Re-posted with permission from Campus Safety Magazine and edited.
Maintaining a safe and nurturing learning environment within budget restrictions and government regulations is a challenge most higher education institutions face. With issues like gun violence continuing to remain unabated, the security and safety of students, staff and assets are becoming more important to colleges and universities. Trying to keep up with school safety and access control trends may also be confusing.
Fortunately, security technology is also advancing at a rapid pace, with reports of new products in both hardware and software surfacing almost every month. Future access control trends in the higher education sector mean that there will be a greater use of new modalities and integration with other solutions.
Key Cards & Mobile Access Control Credentials
Proximity cards have long been a preferred access control solution for education institutions. However, the convenience of card-based solutions has limited campus’ interests in other access control modalities because the investments didn’t seem worth it.
But with the arrival of mobile credentials (on smartphones), there is a change in this attitude. The major attraction is that colleges and universities may not need to worry about issuing physical cards to students. Almost everyone owns a mobile phone these days, especially on a college campus. Mobile credential-based access control doesn’t have the privacy concerns that arise with biometric solutions either.
Of course, the use of mobile credentials is still in the planning stage for most organizations, with discussions around infrastructure upgrades taking place. But the potential advantages cannot be dismissed.
These future access control trends include:
- Biometrics and multi-factor authentication: More smartphones use biometric and/or pin-based unlocking systems. This allows the use of biometrics without compromising privacy and multi-factor authentication without the need for extra hardware.
- Customizable: Smartphone apps allow authorities to add more features to access control systems than traditional cards. This enables campuses to make the credential multifunctional and unique to each system being deployed.
- Flexible distance options: By leveraging the location services in a phone, authorities can specify the distance from which a user can gain access to a location. This means someone doesn’t need to hold their phone inches away from a reader.
- Emergency and mass notification: Mobile phones are built for two-way communication. When integrated for access control, they can also disseminate information. This would prove useful not just in emergencies but also for updating students about day-to-day information. With geofencing features, authorities can even send notifications to people within a specified area.
- Easy to cancel: Mobile credentials allow authorities to revoke access for a particular device remotely. This saves organizations the time and cost of requiring students, faculty and staff to hand over cards to security managers and having their access privileges revoked manually.
- No cost to upgrade: With a virtual credential, upgrades to credential technology, formats etc. can be done without replacing hardware. The credential is application-based, meaning that a standard update can be pushed.
Integration Helps with Campus Event Management
Managing events can be extremely challenging for colleges and universities. Fortunately, today’s integrated technologies can make these tasks easier.
For example, the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) has on average about 125 scheduled events per day that require managing unlock schedules throughout the campus. They use a popular event scheduling platform for this. But until recently, every day, staff had to go into the building several times to change locks or lock permissions according to the schedule of events. This meant that the university had to employ a team of full-time personnel just for this, making it a costly affair.
Like many other institutions of higher ed facing this type of issue, Missouri S&T called on several manufacturers to explore ways to automate this process. By doing so, the school was able integrate their access control system to their existing event management solution, right down to classroom schedules, thus increasing security levels and simplifying the access control process.
Higher education institutions are also interested in automated rules around role-based or event-based access control. This means that when there is a special event on campus, the access control systems will respond in accordance with it, allowing only the people who are intended to attend the event in and keeping others out. The whole process is automated to function without the need for any human intervention after installation.
For most colleges and universities, custom integrations like these allow for a massive savings in time and efficiency of onsite staff for management of their campus as a whole. Utilizing the custom integration abilities of a powerful access control platform can drive to a more fully automated campus overall.
Security Cameras, Analytics Can Help
Access control systems by themselves can control entry and exit, but when there is an unauthorized attempt or overuse of a credential, security managers may need to verify the identity of the person with video cameras.
Integration with video surveillance systems offers a solution for this. Cameras can continuously record or become active only when there is an unwanted activity. When integrated into the video management system, campus security or public safety receive a display that shows the details of a person who accessed a particular door along with the video.
Video analytics can also be used here for the automatic verification of the person, eliminating the need for staff to check the video personally. If the automatic verification fails, the system can alert staff who can respond immediately.
Some solutions allow security departments to set up more complex alerts. For instance, users can set up an alert if someone tries to force a door open, holds it open for too long or tries to tailgate. Administrators can also make customized lists to include things such as individuals arriving late to their destinations.
Talk to Your Local ISG Expert
Discuss your campus technology needs with the ISG dealer in your area. See if any of these future access control trends might solve a current problem at your college or university. Discover if an ISG solution would benefit your institution for video surveillance, access control, mobile credentials, visitor management and
more.
Come back next week for the 2nd part of this article!
Original article written by Jeff Bransfield for Campus Safety Magazine
