Lydia’s statue was not the only thing that got refurbished over the summer — so did the Bradley QuickCard and its system.
QuickCard is the official identification at Bradley University. This all-in-one card not only provides you access to buildings and classrooms. It also allows you to use on-campus services like dining, printing and laundry and pay for goods or services at off-campus QuickCash locations.
The new QuickCard issuance started late this summer. The new card no longer supports the Discover Debit function, but allows students to print their preferred name on the front side of the ID. (From the security perspective, the new ID is embedded with new chip technology and is continuing the random ISO number encoding, which was implemented in May 2017, according to the Controller’s office). Students are not required to replace their current QuickCard if it still functions properly.
Discontinuing the Discover Debit card function
“This year, we were notified that Blackboard wasn’t going to be supporting that [Discover Debit] any longer,” Mona Hutchison, director of Systems Integration in the Controller’s office, said.
According to the Controller’s office and the QuickCard website, the Discover Debit function will eventually phase out at the end of December 2018. Students who have previously activated the Discover Debit function and have a current balance on the account are encouraged to take appropriate steps to zero out the account balance.
Students who have payroll direct deposit to the Discover Debit account should also update their direct deposit information with the payroll office. Any leftover money in the account will be returned to students’ home addresses in the form of a check.
New contactless chip technology
“[The new chip] allows us to leverage more devices that would be out of the door,” Bradley University Police Department Chief Brian Joschko said, “which allows us to integrate different security measures, which is important as we are looking into building new facilities and expanding physical security on campus.”
While both the old version and new version of the QuickCard will work the same under the new access management system, Joschko said security is not an issue, “I would not say that a card issued six month ago is less secure than a card issued today,” Jashko said.
New design, more customization
As a prepaid debit card, the old QuickCard does not allow many customizations with limited spaces.
“[The old QuickCards] come shipped to us that way. We don’t print any of that on there,” Hutchison said.
Without the Discover Debit component, the university has more control over the design of the new QuickCard.
The front of the new design features a picture of Bradley Hall and Lydia Moss Bradley’s statue as the background. It also includes a picture of the ID holder and prints each person’s preferred name if registered in the Controller’s system.
The back of the ID includes the student’s full legal name and also features a mag stripe for interior door access like in Heitz Hall and printing services, and a barcode that is mainly used by the library and student activities office. The phone numbers of the QuickCard office, health service and counseling and police department are also printed on the back side of the ID cards now.
“We don’t use the magnetic stripe from security perspective anymore,” Chief Joschko said.
Although the new card does come with a magnetic stripe, the mag stripe will not provide students, faculty or staffs access to any buildings or parking decks.
In April 2017, Bradley University announced that it began updating the Blackboard access control system to eliminate the use of the magnetic stripe after an article published by The Scout, which pointed out potential security breaches due to the vulnerability of the magnetic stripes.
“It’s a known fact you can copy that magnetic stripe technology,” David Scuffham, Director of Information Security at Bradley, said in 2017. “It’s globally known.”
Over the course of the last academic year, the university deactivated the mag stripe function on most of the exterior card readers that provide building access to students, faculty and staff. Over this summer, the university replaced the last remaining exterior mag stripe readers in Olin Hall, Constance Hall, Duryea and Main Street parking decks to Blackboard tap readers.
New card access system
Besides the new ID cards, BUPD is continually working on switching the old card access control to a new system.
“[The system update] is more on the police side of it,” Joschko said. “It makes a big difference in our dispatch center, and how we will view and monitor and respond to different types of alarms and things like that. It is a more robust system. It is more efficient from the police side. Most people on campus won’t even realize there is a change.”
