The one prerequisite you'll need is a USB Web Camera.  Not too many schools have these because they haven't really found a need for them, but when you see how easy it is to take small fixed-location photos with a web cam you'll never bother with a full size camera again.  If you've ever had to update your driver's licence, you probably had your photo taken, quickly and easily using a web cam.  You probably just didn't know it was a web cam.

What the web cam does is provides a live video feed to the computer via a USB cable, and software on the PC captures on frame and saves it as a JPEG image.  Photos of students attached to databases are for identification purposes only, so high resolution and size is irrelevant.  RISC PhotoCapture! only takes its photos at 160x120 resolution.  That's just 0.02 megapixel, or less than 5KB per image.  So you won't be requiring huge amounts of storage space for these photos.

Now brands/models and features are changing all the time.  As at the beginning of 2006, these models are worth considering.  Pricing is in Australian dollars and is indicative only.  You should check pricing for the particular model you are interested in.  Any of the three shown over $45.00 are recommended.
 

Creative WebCam Vista Plus ~$40	Creative WebCam Mobile ~$95	Labtec WebCam ~$35	Laser WebCam ~$25
Logitech QuickCam Express ~$40	Logitech QuickCam for Notebooks ~$59	Swann OptiView Cam ~$49	Viewsonic W2201 WebCam ~$39

RISC PhotoCapture! is definitely worth spending a little money on.

Contents:

The RISC Form
Letters Market

How to Track
Merit Using RISC

USB WebCams for RISC PhotoCapture!