On many campuses, students should carry ID cards to get their residence halls, take out library books, go to the fitness center and pay for lunch in the dining hall. But this practice could soon be a thing of the past, together with the launch of digital student ID cards on Apple Watches and iPhones.

Using Near-Field Communications technology, pupils will have the ability to access a multitude of services on campus just by waving their phone or see near subscribers that are compatible. Six universities have been working with Apple and Blackboard about the initiative, including Duke, Johns Hopkins, Santa Clara and Temple Universities and the Universities of Alabama and Oklahoma.

Rather than an app, the electronic student ID cards will probably be a part of Apple Wallet and linked to Apple Pay. The service is expected to go live in the six collaborating universities this fall. Contacted by Inside Higher Ed, not one of the universities enlarged on details like what version of iPhone or Apple Watch pupils would have to have to use the technology, nor if they are planning an Android equal of the system. Presumably, the technology will supplement (rather than replace) existing student ID card programs, rather than all students own Apple technology.

Joshua Kim, manager of digital learning initiatives at Dartmouth College’s Center for the Advancement of Learning, stated he is interested to see whether this initiative could be the”gateway drug” for additional cellular educational experiences from Apple — especially on the Apple Watch.

“Student IDs are still an interesting beginning, but what is more fun would be to think about other ways that Apple Watch could tackle some higher ed challenge,” explained Kim. The fact that the statement was made by Apple’s vice president of technologies, Kevin Lynch, is a promising signal, said Kim.

Speaking at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Monday, Lynch described the electronic Student ID attribute within an”exciting” development which will”expand into more campuses over time.”

In the end of 2017, Apple started a partnership with Ohio State University, which involves the joint creation of apps for use on campus — a development that some observers said indicated a renewed attention from Apple on higher education.

Eric Stoller, a high schooling notion leader and Inside Higher Ed blogger, stated the Student ID statement is a”big deal” that provides Apple with”another helpful entry point into higher education,” as well as great PR for Blackboard and the universities involved with analyzing the technology.

A spokesperson for Blackboard verified that the company was working with Apple to create the student IDs, including that Blackboard would be supplying the compatible reader devices. The spokesperson said that the electronic student IDs would offer students”heightened security and outstanding advantage” on campus. Though not mentioned in the Apple announcement, sources reported that all the associations involved in the initiative will be a Blackboard Transact customer. Blackboard Transact is a subsidiary of Blackboard that oversees campus ID systems.

A spokesperson for Santa Clara University said the university had been”looking forward” to bringing its own campus ACCESS Card to the Apple Wallet, including that the technology could be available to students, faculty and staff to work with on and around campus by the end of the calendar year. The University of Oklahoma echoed this announcement, saying that its Sooner Card would likewise be available to students, faculty and staff.I

n a tweet, Tracy Futhey, chief information officer at Duke University, said that the initiative could enable students to get buildings and make payments across campus at an”even easier way.” She included her institution is”continually searching for technologies that can enhance student experience,” adding that working with Apple has been a”natural fit.”

Source: Diego Post

African fans have always seen match officiating at the World Cup as one reason why their teams fail to do better than they have done so far. Now technology is set to come to the aid of African teams and their fans during the World Cup in Russia.

Earlier this year, football’s umbrella body, the International Federation for Football Associations (FIFA), announced that it will use the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for World Cup matches in Russia. It is one of the rule changes at the 2018 World Cup. The other allows a fourth substitute when the game goes into extra time.

BBC Sport described the VAR as,

basically like another referee’s assistant - but one that has access to TV replays from a multitude of angles.

A VAR will support the head referee in each of the World Cup’s 64 matches. The video assistant referee team, all top FIFA referees in their own right, are located in a centralised video operation room in Moscow. The system involves them watching the action remotely and then drawing the match referee’s attention to officiating mistakes.

Described as an “historic step for greater fairness in football”, the VAR will aim to reduce unfairness caused by “clear and obvious errors” or “serious missed incidents” in relation to:

• Goals and offences leading up to a goal;
• Penalty decisions and offences leading up to a penalty;
• Direct red card incidents only; or
• Mistaken identity (when the referee cautions or sends off the wrong player of the offending team).

The VAR is, particularly, intriguing because a year-long study by Belgian University KU Leuven shows that the VAR increases officiating accuracy from 93% to 98.8% and time lost using the system is just an average of 55 seconds. The university study is based on over 1,000 games where the VAR was used.

Rectifying poor calls

While, several analysts have focused on the VAR rectifying poor calls during matches at the 2018 World Cup, few point to why African fans (along with fans of other less favoured teams) welcome the use of the VAR. African fans have been alleging biased refereeing decisions for years at the World Cup – a case in point was in Italy in 1990 when Cameroon were controversially ousted by England. Two arguable calls went England’s way in that memorable quarter final against Cameroon prompting protests and riots in Cameroon by frustrated fans.

At the 1998 World Cup in France, match officials contentiously overruled two Cameroon goals in a game that Cameroon finally drew 1-1 with Chile, sending the African team home after the first round. Many Africans still believe that the officials were wrong to overrule those goals.

At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, African fans felt that Nigeria were on the receiving end of particularly poor, “biased” refereeing in their match against France. Perhaps, with the VAR, results would have been different in each of those cases.

Social perception

Austrian psychologist Fritz Heider’s attribution theory partly explains why African fans feel hard done by. More than 50 years ago, Heider wrote a treatise on the processes that impact social perception, on how ordinary people explain events as they do.

That treatise is an excellent tool for how the African World Cup fan explains the World Cup and failure of African teams.

This means that Cameroon’s victories on the way to meeting England at the 1990 World Cup were attributed to the team’s great play, and their ability, among other virtues. The African fans would most likely have cited forward Roger Milla‘s brilliance, the team’s collective speed and their individual talent as reasons for Cameroon’s victories.

However, they would not attribute the defeat against England to England’s talent, skill, tactics or other dispositions. For negative results like that, Heider informs us, attribution is no longer made to dispositions but to situations. Thus, the attribution or causes become poor match officiating, the systemic racism that denies African teams a chance, and so on.

Fans’ rationale

Heider’s attribution theory provides us ways to understand the rationale of the African fan at the World Cup. However, that’s about to change with the introduction of the VAR. Rather than concluding that a non-African referee discriminates against Africans, the VAR becomes the check against such anticipated discrimination.

Thus, the VAR will not only get calls right, it will make things fair and do so by creating an impression of fairness. At least, attributing defeat or failure to refereeing may become a thing of the past. Although, Heider argues, there could be newer attributions. This time, however, newer attributions may be the weather, the hotel, or other perceived disruptions.

Those are somewhat more palatable than blaming match officials. One thing we know is that improvements to the game often advance fairness. FIFA’s decision to play the final two group games simultaneously reduced possibilities of fixed results after Germany and Austria were widely believed to have fixed the result of their game at the 1982 World Cup which eliminated Algeria. So welcome to the VAR.

Chuka Onwumechili, Professor of Communications, Howard University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.