ICT and RFID in Education: Some Practical Aspects in Campus Life

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development and implementation of an innovative ICT and RFID-based system for campus access, resource management, and various services, enhancing interconnectivity and operational efficiency in educational environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel RFID system with local processing for campus access and resource management, differing from existing solutions by enabling multiple functions with a single card.

Findings

System supports diverse campus services including access control, attendance, library, and vending.

Local processing replaces database search, improving speed and privacy.

System design includes RFID gates, data servers, and network stations.

Abstract

The paper summarizes our preliminary findings regarding the development and implementation of a newly proposed system based on ICT and RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies for campus access and facility usage. It is generally acknowledged that any educational environment is highly dependent upon a wide range of resources or variables such as teaching staff, research and study areas, meeting and accommodation facilities, library services, restaurant and leisure facilities, etc. The system we have devised using ICT and RFID technologies supports not only authentic transactions among all university departments, but also interconnects all levels of academic life and activity. Thus, the utility of the system ranges from access control (student/ staff/ visitor identification), attendance tracking, library check-out services and voting to grade book consulting, inventory, cashless vending, parking, laundry and copying services. Physically, the system consists of several RFID gates/readers, a data server and some network stations, all of them requiring specific structuring and integration solutions. The system is quite different from already existing ones in that it proposes an innovative access solution. Thus, the search of the ID card holder in a database has been replaced by local processing. Since one and the same card is employed to perform a variety of operations, the system has immediate and numerous utilizations.