As the new cohort of students joined this September, the conversation started again about the effectiveness of having physical smart cards, as new students have highlighted ways in which the system could be improved. For example, students have found that they are unsure of whether their cards have been actually been scanned or not, and as a result, have suggested that the scanners outside lecture theatres should make a sound when you scan your card or the green light should at least change colour so you can be certain that your attendance has been recorded.
Notably, first-year student Eve Buckley expressed to The Courier a new idea to make logging attendance easier for students:
“Nearly all of us have forgotten to bring our smart cards to lectures at one point or another, and I think it’s unfair that even if we have attended we can’t officially show we were there, therefore I think we should be able to scan our digital smartcards on the Newcastle app to log attendance”
Yet, maybe a more viable solution is to stop tracking attendance with smartcards altogether. Since Covid 19 Universities across the country have implemented a system that tracks attendance using QR codes that students can scan using their smartphones and tablets. The use of these QR codes has been reported as highly successful, easier to use and there’s no risk of forgetting a physical card.
Therefore, should Newcastle think about starting its own QR code system in order to make tracking attendance more reliable?
