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Technology & Campus Services: The Changing Face of Auxiliary Services
9/30/2006
“Previously, we accomplished this kind of distribution with paper lists from the registrar, and it was really time-consuming to comb through all the names to find the correct person,” says Drummond. “Now, we just bring the card readers, and that’s it.”
AT DUKE, wireless card scanners
have cataloged more than 52,000
transactions since late 2004.
Just about the only challenge Duke has had with the devices is simply keeping track of them. Over the course of the 2005-2006 school year, the DukeCard Office used the mobile readers at more than 350 events, making scheduling and handoffs tricky. Earlier this year, the team wrote a custom web application to create a comprehensive snapshot of the distribution schedule. The application presents data in an overview like the triage board in a hospital emergency room, laying out which departments have the readers and which are next in line. So far, as a result of this application, Drummond says the school hasn’t lost a device. Considering they cost $2,500 apiece, that’s a good thing.
Duke plans to expand the mobile card reader project to include special cell phones with readers built in. The phones will process transactions on the DukeCard system just like card readers do, only they will do it over the Nextel cellular network that covers the campus.
According to Drummond, a local food-service delivery company tested this technology in a pilot program earlier this year, and was able to process credit card payments instantaneously as the food was exchanged. Down the road, the program also will enable the university to quickly settle outstanding bills with local vendors and virtually eliminate fraud. “With this technology, we can help everybody—not just ourselves,” he says. “I’m excited to see where it g'es next.”
Eliminating Junk Mail
Environmentally conscious schools are turning to auxiliary services to eliminate one of the biggest sources of pollution and waste: junk mail. Every day, campus mailrooms are inundated with the same barrage of catalogs, magazines, newspapers, and collateral that plague consumers. And according to statistics from the US Postal Service, more than 66 percent of these pieces have incomplete or incorrect addresses, leaving universities to determine what to do next. At many schools, particularly the big ones, this predicament can become a herculean undertaking.
Yet, the problem of poor addressing isn’t just about waste; it eats up manhours as well. First, mailroom workers must determine if the intended recipients still attend the school. If the recipients are in fact still enrolled, the workers must take the time to look up the right addresses and correct the labels. Granted, misaddressed mail for off-campus students is handled by the local post office, which can reduce the burden significantly. Still, according to Aldona Robbins, CFO at Intra-Mail Network, which specializes in helping schools with this problem, the chore of redirecting and delivering this mail on campus can tax mailrooms to the point of inefficiency.
“There are schools that literally spend days each week dealing with this,” says Robbins, who notes that such schools as the University of Houston (TX), Georgetown University (DC), and Washington University (MO) have turned to her firm for help with their junk-mail problems.
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