SLIPPERY ROCK — Slippery Rock University students will be able to eat, do laundry and pay for items at the bookstore using only their identification cards charged up with "Rock Dollars."

Next year, students will have the freedom to use those dollars off campus, when radio-frequency identification cards are adopted.

SRU would be the first institution in North America to use the technology for this type of identification tags, according to Bob Smith, university president.

RFID has been used for other purposes, including tracking goods or paying for products.

Smith announced recently SRU will make the change over the summer. He, administrators and students have been discussing the change for about a year.

In addition to providing identification for students, the new cards, or tags, can be used to buy items on or off campus, much like a debit card.

SRU has asked for bids from five companies to produce the new cards and will choose a vendor in June or July. Smith plans to have that company cover the cost of the cards and card readers on campus.

"This won't cost students anything," he said.

Students chose the card type and design in an Internet vote, he said. More than 500,000 votes were received. Since only university students could vote, that meant some students voted several times. SRU has about 8,000 students.

"It was our version of 'American Idol,' " said Smith, referring to people voting for the popular TV show.

The winning design shows a picture of Old Main, a historic building on campus.

One option is to put the card on the back of a cell phone, an option that Smith favors.

"What student doesn't know where his cell phone is," he said.

The tags will contain the same information as the student identification card, Carr said.

Security an issue

One of the issues raised about the RFID cards is security, Smith said.

With the varied uses of the card, there is a concern the cards could be stolen more frequently, for example.

"But if someone loses it, it can be turned off quickly using the Internet," Smith said.

Accounts can be tracked on the Internet, and money can be added to them as well.

"There's a lot of misinformation about that (security)," said Bob Carr, chief executive officer of Heartland Payment Systems, the credit card processor that handles SRU's current identification card system.

The tags are going to have limited information, and each one has a pin number. It would be difficult to steal money by using just the tag.

In addition, the tags have a short range, so only campus or surrounding merchants will be able to read them, he added.

Other security issues have been questioned by students, Carr said.

"They think we can track students with them, and that's just not true," he said.

The university and other merchants won't have readers unless they are used for payment, for example, Carr said.

Card readers needed

If Carr's company is chosen to produce the cards, it would add RFID-reading technology to all current card readers on campus, he said. This includes vending machines, laundry facilities, food vendors and other places the cards can be used for cash.

For students who aren't interested in getting the new RFID cards, Heartland could leave the current readers in place.

The cost of that equipment upgrade would be covered by Heartland.

The student tags would be less than $1 each, according to Carr.

"They would be free to students," he said.

The company doesn't mind covering the costs because of the groundbreaking nature of the project, Carr said.

"This is the first campus we know of in North America to do this," he said. "We're willing to make that investment. We want to prove or disprove the value of this."

For businesses off campus that are Heartland customers, the cost to install an RFID reader will be under $200. Several Slippery Rock businesses are already customers, Carr said.

For those who aren't customers, the cost of software will need to be considered to make the systems compatible, he said. Carr said he didn't know those costs now, and each business could be different.

According to RFID Journal, a Web site dedicated to listing information about the systems, most readers cost $1,000 to $3,000.

Positive reaction

"There's a lot of neat possibilities," said Amie Homa, president of the SRU Student Government Association. "This is like a one-stop card.

"I sat in on some focus groups about this, and students seemed very excited."

The fact that balances currently can't be checked online is a drawback students talked about with their current cards, she said. To check what was left, you had to make a purchase, she added.

Under the new system, that will not be required.

For some like Kathleen Garrow, a student who doesn't use her ID card often but uses a debit card all the time, the new system will work better, she said.

"This seems more convenient," she said.

Student Angel Streitman said as long as she could still use her student ID to get discounts, she had no problem switching over next year.

"We can get better food with it," she said, adding she hoped the restaurants in the borough agreed to accept the new technology.

The change would be good for businesses, said Jonathan Crissman, senior.

"It won't be just SRU getting the money," he said.

Mike Biskup, owner of Ya Ya Nails in Slippery Rock, has already asked SRU about using the technology in his business.

"It gives students the option to use the money they would spend on campus at local businesses downtown," he said.

Biskup doesn't know how much it will cost to install the new card reader but plans to look into the issue.

"There's still a lot of different things I need to know," he said.