Japanese University gives out iPhones to track attendance

In a recent story on WirelessWeek, a Japanese university is giving away over 500 Apple iPhones as a way to supposedly track attendance:

Truants in Japan often fake attendance by getting friends to answer roll-call or hand in signed attendance cards. That’s verging on cheating since attendance is a key requirement for graduation here.

Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo is giving Apple’s iPhone 3G to 550 students in its School of Social Informatics, which studies the use of Internet and computer technology in society.

The gadget will work as a tool for studies, but it also comes with GPS, a satellite navigation system that automatically checks on its whereabouts. The university plans to use that as a way check attendance.

My first thought is: this is the biggest waste of money, ever. The school obviously intends for students to use these phones in coursework aside from just using them for attendance, but it seems like a complete and utter waste if the attendance was any major factor. Not only do the phones need to be turned on and have GPS enabled for this to work, but software to track each phone would need to be developed. I’m not really seeing how this simplifies the process in the slightest, in fact, using this for attendance seems unnecessarily complicated. I can just see the classroom now, everyone turning on their phones, waiting for them to boot up and clustering around a window trying to get a GPS lock, wasting everyone’s time. I frankly think that in the long run, having biometric scanners would be a better and cheaper alternative.

I also have to imagine that some families are quite upset that tuition money is being squandered, and who is footing the bill for the subscription costs exactly? I imagine that regardless of who it is (government or tuition) that someone is going to be quite upset to see about fifty-five thousand dollars a month being flushed down for iPhone subscriptions for students.

It’s also possible that the school is really just trying to look cool and “hip” and offer free devices for admission in certain courses. But really, wouldn’t it be better for everyone if you just improved the courses?

What do you think, waste or not?