University of Scarborough touch screen kiosk

As young adults take the next step of heading to university, the whole experience can be fun, exciting and sometimes daunting.

The idea of being independent, finding your own way and making new friends can be a tough challenge for first years.

One of the biggest struggles people have during their first time at university is being sensible with their funds. A huge loan comes into their bank account at the beginning of the term and in a month or two it’s already being spent.

Many campuses these days offer their students a university campus card which they can use to store credit on and use in and around the student bar, cafe and shop as well as purchasing equipment and stationary for their studies. These types of campus cards are a great way for students to spread their money and know they have funds to get them their lunch and all their books for their time at university.

However, the development of these top up university cards come with a challenge. It’s midnight, all of the administration offices are closed and a student is working late in the library. They need to print off some documents via their student card but they have no credit left on their student card. What do they do and how do they top up?

The answer to this problem is the deployment of top up kiosks around campus which can allows students to easily add money to their card without having to wait around for the administration office to open.

For example, Washington State University deployed a kiosk to allow students to add money to their flex cards without having to visit the office, calling home or speaking to university employees.

The payment systems allows a simple credit/debit card transaction to reload student accounts.

“The kiosks are there when they need them and are generally problem free,” wrote Ben Aichele of WSU.

The kiosk not only allows students to add money to their cards, they also act as a daily bulletin for students during their busy day.

Advertisements are on rotate via the screen display featuring daily campus events which sometimes go unnoticed around the campus. The kiosk has been deployed in areas where there is high volumes of traffic such as outside the dorm rooms, dining areas and library.

And it’s not just top up kiosks that work well in university campuses too. Way finding kiosks are a great way for visitors to find the department or person they need to see rather than taking a whole host of confusing directions from the receptionist which you never remember anyway.

You can display your campus map via the kiosks so that families and guests visiting the university can easily navigate around the area.

The University of Scarborough deployed Internet-based kiosk which provided access to information such as timetables, events and maps of the campus.

The hi-tech kiosks were deployed around the campus and were well received by students.

“The kiosks around campus have gone down really well with students, so the next step was to roll out that service to mobile devices such as mobile phones and laptops. Every student has a mobile phone these days and they are increasingly using them not just to communicate, but also to organise their lives. The Pocket Campus is a great way to make sure they are accessing the kind of information they need, wherever they are.”

The mobile service complements the existing touch screen kiosk on campus.

Third year student Ben Kay said, “This new technology will make it much easier for me and the other students to access information and keep in touch with what is going on at the University, wherever we are on campus.”

The University of Nottingham deployed a kiosks to provide students with extra music not found through the school’s library services. This allowed music students access to more materials crucial to their education and repertoire.

“I am told that the students much appreciate the availability of the Naxos recording library as an adjunct to the extensive numbers of CDs,” stated Nicholas Sackman of the University of Nottingham.

The computers are locked down to only display the online music library, eliminating the need for supervision or help navigation around the music site.

Both of the universities listed have conformed with the growing need for self service and have adapted to modern trends in technology.

Students are able to interact with other students, get their work done effectively and efficiently without having to wait for office hours to be open.