The introduction of smart cards in the Austrian public sector has been discussed since the late 1980s. Public organisations including the national health insurance institute and the national citizen registration office are in the conceptual phase of the introduction. One of the pilot projects was the roll-out of the multifunctional student ID card to the students of the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (WU Vienna) in autumn 2000. To assess the pilot and to gain insight into further projects, it is necessary to investigate the students’ point of view and their acceptance of the WU smart card. Furthermore it would be interesting to gain knowledge about the integration of further functionalities such as payment services or health insurance data. In this paper, which is a co-operation of three departments at the WU Vienna, we want to give a report on the current status of the research project focused on investigating the issues affecting the introduction of new functionalities of the multifunctional student ID card at the WU Vienna. While the research reported here is still at an early stage of analysis, we have already gained significant findings on students’ attitude towards usage of current as well as of potential extended functionalities of the student ID card. The main focus of our research is to gain knowledge about the general students’ acceptance. The data collection was carried out through an online questionnaire and the data analysis was based on a sample of 417 students. Evaluating the findings of the first phase of our research project, we have been able to draw implications for the next stage of our investigation
