NEWS
News for 'ECDC' - (The MarketPlace Firm Releases Results of Market Research on EarthSearch's StudentConnect RFID Technology)
Nov 07, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- The MarketPlace Firm and East Coast
Diversified jointly announced the findings of research conducted by the Atlanta
based independent Market Research and Data Analysis firm regarding RFID
technology "StudentConnect" developed by its subsidiary EarthSearch
Communications.
The objective of the research was to survey parents of school-aged students
(K-12) to determine their attitudes and perceptions about the safety and
education of their children and the use of RFID technology to address those
concerns. Research was conducted in two urban markets; Atlanta, Georgia and
Newark, New Jersey, to determine if parents would support the implementation of
a free Auto ID technology to ensure the safety and support the education of
their children.
According to a release, EarthSearch's StudentConnect product previously named
SchoolsConnects is designed to improve student bus rider safety and class
attendance management in ways that would have parents become actively involved
in the education of the student. The company utilized wireless communication
between GPS and RFID to deliver real time safety information to both schools and
parents regarding student bus riders. The system uses RFID/Auto ID technology,
to gather relevant student class attendance behavior patterns that can be
helpful to identify truancy, students skipping school or class. Issues such as
tardiness which may also be early signs of on-going bullying, or bad tutoring or
learning deficiencies brought to the attention of both schools and parents at an
early stage of events.
The technology allows parents to have access to relevant data regarding their
children's safety while riding on the school bus, learning behavior during
school hours and ease of communication with teachers. School administrators,
parents and counselors will have access to data that can detect patterns of
student interest in curriculum and provide information for career counseling.
School boards are also provided access to statistical data and analytics in
specialized reports that can provide insight into the direction of a community's
school system, or individual schools and teachers.
EarthSearch retained The MarketPlace Firm to conduct two surveys in both the
Atlanta, Georgia and Newark, New Jersey markets. Two focus group sessions were
deployed in Georgia comprising of a cross section of the community including
both parents and students.
In Georgia, 9,451 surveys were deployed with 15.6 percent parents of school-aged
(K-12) children responding.
In New Jersey, 4,121 surveys were deployed with 9.7 percent parents of
school-aged (K-12) children responding. In addition, two pollings were conducted
in Atlanta at unannounced local events to get a broad section of the community
participating with a focus on respondents with students in schools across Metro
Atlanta.
