Digital Access Management: How innovative solutions revolutionize university campuses

Students, lecturers, researchers, staff, external partners… countless people come and go at a university every day. Some are rushing to a lecture, others are heading to the library, whilst others are making their way to the cafeteria, a public event or a staff member’s office. How does a university ensure that everyone has access to the laboratories, libraries or lecture theatres they need? And how can this challenge be met without having to manage a countless number of keys? In this blog post, we take a look at the topic of access management and how digital solutions can make university campuses more accessible to everyone.

Challenges of access management at universities

Several thousand students, lecturers and university staff moving around campus every day pose a complex logistical challenge. The standard solution at many universities remains the good ol' key: reliable and well-proven – but also hardly flexible and expensive to maintain. After all, keys do tend to get lost, which entails considerable costs for replacing them or changing locks. Modern access management also quickly reaches its limits here; after all, the temporary allocation of access rights – for example, for guest lecturers or students with extended access rights – is very labour-intensive. This solution also lacks the ability to track who entered which area and when, which is particularly relevant in sensitive areas such as research laboratories.

Are “digital keys” the solution?

As in many areas of university administration, innovative digital solutions have also emerged in access management in recent years. “Digital keys” in the form of bank cards, chips or smartphone apps are already facilitating access in many places – with administrative systems running in the background to manage personalised access rights or contact tracing.

Universities see advantages in, among other things, increased security. All access points can be monitored and logged in real time. Access rights can be granted, revoked or changed flexibly and easily at the click of a mouse. If a university expands its premises, a digital access management system grows with it.

A digital access management system can also be integrated into a university’s existing IT infrastructure. Two examples: information on students’ status can be imported directly and in real time from the campus management system into the access management system. The individual “digital key” can be easily adapted to grant necessary access to lecture theatres, laboratories, etc. Speaking of simplicity: if a university already uses its own campus app or a digital ID card for students or staff, this can also be enhanced to serve as a “digital key”.

Digital access control on campus with Salto

At a university, it is crucial to have precise access management – determining who needs access to which room and when. It is also important to be able to lock access immediately in emergencies. At the same time, however, the freedoms and public accessibility of the campus, which make a university a place for people to meet, must not be restricted. Salto, one of the world’s leading providers of access solutions, specialises precisely in this area of tension. Since 2001, the international company, headquartered in Spain, has been supplying universities, as well as businesses and public institutions, with technology for access and identity management, as well as electronic locking systems. In doing so, Salto aims to create a secure, intelligent and seamless user experience and to help shape the digital transformation of access and identity management.

Salto’s keyless access solutions enhance the safety of students, lecturers and university staff whilst protecting premises and their equipment. The system also enables university staff to lock specific doors, buildings or entire campuses in an emergency – as specified in the university’s crisis response plan. In the Salto system, every access point is transformed into a smart door that is easy to install and maintain and complies with local security regulations. With a single card, tag or smartphone app – such as the Campus App and the Digital Campus Card from Studo – all university members are granted convenient access. Analogue keys are thus a thing of the past.

Enhancing efficiency and security

Whether you need to organise access to a research laboratory that is restricted to authorised researchers and students, or wish to grant students access to the library or sports facilities outside official opening hours. Whether you require differentiated access permissions for staff from different departments or just temporary access for external lecturers.

The switch to digital access management is a strategic decision for universities, delivering greater security, efficiency and flexibility. Digital solutions such as those by Salto demonstrate how access management is becoming an integral part of a university’s IT infrastructure. A further step towards the university campus of the future.