e-Government

Embracing Technology in Schools

Schools are increasingly embracing the use of IT (Information Technology) to provide their students with a more vibrant learning environment and to achieve greater efficiency in daily operations.

ST Electronics' i-school solutions were developed to provide educational institutions with better facilities management and control, resulting in more efficient use of resources by students and lessening administrative workload for staff.

One of the institutions to benefit from an ST Electronics solution is ITE College East. The first regional campus in Singapore with state-of-the-art architecture and IT infrastructure, its 6,000 students and staff now enjoy less administrative and operational burden, allowing them to concentrate on education.

Using RFID technology that integrates with the card used by Singapore's public bus system, ST Electronics developed a customised Smartcard and Kiosk application system that allows students to use the same card for public transport as well as for time-stamped attendance taking, computer usage bookings, printing, locker rental, equipment loans and token purchases at provided kiosks.

This allows students the convenience of carrying only one card for both transportation and school applications, instead of separate cards for different facilities.

The Smartcard and Kiosk application system is developed using Microsoft.NET technology with web services comprising mainly web-based applications.

ST Electronics’ i-School system is modular, and includes:

Student Attendance Management

Students can mark their attendance with their smartcard via contactless readers placed strategically around campuses. Attendance data can be collected instantaneously and reports viewed on-line on any PC. The system can also be expanded to include e-mail or SMS notifications to parents, to advise on students’ safe arrivals in schools. Teachers may also have the flexibility of taking attendance with mobile devices such as the PDA. By encouraging students to take their own attendance, the school instills in them a sense of responsibility and ownership. Reports are easily generated, allowing teachers to view attendance with options to view only the latecomers or absentees. These reports can also be used for analysis and policy planning.

PC and Print Management

Students may use their smartcards at booking terminals to gain access to computers in computer labs. Schools may choose to charge or allocate a time limit for such usage. This ensures fair allocation of facilities to every student while usage reports provide the school with an audit trail.

Print jobs are also activated via student cards. Print jobs are sent to a print server, remaining in queue until a card is presented at the reader. To reduce wastage and abuse, pages printed are chargeable by the use of tokens.

Kiosk Content Management

Students may access useful information and news such as class schedules, attendance records, examination results and other school related activities through information kiosks. Students may also use these kiosks to make payments and do token top-ups, view records of their expenditure and print required reports.

Teaching and Learning

Class advisors intending to conduct extra curricular activities or short courses may create sessions and make them available to students for booking via student portals. Sessions that are chargeable will be posted to Payment Management so that students may view and make payments at the kiosks.

Payment Management

All chargeable items such as printer and locker rentals are based on tokens. Schools may give a certain number of free tokens to each student every semester. The students will have to pay for additional tokens once the free tokens are utilised. The system may be expanded to include purchases at canteens, bookshops and payment of school fees. Students may make inquiries on their outstanding bills at kiosks and pay for them at the terminals.

Administrative Management

Administrative Management allows administrators to allocate rights and rules for each individual module, such as access rights and blacklisting of cards. It also allows the administrator to print reports for any of the modules.

Locker Management

The same smart card facilitates the booking and payment for rental of lockers by students. Students are charged tokens based on the number of hours used. This solution eliminates the need for locks and keys.

Equipment Management

Sports administrators can easily track equipment loans to students through the use of the card. By ‘tying’ the card to the equipment loaned, the system registers details of the borrower and the equipment. Details such as the date of return are included and schools may send out SMS or e-mail notifications as reminders for overdue loans.