MyCard@School's web component takes the kid gloves off commercialism

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, Dec, 1999

The web component of School-Link Network, Inc.'s (Arlington, TX, www. myschool-link.com) MyCard@School is taking a bold step into commercialism via a school product. School Link Network is a company created to bring MyCard@School to market. This universal card, targeted at middle, junior and senior high schools in the US, encompasses food service, library and textbook services, student information, data from instructional systems, testing and grading software, transportation, administrative accounting and payroll systems. With parental permission, the card can be used to pay activity fees and make approved purchases on campuses. School-Link Networks is co-founded by Lawrence Goodman, III, founder of SNAP Systems, Inc. (management information systems for school cafeterias) and Madelyn Lesnick, most recently executive director of strategic marketing for Encyclopaedia Britannica.

The Card's Home Page Connection

Along with the card, School-Link Network is offering students' pages with personalized information in the model of a service like MyYahoo! The pages offer access to the administrative data, such as information on the status of library books or the amount of money in a debit account, but it is primarily a page of personal interests for youth. Anticipated areas include My Music, My Television, My Environment, My News, MyHealth,, MyMovies, MyMoney, MyBooks, MySports and MyComputer. The page can also include a link to the school's homepage.

These areas will carry ads and sponsors, though Lesnick says School-Link Network will avoid banner ads. Those promotions, along with e-commerce transaction fees, will provide revenue for the company. Parents can extend the use of the cards to serve as a debit card for online purchases. School-Link Network points to research that shows that teens will account for $1.2 billion of e-commerce dollars by 2002. There will not be a school fundraising strategy specific to e-commerce, but the company will promote credit cards that give the school rebates on all purchases.

School-Link Network will encourage use of the site by providing reward points for behaviors such as improved grades, using the school cafeteria, good attendance or visiting the library. Students can go to their personal page to find their account total and cash points in on merchandise supplied by sponsors. School-Link Network intends to have these pages accessed outside of school. Families without Internet access will be able to access account information by telephone.

Student pages will also remind students of opportunities to present their card for savings from local companies, such as fast food restaurants, video stores, clothing stores, movie theaters and other vendors.

Lesnick says that while commercialism can sound like a bad word, she thinks it can be used wisely to help schools get their job done. And the system does have strong administrative benefits. In addition to eliminating redundant data entry, web based analyses of the data gathered by cards is a fairly simple task.

This new functionality of a universal card is made possible through Microsoft's Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) and a demonstration program created by Follett Software Company, National Computer Systems (NCS), and SNAP S.

Schools can purchase the MyCard@School program for $8,550. That price includes a digital camera, tripod, card printer, the software for creating cards, integrating data, viewing data, security and logins. Schools with products from Follet, NCS and SNAP can receive the program for free. Schools who have purchased systems from one or two of the three vendors receive substantial discounts. To keep the price down, the cards are bar coded, not smart cards.

MyCard@School launched at an SIF pilot site in November and will expand significantly in the second quarter of 2000. School-link Network is self financed, and they anticipate venture funding in January.