Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Robot delivery has arrived at the University of Tulsa after the campus partnered with provider, Starship Technologies. The move reportedly makes Tulsa the first university in the state of Oklahoma to offer robot delivery on campus.
According to a report from Tulsa World, the university has deployed an initial fleet 15 robots, but has left the door open to expanding the initiative to as many as 40 robots. Users order and pay via the Starship mobile app, with each robot delivery carrying a flat delivery fee of $2.50.
“This robot delivery phenomenon has added about 30 colleges across the country and we said, you know, we’d like to be next,” says Matt Warren, Vice President of the University of Tulsa. “TU is a STEM-focused institution, and we are always looking at what’s high tech, what’s new.”
The service will enable students and employees to have meals delivered from select campus eateries to a variety of campus locations, including residence halls and offices. The service works with TU Dining Dollars, the Hurricane Gold Dollar program — a prepaid account students and staff use their via their TU ID card — as well as standard credit cards. The delivery service runs between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. daily.
Warren hopes that demand increases and that more robots could be deployed. An area of Tulsa’s Mabee Gymnasium is already being converted to serve as a home base for the robots. “We’re installing this special robotic garage door that automatically opens and closes so they can file out at 7:00 in the morning, and then file back in at night to recharge,” says Warren.
The service officially launched in late November, and has been met with positive feedback.
“So far, students are loving the convenience,” says Warren. “We had one bad weather day and we got a lot of positive feedback that it’s certainly worth the $2.50.”
The service is currently restricted to campus dining locations only. The robots are capable of operating at a range of up to two miles from campus, a feature that the university intends to leverage going forward.
“We are looking at a phase two where we’d be looping in neighboring eateries, so our students could order from them and have their order delivered via robot to campus,” says Warren.
Grubhub has partnered with robot delivery provider, Kiwibot, and has made the University of North Dakota the pair's first campus client. Going forward, the partnership will provide robot delivery services on college campuses across the United States.
Kiwibot joins Grubhub's existing robot delivery partners, Cartken and Starship. In total, Grubhub is supporting robot delivery on a dozen college campuses across the country.
"When it comes to the campus dining experience, we see robot delivery as a complementary offering to traditional delivery since the robots can navigate hard-to-reach areas on campuses," says Adam Herbert, senior director of campus partnerships at Grubhub. "Our campus partners have been asking for us to help bring this delivery option to their school, and we are excited to partner with Kiwibot to expand this innovative and convenient type of delivery to more colleges across the country."
"Our partnership with Grubhub means we'll be able to provide an integrated delivery service that allows students to experience Kiwibot delivery right from Grubhub's app," says Felipe Chávez, CEO of Kiwibot.
North Dakota students will be able to select robot delivery via the Grubhub app from on-campus dining locations, including the Memorial Union Food court and Wilkerson Dining Center.
The Kiwibots navigate using an autonomous system and can operate in snow and extreme weather conditions. The robots move at walking pace and can hold up to 25 pounds.
"Bringing a delivery service to campus was an offering we've been wanting to provide at the university, and we are excited for this innovative delivery service to become available to students," says Orlynn Rosaasen, director of dining services at the University of North Dakota. "We know just how busy students are, and this type of delivery will provide them with one more option to access food on campus during their busy days."
Grubhub currently partners with more than 250 college campuses across the United States. The company enables students to integrate meal plans directly into their Grubhub account and access restaurants both on- and off-campus for delivery and pickup.
Penn State is enabling students, faculty and staff carrying older versions of the id+ card to use online photo submission to assign new ID photos. The online photo submission push comes ahead of a university wide re-carding event planned for this spring.
According to an official university release, at the heart of the re-carding is the planned move to a mobile credential, and with reader infrastructure on campus now matching that new technology, new contactless credentials will be needed as well.
Anyone who received a new id+ card after May 10, 2022, will not need to receive a new credential. The re-carding effort marks the first time since 2004 that Penn State has reissued its id+ card.
Photos were accepted between November 7 and November 23, with new id+ cards planned for distribution during re-carding events at each of Penn State's satellite campuses during the spring 2023 semester.
Five re-carding events have already taken place this fall at the Dickinson Law, DuBois, Great Valley, Shenango and Wilkes-Barre campuses.
The university offered three primary means to submit a new ID card photo. The preferred method was through the Transact eAccounts Mobile app.
Students who chose this method first download the Transact eAccounts Mobile app from the App Store or Google Play, search for Penn State and click the SSO (single sign-on) login screen. Students then enter their Penn State user ID to authenticate your device, and finally upload the updated ID photo.
Penn State community members were also able to use the Transact eAccounts web portal, or visit their campus' id+ Office to have an updated photo taken by card office staff.
Photo submissions must adhere to the following guidelines:
Hats, sunglasses, hand gestures, and inclusion of other people within the photo are not accepted. The photo should not be cropped.
Email notification will indicate whether the photo is approved or if another photo should be submitted.
Late photo submissions uploaded after the November 23 deadline were not accepted or printed on the new id+ card. Additionally, the university requires a vetting document, or government-issued ID if submitting a photo after the deadline.
A new report compiled by TouchNet is shedding some light on how a number of higher education institutions are deploying ID management technology on campus. The survey was conducted in March 2022, and saw TouchNet poll 150 higher education leaders, including finance or C-suite executives working at four-year institutions.
Among the survey findings was a need and importance for ID technology enhancements:
Respondents also reported their organizations struggling to make data-driven decisions. Respondents stated an interest in using insights gleaned from ID management technology integrations as a means to bring attention to gaps and opportunities that might have remained hidden otherwise.
For more on the TouchNet survey, the full report and infographic summary is available for free download.
In the latest installment of the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU) Positive IDentity Blog, Georgian College's Jen McDonald shares an Excel formula that she can't live without. An Excel enthusiast, McDonald works in Georgian College's ONEcard Office and discovered a helpful formula for the job's accounting demands.
"Before I began my role in the ONEcard Office, I had a basic understanding of Excel and primarily used it for data tracking and quick stats," writes McDonald. "Once I joined the card office, and now needed to add accounting tasks to my list of responsibilities, I quickly realized the value of upping my skill level in all things Excel."
The invaluable Excel formula that she now swears by is the VLOOKUP.
"If you’re already familiar with this little gem, then I likely don’t need to tell you how helpful it can be," says McDonald.
For those unfamiliar, McDonald illustrates the importance of the formula.
"I find myself frequently, in fact on an almost daily basis, needing to combine data from two different sets," she explains. "A few examples would be needing to compare a list of registered students to a list of accounts with balances, or perhaps you want to compare data in your test environment to that of PROD."
That, according to McDonald, is where VLOOKUP comes in. She offers some top tips for maximizing the effectiveness of the formula:
McDonald concludes her blog entry by soliciting advice from fellow card office pros for their own Excel formula suggestions. "I would love to hear about it! Okay, maybe love is a little strong, but I would certainly find it interesting."
