Get More Out of Your Campus ID

Thanks to the "Blaster" card, Colorado School of Mines traded its time-consuming, overly complicated summer setup for visits that feature automatic access to buildings and easy-to-use meal plans. Prefer to listen? Here's the podcast link to "Get More Out of Your Campus ID."

The Colorado School of Mines uses its campus credential cards for more than just identification. In this podcast, Bob Mask, director of campus card services, explains how individual electronic cards are used throughout the summer for many on-campus events and camps with a variety of attendees and visitors. He also highlights the convenient functions of the cards from building access to mealtime checkout and the variety of benefits.

In partnership with Student Conference Services, Mask and his card services team are tasked with running logistics for 30 summer events or camps that bring in more than 2,500 visitors each year. Each campus visitor uses housing and/or dining services. To grant building entry access to each visitor, proximity cards are programmed to their assigned buildings and restrict access on a floor-by-floor basis.

The cards run on a number system, so staff members know simply by looking at a card which building and floor it’s assigned to. Having this information encoded through a number system provides an additional layer of security if any cards are lost or stolen.

Visitors also have to eat, so Colorado School of Mines created a “summer conference meal plan,” which is attached to every proximity card. By utilizing the TouchNet meal system, the school is able to create a block plan that allows for a single swipe for each meal for each day for each card. This trackable system helps control how often the card is used, yet is flexible enough for groups to work with food service for specific needs.

This method, which was inspired by the dining process at Disney resorts, also makes it very easy to estimate accurate billing and cost for each group based on their time spent on campus. It is all centered around the convenience needs of short-term summer visitors and campers.

By combining building access and dining plans on a single proximity card, Colorado School of Mines is able to streamline security and meal billing. By implementing this new card process, Mask and his team save both time and resources, as well as cut down on human error and turnaround time between summer groups.