Running the centre
Keys and key cards
A residence's keys and key cards are the physical means by which each person opens their room, the front door and the areas they are allowed into. Managing them means handing them out, recording who has which, lending the master key, cancelling lost ones and collecting them at move-out.
Also known askeys · key card · master key · access card
How they are managed
With mechanical keys, the problem is copies: a lost front-door key in theory means changing the lock cylinder, and that almost never happens. With cards, magnetic stripe or proximity, a lost one is cancelled and a new one is encoded, and the lock can store who opened it and when. In return, other faults appear: stripe cards that stop reading, locks with flat batteries and residents locked out at three in the morning. Cards are handed over at check-in, and it pays to keep a record of each one from that day on.
- Who has each key or card, with the date it was handed over and the date it came back.
- The master key, always against a signature and with a return time.
- What happens with a lost one: who is told, who cancels it and whether the replacement is charged.
- What happens at night if someone is locked out: who opens the door and how they check the person is who they say they are.
Worth knowing
What people take for granted: that the key comes back at check-out. If it is not noted at the time, nobody will know until the next resident needs it. Missing keys, like cards still active for people who have left, are a gap in access control that nobody sees.
Sources
Related terms
- Check-inCheck-in is the recording of a person's arrival at their accommodation: who they are, which room they take and from when are confirmed, and they are handed the key. In a student residence it is concentrated in a few days in September and comes back, on a small scale, with every return.
- Access controlAccess control is the system that decides who can enter a building or an area and records when they did: keys, cards, codes, readers or staff on the door. In a student residence it separates residents from visitors and protects areas such as kitchens, plant rooms or residents-only floors.