What is it? - The “HESCA Starter Pack” is a set of products and services offered to the Higher Education sector to enable the start or further development of smart campus card schemes. It is planned to include:

• Card production
• Cardholder databases
• Personalisation services
• Attendance monitoring systems
• Access control systems
• Cashless payment systems
• Card reader suppliers
• Consultancy services

Why are we doing it? – A number of HEIs told HESCA that it was difficult to decide between suppliers offering different solutions. Prices and specifications varied widely, they couldn’t be confident that new products would work with existing systems, and they were worried they could be locked in to one supplier’s technology.

As well as this, some suppliers wanted to sell complete systems, not just those components that the HEI really wanted, and were trying to charge for a number of unrequired features.

All of this made it difficult for the HEI to build a business case for smart campus cards.

For these reasons, HESCA Limited decided to establish the HESCA Starter Pack, to provide HEIs with details of suppliers believed by HESCA to offer high-quality products and services that would be capable (with or without further development) of interoperability with other HESCA Starter Pack members’ systems wherever this is a requirement.

What are the criteria? – HESCA Limited reviews the offerings of suppliers that wish to be members of the HESCA Starter Pack. The criteria for inclusion are simple:

• In HESCA’s view they must offer value for money
• They must be properly established, with a strong track record of successful implementation in HEIs or FEIs
• They must be interoperable with other HESCA Starter Pack suppliers’ products where appropriate.

What should you do next?

If you’re an HEI and you want to source products in one of the Starter Pack categories listed on the homepage, click on the button for the application you’re interested in, and you will then be presented with contact details and short product descriptions for those suppliers that HESCA Limited has accredited and which have subsequently joined as Starter Pack members.

If you’re a supplier, and you want to get your product(s) listed within the HESCA Starter Pack supplier directory, click here to obtain the application form.