School Spirit Engagement Kiosk

Student engagement isn't just about keeping students busy; it's about fostering a genuine connection to their learning and school community. When students are engaged, they are more likely to attend class, participate actively, complete assignments, and achieve academic success. But how can schools create an environment that sparks and sustains this engagement?

Interactive kiosks offer a multifaceted solution. By serving as central hubs for information communication and streamlining various school processes, kiosks can empower students, facilitate connection, and enhance the overall school experience. Let’s explore five key student engagement strategies that leverage the power of School Spirit Engagement kiosks.

Strategy 1: Central Hub for Information and Announcements

Clear and accessible communication is foundational to student engagement. A well-informed student body is an engaged student body. School Spirit Interactive kiosks can serve as a dynamic central hub for information, ensuring that students are always in the loop.

• Upcoming Events and Announcements: Prominently display information about upcoming events, deadlines, and important announcements on the kiosk's screen. This keeps students informed and encourages them to participate in school activities, fostering a sense of belonging and connection.
• School News and Achievements: Showcase student achievements, school news, and other positive highlights on the kiosk. This not only celebrates successes but also inspires other students and reinforces a sense of pride in the school community.
• Digital Bulletin Boards: Provide a digital space for clubs, teams, and other student organizations to share information, recruit new members, and promote their activities. This helps students discover new interests and connect with like-minded peers.

Strategy 2: Streamlining Administrative Tasks

Navigating administrative processes and waiting in lines can be frustrating and time-consuming, detracting from valuable learning time and negatively impacting student engagement. School kiosks can streamline everyday tasks, making them more efficient and convenient for students.

• Printing and Document Access: Students can print documents, forms, and permission slips directly from the kiosk, eliminating the need to visit the main office and reducing wait times.
• Self-Service Resource Access: The kiosk provides easy access to school resources, policies, and other important information. This empowers students to find the information they need independently, promoting self-sufficiency and reducing administrative burden.
• Request and Inquiry Submission: Enable students to submit requests, inquiries, or feedback through the kiosk, ensuring their voices are heard and their needs are addressed promptly.

Strategy 3: Enhancing Wayfinding and Navigation

A school's physical layout can significantly impact student engagement. Easy navigation, clear directions, and a sense of familiarity contribute to a positive and welcoming school environment. Interactive kiosks can serve as powerful wayfinding tools, enhancing the student experience.

• Interactive Maps and Directions: Provide interactive maps with clear directions and points of interest, helping students, staff, and visitors navigate the campus with ease. This reduces confusion and anxiety, particularly for new students or guests.
• Real-Time Information: Display real-time updates on room availability, class schedules, and other important information. This helps students optimize their time and avoid unnecessary delays, fostering a sense of control and efficiency.
• Search Functionality: Incorporate search functionality to allow users to locate specific locations, classrooms, or individuals quickly. This facilitates connection and collaboration, promoting a more interactive and engaged school community.

Strategy 4: Fostering School Spirit and Engagement

Extracurricular activities and events are essential for building a vibrant school community and promoting student engagement. School Spirit Engagement kiosks can play a key role in showcasing these opportunities and encouraging participation.

• Interactive Activity Showcase: Instead of just providing static information, create interactive displays featuring videos, testimonials, and photo galleries highlighting the fun and benefits of different clubs, sports teams, and other activities. This approach makes the opportunities more tangible and appealing to students.
• Event Registration and Sign-ups: Streamline the registration process for events and activities by allowing students to sign up directly through the kiosk. This removes barriers to participation and makes it easier for students to engage in school life.
• Real-Time Updates & Reminders: The kiosk can display live updates on game scores, upcoming events, and practice schedules. You can also send push notifications or reminders to students who have signed up for activities, further increasing participation and involvement.

Strategy 5: Facilitating Feedback and Communication

Giving students a voice and fostering open communication are critical components of any successful student engagement strategy. Interactive kiosks can provide a platform for students to share their opinions, offer feedback, and connect with school staff.

• Surveys and Polls: Conduct surveys and polls on various school-related topics to gather student feedback and insights. This demonstrates that their opinions matter and encourages them to actively shape their school experience.
• Suggestion Boxes and Feedback Forms: Offer a digital suggestion box or feedback form where students can share their ideas, concerns, or suggestions for improvement. This fosters a sense of ownership and empowers students to contribute to positive change within the school.
• Interactive Communication Tools: Provide interactive communication tools that allow students to connect directly with teachers, counselors, or other support staff through the kiosk. This facilitates open dialogue and ensures that students feel heard and supported.

School Spirit Engagement Kiosk as a Multifaceted Student Engagement Tool

These five student engagement strategies demonstrate the power of interactive kiosks to transform school campuses into connected and engaging learning environments. The versatility of School Spirit Engagement kiosks makes them an invaluable tool for any school looking to increase student engagement and create a thriving learning community.

If you're ready to explore how a school kiosk or student kiosk can transform your campus, consider investing in an interactive kiosk for schools. With their customizable features and user-friendly interface, these kiosks can be tailored to meet the unique needs of your school and help you implement effective student engagement strategies that yield lasting results.

Ready to Transform Your Campus with Interactive Kiosks?

At Advanced Kiosks, we have over two decades of experience providing self-service technology solutions across various industries. Our expertise in interactive kiosk design and development allows us to create kiosks tailored to the unique needs of your school or organization.

Contact us today to learn more about how our School Spirit Engagement kiosks can help you implement effective student engagement strategies and build a more connected campus. Together, let's create an environment where every student feels engaged, empowered, and supported on their educational journey.

College campuses are centers for growth an innovation, and technology plays in important role in maintaining that status. Students, as well as faculty, expect their schools to keep up with new and emerging technologies to remain the cutting edge institutions we know them to be. We have worked with many colleges of all sizes, small one school colleges, as well as multiple colleges within a university setting - and we find the needs for student services kiosks are very similar in either setting.

Top 10 Uses for Student Services Kiosks

We wanted to share the top 10 requests we have seen over the past year for interactive kiosks on college campuses with our existing education customers, many of whom have expanding to implement greater functionality for their current kiosks. and also to inspire potential customers through sharing how their peers are utilizing self service technology.

Student Printing Kiosks:

We have had a larger number of requests for our Document Kiosk and also our Laser Kiosk to be added to various locations throughout college campuses to act as printing stations for students. These printing stations are not only utilized for printing schoolwork before classes; they are also placed in strategic locations for easy printing of important documents such as financial aid forms, registration documents, emails, research papers, and much more. If there is a need for easy printing that is not tied down to a computer lab, an interactive kiosk will fulfill that need.

Click on our case study to read about the University of North Dakota's strategic planning initiative, Exceptional UND, and the use of printing kiosks.

We've made the decision to give students services versus hardware. Instead of building more computer labs, we need to meet them where they are.

-Joshua Jones, Associate Director, Center for Instructional & Learning Technologies, University of North Dakota

College Building Directories:

Depending on the college, buildings can be two floors and easy to navigate or they can be twenty floors with different departments on each floor. The layouts of certain buildings can also be quite confusing if you are visiting for the first time, or only need to stop by occasionally and forget how to navigate. There may also be security in place that requires you to call and alert a department that you have arrived. An example of where an interactive kiosk and a building directory kiosk would be able to streamline processes would be at the Harvard Lab for Developmental Studies. The lab is located in one of Harvard University's busy buildings and requires a phone call for an attendant to come down to bring you a parking pass and the to walk you to the lab. Needless to say, it would be much faster and easier to have an outdoor kiosk like the Enviro Kiosk, where a visitor would be able to touch the screen to call the lab to check in for their appointment as well as print a parking pass out for their car. By utilizing an interactive kiosk to check in, the lab could also alert the researcher to let them know that their next appointment has arrived. Other visitors to the building could use the kiosk to locate the department they need to visit, and print a badge if they are required to for security purposes. Interactive Kiosks are able to deliver a high level of service through the use of a self service building directory.

College Campuses Wayfinding & Navigation:

If certain buildings on college campuses can be confusing, then college campuses as a whole can be intimidating to navigate for both visitors as well as incoming freshman. Gone are the days of the paper map handed to freshman during orientation as today's generations of students are digitally connected and they have an expectation that self service technology will help them navigate to where they need to go. Certain college campuses are part of a much larger university and navigating through a university campus can be challenging. By installing outdoor kiosks at key navigation points throughout campus, students and visitors can use self service technology to guide them to their intended destination.

Display Important Student Information:

Classes may have been cancelled or rescheduled, an exciting event may be coming to your college campus soon, or there may be an urgent safety alert that needs to be updated as new information becomes known - these are only three of many reasons why college campuses are investing in computer kiosks in order to display important information. Students may change their phone numbers and not update them with their school for SMS text message delivery, and not everyone checks their email at important times, which is why college campuses are turning to computer kiosks to provide timely information to students, staff and visitors.

College Event Calendars:

Both large university campuses who want to promote their events to everyone, as well as specific college campuses (Performing Arts, Engineering, Law, Architecture, etc) who have their own specific events, can benefit from an easy-to-use event calendar software. Instead of having someone submit an event through a slip of paper to then be input online, why not have events submitted through a online form where event calendar administrators can then approve or deny the event with one click? Our event calendar software, EventsCrier, incorporates this functionality and offers both a version of the calendar for interactive kiosks and desktop computers, but also provides a mobile version for smart phones and tablets. Provide easy access to what is happening on campus with event calendar software that both your students, staff and visitors will want to use.

Queuing for Student Services:

College campuses have their fair share of extremely busy administrative offices. We tend to see requests from financial aid offices, walk-in advising or career services, as well as from the registrar's office. It can be challenging to keep student wait times low, especially if you only have speculative data on when your busy times are or how long appointments generally take for different student needs. By implementing a queue software service, you can measure key pieces of data that keep your team's productivity up and address all student concerns within what you determine is an appropriate amount of time. Queue software also provides reassurance to your students about how long their anticipated wait time is and also allows them to monitor their wait time on their smart phones or tablets. If it's a beautiful day, why spend your time waiting inside, when you can monitor your wait from the quad in the sunshine? Queue software offers many advantages for both students, as well as the office team who are working to best serve their students and keep retention rates high.

Checking in to Appointments:

Similar to queuing and monitoring wait times, being able to check into an appointment at student health services or in a greater community capacity, such as the University of the Pacific's School of Dentistry is utilizing with their kiosk project, is an important self service functionality that college campuses have been implementing more and more in recent years. The obvious benefit to the school is that by automating the check-in process you can save on additional overhead salary costs by assisting your front desk staff through automating certain tasks. Another, perhaps less obvious reason, is that by offering a self-service check-in procedure, you monitor who was in your facility, for how long, who they were there to see, and why they were there in the first place. This is an important security benefit and ensures that only those who are supposed to be there are there.

We are the first dental school to have this kind of controlled entry system that uses kiosks, turnstiles and seamless integration into our clinic management system in order to ensure the privacy and safety of everyone in the building.

-Raybel Ramos, Director of Information Technology and Telecommunications, University of the Pacific

Displaying Nutritional Information:

Throughout recent years we have had greater access to nutritional information than ever before, and students expect to know what is in their food as well as what the nutritional content is of their food. By displaying nutritional information you empower students to make smarter food choices. You can also highlight special menu items, dining hall hours, and most importantly, identify ingredients for student who may have food allergies or sensitivities.

Hall of Fame Presentations:

Celebrating and creating community on your college campuses can be enhanced with the use of interactive hall of fame presentations. You can work on storytelling the history of your hall of fame members through interactive, self guided journeys on kiosks. Add videos, audio clips, photography, statistical information, and anything else that will showcase the accomplishments of your hall of fame members. In the same vein as hall of fame presentations, you can highlight your generous alumni donors. You have an amazing school that they were so proud to attend that they have given back to the school from their lifetime accomplishments. Acknowledging your accomplished alumni donors is an important part of your school's culture.

College Recruitment Through Email Acquisition:

When prospective students visit your campus, why not engage them with interactive kiosks and encourage them to submit their email addresses for updates about what is happening on campus? Strategically placed interactive kiosks can be mentioned on college campus tours as a way for prospective students and parents to stay in the loop in terms of important applicant information, such as financial aid dates or application deadlines, exciting programs that the college offers, or notable alumni and what they have accomplished.

In addition to these top ten uses that are popular on college campuses when investing in interactive kiosks, there are additional benefits on the administrative end. Your interactive kiosks will provide you with reporting and data that many schools find useful. For example, you can collect data on how many people are using the student services kiosks, what the busy times of day tend to be for your kiosks, how much traffic their location on campus tends to receive overall, and what visitors to the kiosks are finding of value by their interaction with self-service technology. You can test different interfaces and make changes easily from where ever you are with a cloud-based solution.

College campuses have come a long way from the days of tacking a promotional flyer on a bulletin board, standing in long lines to register for classes in the blazing heat or freezing cold, and getting lost while trying to navigate through large campuses and confusing buildings. Self service technology is here to make both student, as well as faculty and administrator, life easier and more productive.

Just 30 years ago, technology was first introduced to the classroom. This started with comprehensive computer classes where students had access to a desktop for about a half hour the whole day. This was a time when you could get a full nap in waiting for the internet to load, and your version of the search engine started by actually flipping through the books in the library as your only resource.

Today, students are equipped with a fountain of knowledge powered by smart boards, laptops, school kiosks, and even their own cell phones. Now in just seconds, a student can get the answer to most any question using technology.

I understand the hesitation that comes with the idea of technology in the classroom. Teachers are often met with difficulty when using technology as a tool and not a distraction. Since I’m not a teacher, I figured I should ask the professionals what they think. So I took to social media and facilitated a conversation between educators about technology in the classroom.

“Technology in the classroom definitely has its pros and cons. The use of technology for typing and/or dictation for students who may struggle verbally or motor skills wise is a huge help. However, I have other students who are too used to the availability of technology and cannot go an entire day without the use of it as a buffer. Here, I'm talking games on the iPad that have no correlation to the school day”,

Meghan Gregoire, Special Education (grades 9-12).

“I would have to agree with Meghan when it comes to technology having pros and cons. In my student teaching experience, I definitely had to constantly check that students weren’t misusing their technology. In the school in which I was placed, each student is issued an iPad, but plenty of those students use it to play games during classroom time. This adds yet another element for a teacher to manage. Of course, there is the possibility of technical difficulties when using technology in the classroom. This can cause a lot of anxiety since every moment in a classroom is important and any time lost is distinctly felt by the teacher”,

Hannah Hounsell, English Education.

“I am a big technology fan in the classroom- to a certain extent. I love booking time in the library for students to use technology to make assignments of higher quality and more fun to do. I am also a heavy user of technology in the classroom because it is how I present material and have the students engage in practice. However, because of the high need for teenagers to always have a phone in their hands, there have been a new policy in classrooms where students have to keep their phones in a calcpad storage unit for the class. The main reason behind this is that there are students that will not be productive in class and/or potentially distract others from doing their work”,

Cristina Coffill, Spanish Education (grades 9-12).

So, from this perspective, we can likely deduce that cell phones are not the best idea for the classroom. However, the teachers interviewed did have a positive opinion about non-handheld devices. “I highly recommend smart board use. I use the smart board for lessons at least every other day and my students respond very well to that!”, Gregoire. While there is reason for concern, there is evidence to prove that technology can be used for good.

According to a PBS LearningMedia survey, “69 percent of teachers polled said that educational technology allows them to ‘do much more than ever before’ with students”, Jeana Lee Tahnk of Huffington Post. Technology can cause distraction if mismanaged, but can also be a great help. Essentially, technology in the classroom should engage the students, not distract them and cause more stress for the teacher. In some cases, teachers have found a way to manage handheld devices.

“I used tons of technological tools in the classroom that wouldn’t have been possible without iPads and the time lost due to technical difficulties was minimal. The kids are also almost intrinsically engaged by new technological tools. They would much rather have an activity that they can do on their iPads, than one they must do with pen and paper. That includes tests and quizzes. Unfortunately, the school that I was in didn’t have smartboards, but I would simply project lessons made in Quizlet, Kahoot, Playposit, PollEverywhere, Prism, Schoology, etc.”, Hounsell.

With the average attention span of students dwindling, it is important to develop lesson plans around what gets the attention of the students. At one time in history, that was lincoln logs and rubix cubes. Today, it’s ipads and cell phones that take up the attention of youth. Rather than resist this movement, it’s important to recognize the significant role technology plays in your student’s life and find ways to integrate technology into the classroom. Some ways educators have done this is by:

• Playing interactive class exercises on a smart board
• Use kiosks so students can access surveys and personal information
• Using google docs to do live peer edits in groups
• Downloading educational apps onto student’s phones for class (like socrative)
• Creating visually appealing presentations that will keep students engaged
• Inform students of upcoming events using a lobby kiosk
• Use technology to automate POS for school lunch

Schools that are optimizing the use of technology have seen extremely positive effects. According to the Pew Research Center, “92 percent of teachers said that the Internet has a “major impact” on their ability to access content, resources and materials, and many are finding that it helps their ability to interact with students. Even more importantly, instructors have reported that digital technology in the classroom has increased students’ academic performance” (sourced by Jeana Lee Tahnk’s article on Huffington Post). The problem is not technology, it’s the way it’s being utilized. With a lesson plan, and time restrictions, technology can be a useful tool for improving engagement and attention in the classroom.

Kirnelius Williams, a master of business administration (MBA) student, uses the information kiosk in the College of Business and Economics.

Tip: Don’t have the budget for a kiosk? Read this article to find out how to get a kiosk using grants

Technology isn’t just useful within the classroom. Technology can be used to improve the library, cafeteria, and lobby of the school. School kiosks can be used as efficient printing clusters, POS for cafeterias, and digital signs to display maps and information in lobbies. They can even screen for mental health, providing students a way to get valuable resources for mental wellness. Organizations all over the country are connecting grant organizations to schools to bring kiosks into education.
Teachers understand their students. They can assess what type of technology can benefit their students and which ones distract them. “Overall, I think technology enriches the classroom and I am excited to try out most any tool (as long as I think it’s worth it, of course)”, Hounsell. At the end of the day, under the right conditions, technology can be a great benefit for schools. This means both in and out of the classroom. “Overall- it's all about balance. Technology really is a strong component of learning nowadays and when used responsibly it makes a positive difference in learning”, Coffill.

Grants for Self-service technology in schools all over the country

Self service student kiosks are surging as a means to improve check-in, wayfinding, print clusters, registration, check-out, POS, information distribution, advertisement, and much more.

Unfortunately, funding for schools varies state to state and depends widely on the average income of the town in which the school resides.

This results in a surplus of budget in some areas, while other schools struggle to provide basic supplies for their students. Those schools that already have funding problems may not even look to consider self-service technology using grants to solve problems within the school.

Luckily, there are grants, scholarships, and networks of donors available for schools to receive funding for these programs.

Once implemented, a kiosk returns the initial investment by decreasing costs on paper and resources while providing teachers with more time to focus on the classroom instead of routine tasks. Kiosks are used to:

• Give students a place to print and scan quickly with less wait time
• Check students into the classroom
• Give students directions and information about the school
• Let students buy themselves lunch with a self-checkout POS
• Advertise fundraisers, clubs, school events, and other opportunities for students

Aside from federal funding, there are plenty of ways to fund a kiosk implementation in schools. Government grants, private company grants, crowdfunding, and donation communication are all ways for teachers to create a funding campaign or apply for a grant. Oakland University used a local Michigan grant from the Flinn Foundation to fund the screening for mental health kiosk they implemented in their school’s library.

This is a list of different resources available to most states in the U.S. for STEM based technology grants.

Government Grants

• Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE): Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship Program
• Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE): Title III Grant Projects
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Expanding Opportunity Through Quality Charter Schools Program (CSP): Grants to Charter Management Organization for the Replication and expansion of High-Quality Charter Schools
• Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): High School Equivalency Program
• Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): College Assistance Migrant Program
• Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE): Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program
• Interdisciplinary Preparation in Special Education, Early Intervention, and Related Services for Personnel Serving Children With Disabilities Who Have High-Intensity Needs
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED) Grant Program
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Education Innovation and Research Program--Expansion Grants
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Education Innovation and Research Program--Mid-phase Grants
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Education Innovation and Research Program--Early-phase Grants
• Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE): Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunities
• Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII): Magnet Schools Assistance Program
• Training and Information for Parents of Children With Disabilities: Community Parent Resource Centers
• Office of Elementary & Secondary Education; Overview Information: Race to the Top Fund

Donors Programs

List of Resources from ‘Positive Learning’

https://positivelearning.com/blog/2016/2/11/7-ways-to-get-funding-and-grants-for-technology-in-your-classroom

And eSchool News: Daily Tech News & Innovation

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2015/04/03/technology-grants-568/

Technology Donors Program

• Make account
• Compile ‘wish list’ of technology
• Create profile with stories and experiences as an educator
  
• Get connected with donors to fund project
• No deadline

Donors Choose

• K-12 and public charter schools
• Donors help fund project
• When project is fully funded, the teacher gets the items delivered to them

Digital Wish

• Teachers submit a lesson plan
• Entered to win up to 50 grants
• Share stories with donors
• Rolling deadline

Corning Incorporated Foundation

• Apply for over 130 grants
• Totals about $3 million 

Funding Factory

• Free funding program for schools, nonprofits, charities
• Donation of devices or funds
• If a teacher donates old technology it can gain points and be exchanged for new technology or cash
• Ongoing deadline

Lockheed Martin STEM Grant

• General grant for STEM
• Handful of states not eligible
• Funding is flexible
• Deadline is rolling

More Websites to Apply

http://www.foundationcenter.org

http://www.eschoolnews.com/funding/

http://www.grantwatch.com

https://twitter.com/winmoregrants

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/

https://www2.cpsb.org/Scripts/abshire/grants.asp

http://www.getedfunding.com/c/index.web?s@TeKUg_AZOmZyE

If you would like to learn more about how you can get a kiosk in your school, contact a project consultant at 603-865-1000

Student Printing Kiosk Solutions at UND Making the Grade

The Challenge

In 2010, the University of North Dakota entered an institution-wide strategic planning initiative known as Exceptional UND. Fortunately, the Information Technology division was ahead of the game. Having undertaken its own strategic planning process in 2008, it identified Core Technology Services, outlining final recommendations for each with implementation beginning in 2010.

Computer labs were of course flagged as a Core Technology Service, and chief among the central recommendations was the following dictate:

Print Stations:
Throughout the core technology discussion, various constituency groups have expressed the need to further develop the University’s print services. These services should be available for use from student-owned systems and be strategically placed across campus.

This objective reflects a reality of today’s higher education culture: students are coming in with, and prefer to use, their own technology. Center for Instructional & Learning Technologies (CILT) Associate Director Joshua Jones explains, "We’ve made the decision to give the students services versus hardware. Instead of building more computer labs, we need to meet them where they are."

The Solution

UND developed its own system called UniPrint. With UniPrint, students download installers that allow them to print from their personal computers to

designated campus printing centers. A student sends a print job to the physical location of her choice, assigning it a "release password." At that point, she has two hours to go to the print location, swipe her U Card (UND’s student ID card), enter the password and pick up her print job. The U Card automatically deducts the printing charge (4¢ per black and white page) from the student’s account. An $8/semester student technology fee is preloaded on the card for printing expenses. Money can of course be added to the card if/when the allotted fee runs out.

The UniPrint system necessitated additional hardware to meet students’ increasing demand. In addition to UND’s computer labs, CILT established print stations – computer/printer combos on old TV carts – in closely monitored areas. The carts are a clunky, unattractive but utilitarian solution, as long as manpower is available to provide the security the equipment lacks.

Interactive kiosks were the obvious solution for high-traffic spaces that could not be staffed 24/7. After putting the project out to bid, CILT chose Advanced Kiosks because the company was best able to provide five key elements of self-service technology:

Flexibility

UND came into the project with a specific list of criteria, but remained open to input from potential vendors. "When we went out to bid, there was another company that wanted to build custom enclosures to fit a single printer model," remembers Jones. “But we realized, ideally, these kiosks are going to be around a lot longer than any of the equipment inside them. We really appreciated Advanced Kiosks’ adjustable shelving." It makes swapping out printers and other components easy to do. Design skill and thoughtful engineering are apparent in the Documentation Kiosks.

From there, CILT and the Advanced Kiosks team worked together to configure Documentation Kiosks with UND’s unique combination of desired features. "For our U Cards, UND is standardized on one card reader. We told Advanced Kiosks which one we use, and that’s what they gave us,” Jones explains. "We chose to include the phone handset feature and hardwire it directly to our IT Support. They also covered the standard external USB ports with plates so users can’t intentionally or unintentionally compromise the system, but if we ever do decide to repurpose the kiosks, the plates can easily be removed." Similarly, the keyboards can be removed for touch-screen-only operation.

Security

UND wanted computer kiosks for printing locations that could not be staffed around the clock. College students can be depended on for heavy and hard use of shared facilities. "We wanted that armored ATM machine look," recalls Jones. The Documentation Kiosk has an approachable, sleek-but-sturdy look that appeals to students. The plates over the USB ports also protect UND electronics from being compromised by viruses, malware and a host of other threats. "That small customization works perfectly with our UniPrint system, which locks out desktops. The kiosks can only be used for printing," Jones says.

Visibility

Advanced Kiosks hardware isn’t just engineered for maximum efficiency; it’s designed to look good too. With a wide choice of colors, cut vinyl and/or graphic wraps, kiosks fit right in with the customer’s brand, including logos and mascots. These are aesthetically pleasing, high-tech units that call out to users in high-traffic areas. However, for those who still shy away from experiences with new technology, UND installed signage to reassure new users that printing kiosks are the way to go. At peak times in the College of Business main computer lab, for example, there can be daunting lines with significant wait times to use one of the 49 computers. Signs are posted to direct students who only need to print to the kiosks standing ready and available throughout the building.

Ease of Use

UND’s printing kiosks are both easy for students to use and for support staff to maintain. "Advanced Kiosks products are just designed great," Jones applauds. The service doors are located in the front for easy access. The screens move forward so you can easily get to the computer and monitor. "For us, the same key opens all units across campus. It’s secure without being cumbersome."

For students, Jones likes the touch-screen keyboards because they offer users fewer options and no function keys. "They keep users locked into our software, and that’s exactly where we want them," he explains.

Responsive Service

UND has relied on Advanced Kiosks for fast, dependable service from the beginning. "It only took a few weeks from ordering to delivery," says Jones. "We placed our order for the first batch of kiosks in July and got them right before school started." The three-year, end-to-end warranty never lets you down. From offering technical support to replacement parts, Advanced Kiosks provides what you need, when you need it.

The Results

CILT has accomplished exactly what it set out to do. On one hand, there’s been a dramatic decrease in waste from the wide-open printing days when students had no incentive to minimize their use of paper and toner. On the other, internal statistics prove if you give people what they want, they will use the service loyally. In just one year of kiosk use, UniPrint has gone from 1.2 million pages printed to almost two million.

The Future

In 2012, Jones’ first order was basically a pilot program with four printing kiosks going to the College of Business and two purchased by UND’s main campus. The results were promising enough to add six more kiosks in the same calendar year, and the plan is to place a third order in 2013. "Our goal is to have one public print station in every building," Jones says of the 240-building campus.

In many ways, the University of North Dakota serves as a thought leader for the other ten schools in the North Dakota University System. As UND’s experience and success with interactive kiosks gains momentum, other institutions will see them as viable and attractive solutions not just for student printing, but for every aspect of university life, from paying bills to registering for classes to weighing dining hall options. Computer kiosks are ideal for budget-conscious schools that cater to technologically savvy students preparing for life and work in an increasingly digital world.

Call us today to save your campus money and manpower with a full-service turnkey solution from Advanced Kiosks.

This UND orientation video introduces students to the new UniPrint Stations located throughout campus.

Download UND Case Study (PDF).