JasperCard Bar Code Testing

A main feature of the upcoming Manhattan College app is being able to use your JasperCard on your phone. With the JasperCard on your phone, you will be to use meal swipes, pay with Jasper Dollars and Dining Dollars, and access buildings such as the library and the gym. 

In order for this to be a feasible option, we conducted tests on the card at two points of interest. We did test in the Kelly Commons Gym and Marketplace. A laptop with a JapserCard prototype and a barcode scanner were used. 

Testing in the gym would give us an idea of how transactions for accessing buildings would work across campus. To test this, we connect a barcode scanner to the current system. The barcode scanner acts a basic input peripheral, like keyboard. This means that when the barcode scanner receives the values from the card, the computer receives at as user input and displays the value on the current selected input interface. The identity system used would take this number and present user information on the screen. The JasperCard on the laptop is setup to give students 16 digit code. The same code now available on the physical front of the card.  Currently, the system uses a little device that gets this information for taping or swiping your physical JasperCard. The system then converts that 16 digit number to the student id number. This would mean that the mobile JasperCard would have to output that number. However this would be a security issue since the student id number is a personal number. For now we are looking into changing the system to accept the 16 digit number.

Testing in the Kelly Commons Marketplace would allows us to know if making transactions from the mobile JasperCard on the current register system is possible. Same setup as the Kelly Commons Gym was applied. During the initial test, the system would accept input.  However, we looked into the software that manages the register system to see if there were any alterations we could  make. Upon reviewing the software we found that we could change the system to allow for input. This worked, but for every transaction made with barcode scanner, there had to be authorization for the manager. We continued looking into the software and found another option that would allow for input transactions without the need for authorization on every transaction. This concludes that the we can enable acceptance of mobile JasperCards at registers across campus.