All FE colleges in England have extensive systems in place for tracking
their FE students as it is a requirement of both LSC funding and
Educational Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year olds.
These are also being used for HE students. We are using EBS web-based
e-registers for the first time across the whole college (25,000
students, 3,500 HE) this year and have PC in virtually every classroom,
with every lecturer also issued with a WiFi laptop and access to the
e-register system, wherever they are on campus. We used it for all
sixth form students last year and many other FE students, with some
success.
Big lectures are the main problem area, as most FE is taught in small
classes. Some colleges have used swipe card systems in lecture rooms,
but there is potential for fraud and for physical systems to go wrong
(vandalism - superglue in the readers etc). Tribal (manufacturers of
EBS and SITS) are looking at developing physical tracking system using
WiFi in a chip on a student card or the older RFID technology, with
detectors on the doors. They are both used in Special Care Baby Units
and for the tracking of packing cases in ports (difficult comparison at
first, but when you think about it a bit it makes sense!). But for now
it is paper registers taken in lecture rooms with web-based input
afterwards.
Happy to explain how we do it and the pitfalls, but the system we use is
not available for HEIs currently - the interface and reporting in EBS is
much better than the equivalent in SITS for example, especially if you
take registers in real time. It also enables you to monitor room
utilisation and (very controversially) teaching load on staff.
Mike Milne-Picken
Bradford College
-----Original Message-----
From: Admin-student [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Rachel Leslie
Sent: 29 October 2007 13:14
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Electronic attendance monitoring for seminars, etc
Dear all
We're currently investigating potential improvements to tracking student
attendance at teaching events by using electronic systems to assist in
register taking and tracking, etc. I would be very interested to hear
from anyone who is using, or has used, these kinds of systems at their
institution to share some experiences. If you can help, please email
[log in to unmask]
Many thanks for your help,
Stephanie Anagnostopoulos
University of Exeter
E: [log in to unmask]
Tel: 01392 263429
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