In the final installment of our three-part video series detailing hardware and software solutions from card system vendor, Blackboard, Kent Pawlak, Senior Director for Platform Strategy and Product Management, Kent Pawlak discusses the company’s transaction system solutions and gives a tour of the latest Blackboard reader hardware.

A new system is being tested at schools in Kolkata, India that leverage Wi-Fi, Bluetooth beacons and GPS functionality to track the movement of students while on campus. The reason for the initiative is to better ensure student safety while on school premises.

The Communications University of China is using facial recognition technology as a means to log attendance in select classrooms. Some 300 students in six courses at the university located in the eastern city of Nanjing now stand in front of an interactive tablet screen when they walk in the door for lectures to log their attendance.

Bismarck, North Dakota’s Legacy High School is now the first school in the state to implement automated classroom attendance thanks to system provider, ScholarChip. ScholarChip’s smart ID card-based system that sees students tap in at the beginning of class to denote attendance, and enables administrators to more efficiently view class rosters in larger lecture settings.

Going to class is important, and in many ways, it’s the key to academic success. It comes as little surprise, then, that campuses are implementing attendance policies – and accompany those policies with an automated attendance systems – to open the possibility of improved academic performance and identify students in need of institutional support.

This free on-demand webinar explores why higher education is starting to reconsider attendance tracking due to reporting requirements and positive impacts on student engagement. Campus transaction system vendor, Blackboard Transact, demos its new automated attendance system, which leverages existing student ID cards from any vendor, iOS and Android mobile devices, and the cloud to facilitate tracking and reporting.

A new report from ScholarChip demonstrates that by automating student attendance, school districts can significantly improve state financial aid by increasing Average Daily Attendance (ADA) accuracy.

It seems logical that students who do not attend classes will not perform as well in their academic careers. How much learning can take place in the absence of having enough discipline to attend lectures? In this installment of the CR80News Expert Panel Series, Blackboard’s Kent Pawlak discusses the importance of attendance tracking, including student retention, financial aid compliance and improved academic performance.

ScholarChip’s latest case study details the company’s work with Westbury Public Schools, where the company’s attendance kiosks are being used to boost student performance through improved attendance. Additionally, school officials are benefitting from the added convenience that the kiosks provide through a quicker check-in process.

As retention rates stagnate, college students’ classroom attendance is being called into question. In response to pressure from a number of outside parties, including parents and taxpayers, some universities are adopting attendance technology to introduce a measure of accountability.