Student id card printing in universities and colleges : prepare for the new academic year!

The start of the new academic year is a key period for any college or university. Each year, it is the focus of everyone’s attention and brings its share of tension and stress for the staff in charge of preparing for it. There is a multitude of tasks to be completed and applications to be processed in a very short amount of time. During this time, the aim is to optimize the experience for students and faculty and to preserve the brand image of the institution.

One of these many tasks is the creation of individual and personalized student ID cards, which requires the mobilization of many resources. This can quickly prove to be a complex undertaking. Our solution has already been adopted by many universities and colleges—the advantages are outlined below.

How can you optimize the printing and issuing of student ID cards at the start of the academic year?

Issuing student ID cards is time-consuming and presents a real challenge every year. It involves issuing each student with their own personalized card within a very short timeframe, taking into account any particularities linked to the student’s profile. Fortunately, there is a solution to simplify this task and ensure a smooth return to university for your students.

We’re here to make the new academic year easier!

The start of a new academic year is stressful by nature. Despite all the advance preparation, the influx of requests and tasks to be carried out at the last minute makes things complicated.

Printing student ID cards is one of the tasks where the scope is difficult to predict. Although the administrative files should be complete, a single missing piece of information can prevent a card from being issued.

Whether you use an external service provider or print these student ID cards yourself, you will need to manage the card requests, print them, check them, and then issue them to the students. This process is often laborious.

The good news? This process can be completely automated, freeing up valuable time for your staff to focus on tasks with greater added value.

Opt for secure printing of student ID cards at self-service terminals

Imagine terminals installed on your campus, freely accessible to your students, allowing them to securely print their ID cards at any time.

Through the card personalization and printing modules available in these terminals, student ID cards can be issued automatically without the intervention of a staff member.

The benefits of self-service student ID card issuance:

• administrative teams are relieved of a time-consuming, stressful task with no real added value.

• students benefit from improved service—no more long lines to collect their ID cards. They can print their ID cards themselves at their own convenience, without having to adhere to the opening hours of the administrative office. Using a simple identifier, which can take the form of a QR code, a password, or a numerical code, the student is recognized by the system and the card is issued securely.

• the university/college management has full control of the costs linked to ID card issuance. Staffing costs are eliminated and fully internalized issuance means your institution is no longer dependent on an external service provider and their pricing conditions.

Kiosk: system tested and approved by European universities

Various universities and colleges have already chosen to set up self-service terminals on their campuses for the printing of their student ID cards. For their projects, they chose Kiosk solutions from Evolis, the card printer manufacturer.

Feedback from both administrative staff and students is unanimous: according to the various users, the system’s advantages include saving time, practicality, security, and independence.

Six Berlin universities have deployed terminals to issue more than 180,000 student ID cards. Faced with an increasing number of students and stagnating or even decreasing staff resources, the issuance of ID cards became a real headache at the beginning of each academic year. The implementation of terminals has put an end to this bottleneck. The management of these Berlin universities also took advantage of the new system to add functionalities to the student ID cards.  The campus card now functions as a student ID card, library card, electronic wallet for the university cafeteria, and transport card.

The University of Bologna also chose to install several self-service terminals to facilitate the creation of ID cards on its five Italian campuses. The university management had two objectives in choosing these terminals: the first was to put an end to the never-ending lines that formed in front of the administrative offices on its five campuses at the start of each academic year; the second was to free the administrative staff from tasks with little added value. To date, the project, which was launched in 2019, has fulfilled its dual mission.

Printing student ID cards with Kiosk terminals is the innovation that will simplify your next academic year!

Just like these universities, you too can experience the advantages of issuing student cards via dedicated terminals. This trend is part of an effort to innovate and improve the services offered to your students.

By removing the complexity of printing ID cards and issuing them to students, you free up your staff’s time.

In addition, you allow your student population to benefit from greater flexibility, while guaranteeing a secure process. If students are unable to return a completed file (with surname, name, photo, etc.) to your administration, they have greater freedom to edit their ID cards at the start of the academic year. They can also be printed throughout the year if a re-issue is necessary (following loss or theft for example).

The system also has the advantage of being inclusive as it is not dependent on the possession of third-party personal equipment (e.g. a smartphone).

The terminals also allow personal data to be added to the ID cards via an encoding systemStudent ID cards are becoming multi-purpose, no longer restricted to just an identification function. Various student services can now be managed via ID cards, including:

• Payment in the cafeteria (limiting the circulation of cash), 

• Borrowing books and other resources from the media library,

• Access to equipment (photocopiers, vending machines, etc.) or certain reserved areas (laboratories, computer rooms, etc.).

Please note: student ID cards can incorporate an RFID chip (contactless) on which the system can encode personalized data. This type of encoding may be preferred in order to avoid physical contact and preserve hygiene in your establishment.

By managing these services with your students’ ID cards, you can take full advantage of your terminal installations. Maximize your return on investment while improving the student experience.

Your staff will also appreciate the implementation of such a system. They will be able to devote themselves to more rewarding projects and reduce the amount of stress caused by the start of the new academic year.

Evolis is your partner of choice for installing self-service terminals at your university or college, recognized for the reliability of our systems and our expertise. We can advise you and offer you the solution best suited to your particular needs. Evolis designs customized systems to meet your expectations.