Page 28 - College Planning & Management, November 2017

THE KEY TO SECURITY
Locking Down Locks
A locked door is an important part
of any security plan and new locking strategies are rising to the occasion. The old metal key is giving way to a variety of electronic access control options that oper- ate with a card. The device not only opens
the door but tracks who used the card and when it was used.
“They can restrict access based on time or location and if a card is lost you can just deactivate it,” explains Daniel Stewart, business development manager, BEST Ac- cess Solutions, a dormakaba company.
Hard-wired access control options are often a security manager’s first choice.
The technology is tried and true, around long enough for maintenance personnel to be familiar with it and it provides instant feedback notification and control. However, it costs about, “$3,000 to $5,000 per door,” according to Stewart, putting it out of reach for the thousands of doors that might be on any given campus.
Because of the price, hard-wired locks work best for perimeter control. For the rest a variety of electronic locks, wireless, WiFi-enabled and even solar-powered options are available. A wireless lock
runs about $1,000 per door, according to Stewart. They still record who entered and when, but not in real time.
“More schools are adopting this kind of access control deeper into the cam- pus,” reports Jeremy Saline, director of business development — universities, ASSA ABLOY. “Classrooms, locker rooms, labs, housing, common areas and more benefit.”
Maintenance means changing batter- ies for wireless locks and keeping the door in good condition. Alvarez recommends checking all doors quarterly and suggests schools invest in service agreements or at least, “IT departments and maintenance staff who understand the capabilities of the product and the possible ways it can malfunction.”
As for the future of locks, Saline sees some schools moving towards “mobile credentials, solar power and biometrics.” Stewart predicts the credentials will con- tinue to move from a card with a magnetic stripe to smarter chipped cards. After that, credentials may move to your mobile phone. “You’re significantly less likely to lose your phone than your card,” he says.
But does this mean that the good old, inexpensive, metal key will disappear forever? “No! 100 percent of colleges are still using keys,” says Stewart. “Computers can stop working, batteries can fail. You’ll always have a need for a mechanical way to get through a door.” CPM
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28 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / NOVEMBER 2017
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