California colleges adopt smart cards

A handful of California's higher education institutions have recently signed long-term agreements with CyberMark, a supplier of smart cards and e-commerce solutions for closed campus environments.

Smart cards offer a more secure environment for authenticating the identifications of students and faculty via the Internet when compared with traditional magnetic stripe cards, said Douglas Currie, the company's western regional manager.

The cards also enable electronic money applications that can be used on or off campus instead of cash.

The Los Angeles City College school districts, Kern County Community College district, the Pasadena Community College system, the University of California at Riverside and the Foothills De-Anza Community College district recently began to use smart cards. All five school systems contain more than 15,000 students and the Los Angeles City College's nine schools serve more than 140,000.

More information on CyberMark is available at the company's Web site, www.cybermark.com.