Tracking multiple iPad minis

Your request doesn't fit neatly into Apple's way of doing things. You have a lot of options to pick from.

if you have thick skin, one of the stackexchange forums would be good.

The simplest would be the Activation Lock... if it does enough for your situation.

Activation lock

Find My iPad

"With iOS 7, Find My iPhone includes a new feature called Activation Lock, which is designed to prevent anyone else from using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch if you ever lose it. It starts working the moment you turn on Find My iPhone in iOS 7."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5818

If the Activation Lock isn't enough, you would need to get an mdm solution.

MDM -- Mobile Device Management

MDMs

Airwatch, Meraki, MobileIron, Profile Manager on OS X Server, or Zenprise

For a comparison see this page:

http://www.enterpriseios.com/wiki/Comparison_MDM_Providers

Airwatch

http://www.air-watch.com/

Meraki -- A free MDM [ expect lots of email and phone calls about upgrades ]

Read the product overview. Click on "get started now" to sign up.

https://meraki.cisco.com/products/systems-manager/?ref=YZRzCR

Video's on how to setup and use Meraki.

https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2012/08/how-to-get-the-most-from-meraki-systems-ma nager/

MobileIron

http://www.mobileiron.com/

Apple Configurator and Apple Profile Manager

"Apple Configurator makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in a school, business, or institution." Limited to Macs. Connects via USB cable.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator/id434433123?mt=12

"Profile Manager lets you configure OS X and iOS devices so they’re set up to use your company or school resources and have the settings, apps, and books your organization requires. Profile Manager creates settings and preference bundles for devices and deploys them to devices via the Mobile Device Management (MDM) service." Requires OS X server.
http://www.apple.com/uk/support/osxserver/profilemanager/

Zenprise

http://www.zenprise.com/

You can but you'd have to work within iOS current limitations

have a institution iTunes account used for find my iPhone

Which you sign out of the App Store after configuration

And let the users sign in with their own iTunes account

Make sure they can't change iCloud or find my iPhone

Otherwise you could find yourself locked out of the device

You should also look at Apple Configurator and a MDM solution to manage the devices

If the devices are institutionally owned have a look a VPP

Have a look at having a institutional iTunes account or a combo institutional iTunes account and user iTunes account

and how it may or may not work for you in your situation

Do the students really need their own iTunes accounts on the devices or can you manage with a institutional iTunes account and VPP

They can use their own iTunes account with either a institutional

iTunes account or departmental iTunes account using find my iPhone

My advice would be to try what your proposing and see if it's practical or not

Multiply it by x number of iPads and see which method works best for you and

is the simplest and least pita

Signed agreements sound good but they generally end up being not worth the

paper they are written on when the user has left and you've discovered months later

Someone has forgotten to setup find my iPhone and the long departed user has

And your stuck with a device you can't restore and your having to convince

Apple you do actually own it

Be very careful how you approach this. If users are creating their own Apple ID on the devices, each device is can only be used to activate 3 ID's. I have just posted in this forum about our situation. If 3 Id's have been activated on a device, and it's then given to a fourth person, they cannot create their ID on that device.

Also.......one Apple ID can only be used on 10 devices, just in case you were going to use an institutional ID on all devices.

We have over 1000 Apple devices and have invested nearly £500,000 and the support we have from Apple is NIL! We have numerous activation locked iPads and iPads which can't be used because three ID's have been created on them. Very frustrating. Apple are happy to sell you the devices but you will struggle when it comes to support! Certainly the case here in the UK anyway.

It sounds like your best way forward is to have two institutional ID's as you suggest. But please bear things in mind if you ever expand the number of your devices.

If you go down the two institutional ID route, you can log the devices into iCloud and iTunes and then 'Disable Account Modification' via an MDM solution, this will stop users from logging the devices out and using their own ID's.

We are already looking at, and testing Google Docs and Google devices. We'll only use Windows devices as a last resort 😝

Good luck, you'll need it!

You can also end up unable to restore devices if users sign up for find my iphone with their own itunes account

have you looked at VPP

http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/

and DEP

https://deploy.apple.com/

At a certain point in numbers, a MDM, mobile device management, solution is advantageous. With an MDM, you are on Apples institutional path. Without an MDM, you are on Apples home user path.

Since you have a small number of ipad, request the student drop the ipad from their Apple account when they return it.

"In iOS 7.1 or later, you can use a compatible MDM solution to enable Activation Lock when a user turns on Find My iPhone. Your MDM solution can store a bypass code when Activation Lock is enabled and later use this code to clear Activation Lock automatically when you need to erase the device and deploy it to a new user. Refer to your MDM solution documentation for details."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5927