When Blackboard deploys Sony’s FeliCa contactless smart cards, the credentials have two areas, one that is a secure area where payment and physical access control transactions take place and an open area where the school can add its own applications, says Jun Shionozaki, technical consulting manager, FeliCa Business Division at Sony.

At the National Association of Campus Card Users conference Blackboard and Sony were giving out USB dongles that included a FeliCa software developers kit that included some sample applications and a tutorial on how to create them. “In the past they could only use the mag-strip credential but now they can go out and be creative,” Shionozaki says.

Blackboard says that some 60 schools have deployed FeliCa readers and 20 have deployed the cards. Some of the applications schools are creating include computer login, ticketing and event tracking, Shionozaki says.