How Merton College goes about making student ID cards.
Merton College, on the outskirts of the capital, has been a PAT customer for years. Occupying two separate sites, the college originally used PAT’s ICE software for image capture and student ID card production. The college turned to PAT when the time came to upgrade. At the heart of every PAT card-based system, the manufacturer claims, are the twin principles of future proofing and scalability. These dictate that, rather than needing to replace the whole installation every time you want to expand the system, under most circumstances only an individual component – be it software or hardware – is replaced. In practice, being able to replace individual items provides savings, in time and money. There’s little sense in replacing a complete system, just because you want to change the software, or add functionality to the system. In these circumstances, it’s far more sensible just to add the specific facility you need, or change the particular component that you want to update. As such, ESi allows users to add functions such as access control without major software changes, PAT say. This is the route that Merton College took when replacing its earlier PAT software. ESi is a 32-bit software package, which gives better stability and reliability than ICE could offer, PAT say. This makes ESi virtually immune to the frustrating and time-wasting crashes and glitches that can so often plague other systems, the manufacturer claims. ESi?s software design provides stability and unbeatable reliability, by introducing a business objects tier between the client and data tiers. This multi tier technology effectively isolates the front end user interface (the client tier) from ESi’s database functions, making it virtually impossible for essential student data to be corrupted, either inadvertently or deliberately, the manufacturer says. With a total student population in excess of 5000, Merton College needed a system that offers reliability, plus ease of operation – a very important consideration when several thousand new students have to be enrolled in just ten days, at the start of the academic year. Chris Tooze, Merton’s Database Administrator responsible for operation of the PAT system has noticed ESi’s extra speed, not to mention features, in comparison with the earlier ICE program: ?ESi seems to
access our SQL server more swiftly than the previous system, which is a major plus at enrolment time, when our staff are under maximum stress. Moreover, because the ESi software is very reliable, we don’t have to deploy IT resources simply to sort out system problems.? Merton College uses ESi for its student ID card production. However, this is just one element of ESi. Because ESi is a modular software package, additional facilities can be added. These can include access control, using any combination of doors and turnstiles, and cashless payment for refectories and canteens. To cope with the influx of around 2500 new students at enrolment time, Merton College uses a network of three PCs, linked to its SQL server, which in turn houses the College’s student records. The two original CCD image capture devices that PAT supplied alongside the ICE system still operate, and produce photos for use on the student ID cards. However, Chris Tooze has supplemented these with a new Web Cam, which he feels is ideal for capturing images of the students at enrolment time: ?The latest Web Cams are easy to operate, plug into the PC’s USB terminal, and provide perfectly adequate image quality.? ESi can link with popular forms of database. In practice, this means that student information needn’t be entered twice at enrolment. PAT recognises that a college’s database is one of its most essential assets, so the data server remains fully isolated from the photo ID program itself. Chris Tooze says: ?Although we’re using the system to enrol more students than ever before, we are just scratching the surface of what ESi can do. In fact, I would estimate that we’re probably using just a few percent of what the system is capable of. I’m reassured by this, because I know that no matter what we demand from ESi, I’m sure that the system will deliver.? For more information on the ESi range from PAT, visit www.pat.co.uk.
