bookstore, parking, campus laundry facilities, and other on-campus venues which utilize retail ID card technology. This automation is regularly managed through third party applications and makes the purchasing process fast and efficient by reducing lines and wait times, can cut back on labor needed to staff cafeterias and bookstores, and reduces the losses and risks involved with cash transactions.

Efficient Student and Attendance Tracking

Many educational institutions are still using manual paper attendance tracking and visitor logbooks. In addition to increasing safety, automated attendance tracking software can foster greater efficiency for classes and schools alike. Using the existing student and staff photo ID cards on your campus, upgrade your school tracking system by incorporating magnetic stripe, barcode reader, or proximity smart card technologies. 

Attendance tracking software increases accuracy with immediate transmission to a central database. Whether utilized on campus with check-in at each classroom, at the main gates for entry to campus, or with the school bus transportation, the ability to quickly compile attendance data is critical to schools for managing their daily schedules and submissions for government funding. This information also allows administrators to learn if certain classes routinely struggle with attendance problems and which students, if any, are frequently tardy to class or absent. The data captured can be analyzed to help identify potential or developing issues before they happen.

Visitor Management Benefits and Usage

The next area of security to address at any school is the visitor registration system which should require any visitor to provide sufficient identifying information and notify the appropriate host that they have arrived. This can easily be done with visitor management software that allows for pre-registration of visitors and automated driver’s license scanning to capture the details for the school to keep on hand which ensures that you also have their address, driver’s license number, and the visitor’s name, date and time of entry, and basic physical description in your system. You can do that with a driver’s license scanner added to your school security system software. Additionally, watch list integration can check each visitor against a national or internal database to make it less likely that known sex-offenders gain entry to your facilities.

Schools and districts can easily distinguish visitors from faculty and other staff by incorporating a color-coding system into your ID card design or by using self-expiring visitor badges for on-campus visitors. Temporary ID cards cannot be reused after the day for which they have been issued and visually show to be expired after their approved allotted time, typically the half day, one day, or one week.

Physical Access Control Updates and Upgrades

Once identification has been addressed for all individuals on campus, schools need to update their physical access control system. The needs for access control vary significantly at each school depending on whether you are in an urban or metropolitan area with a single building or an open campus. This typically starts with the main entry gates and administrative offices, and may include classrooms, dorms and parking lots. Regardless of the environment, limiting access to authorized individuals is necessary and starts by installing electronic locks that can be accessed with an RFID card or a request to exit button managed by the school admin office. 

By switching from prox to HID iClass Seos for staff and student ID cards, your school ID system can provide automation through access control software that manages who gets access from the perimeter in addition to any internal doors throughout the campus. Modern readers include capabilities for Bluetooth and NFC in addition to traditional RFID credentials which allows for use of Mobile Access via a smartphone App for IOS/Android. Cloud-based controls for these credentials make it easier for schools and districts to manage who gets access throughout their facility.

Digital Security with Multi-factor Authentication

With schools and districts becoming regular targets, their IT departments should implement a single credential to serve a multitude of applications, including secure login to computers and school resources. Maintaining control of your digital community means shifting away from passwords and incorporating multi-factor authentication. This form of identification can also be used for access to computers and a variety of online SaaS resources, including online portals that track student activity for in-person and remote learning. 

As students become more tech savvy, it is imperative that school IT departments are in control of the communication systems for schoolwide emails, which can be targeted by hackers, in addition to ensuring the correct student is accessing their content for school learning activities.

Why ADVANTIDGE is a Leading ID Management Company for Education

ADVANTIDGE is focused on supporting high school, district, and colleges/universities with education security solutions that improve identification and access to authorized users on campus and online so that students and families have confidence in their learning environment. For over 20 years, we have worked with school district administrators and IT through a consultative approach to understand your priorities and achieve your goals for security and safety in each community.