DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF BIOMETRIC STUDENTS TIME AND ATTENDANCE LOGGING IN SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

An attendance management system using biometrics would provide the needed solution. An attendance management system is a software developed for daily student attendance in schools and institutions. It facilitates access to the attendance of a particular student in a particular class. This system will also help in generating reports and evaluating the attendance eligibility of a student. Rather than signing an attendance sheet, individuals will pass their thumb over the fingerprint scanner, the finger print is compared against a list of pre-registered users, and once a match is made, the individual will be registered as having attended that lecture.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

Every Nigerian university has the obligation to record and take student attendance during lecture periods every semester. The accuracy of this record of attendance have been marred by many challenging problems which ranges from the cumbersome nature of the paper sheets used in recording, manipulation of the attendance record by fraudulent students, emplacement of the attendance records after taking them and so on. It therefore becomes very difficult for the regular management and update of such records. Also the calculation of the percentage of attendance to ascertain the qualification of student to write a particular examination may not be achieved. For the stated reasons, a biometric based attendance logging system is developed and designed to overcome the problems associated with the attendance system.

In many institutions and academic organizations, attendance is a very important criterion which is used for various purposes. These purposes include record keeping, assessment of students, and promotion of optimal and consistent attendance in class. In developing countries, a minimum percentage of class attendance is required in most institutions and this policy has not been adhered to, because of the various challenges the present method of taking attendance presents. This traditional method involves the use of sheets of paper or books in taking student attendance. This method could easily allow for impersonation and the attendance sheet could be stolen or lost. Taking of attendance is time-consuming and it is difficult to ascertain the number of students that have made the minimum percentage and thus eligible for the exam. Thus, there is a need for a system that would eliminate all of these trouble spots.

Due to student's interest in classrooms, and the study environment of university or institution, recording absence at a department or faculty having a large number of students in a classroom is a difficult task and time-consuming. Moreover, the process takes much time, and many efforts are spent by the staff of the department to complete the attendance rates for each student. So in many institutions and academic organizations, attendance is a very important criterion which is used for various purposes. These purposes include record keeping, assessment of students, and promotion of optimal and consistent attendance in class. As long as in many developing countries, a minimum percentage of class attendance is required in most institutions and this policy has not been adhered to, because of the various challenges the present method of taking attendance presents. The process of recording attendances for students was in the form of hardcopy papers and the system was manually done. Besides wasting time and taking efforts for preparing sheets and documents, other disadvantages may be visible to the traditional one due to loss or damage to the sheets-sheet could be stolen. The developed system considers as an alternative to the traditional one, it is easy, fast and reliable than the traditional one, especially after the development of information technology and its usage by educational institutions. Therefore, the design of a class student attendance system has a significant reality meaning. The system is an application developed for daily student attendance in departments within the university. It facilitates access to the attendance of a particular student in a particular class. This system will also help in generating reports and evaluating the attendance eligibility of a student. The system is not only improving the work efficiency, students' study and development, but also can save human and material resources.

The paper discusses related works in the problem domain; highlights the general overview of the proposed system; details design considerations of the system, both at the hardware and software level; discusses the operation and how the system was tested in conformity to system design and functional objectives; concludes the observations made; and makes recommendations for future improvement.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

As already stated, in most tertiary institutions, there is usually an outstanding rule that a student must achieve at least 70% class attendance before he or she is allowed to write semester examinations for the courses registered by the student. The usual method employed by the lecturers is to capture the students' attendance manually. This manual method of capturing students' attendance is not accurate as most of the absentee students are usually covered up by their colleagues who normally sign attendance register on their behalf. In order to have a more accurate record of students' attendance, a system that can reduce or eliminate the problems associated with manual capturing is needed. In this project, the Fingerprint technology is to be deployed to capture students' attendance in the class. The fingerprint device developed will be used to clock in the students at the beginning of lectures.

The traditional system is still mostly used in the lecture room or examination hall in most institution today. Lecturer or instructor will give out a sheet of paper containing list of student's name to sign or in some cases, the student will be the ones to write their names, student id and matriculation number to indicate their presence for a particular class. Falsification in student attendance does occur rampantly in the traditional method. For example, another student can easily sign an attendance on behalf of another student.

In other to prevent this problem, it is necessary to develop an Authentication System for Students using fingerprint Biometric recognition that will be employed to track and keep the attendance of every student in a particular class. The fingerprint is a unique feature for everyone compare to using barcode in smart cards. Therefore, this system designed in this project work is not based on the existing barcode system. Tracking and monitoring student time of attendance could be tedious, time-consuming and more susceptible to errors.

The security of the existing attendance system that is now used in the classroom (signature system) can be easily compromised. Some students can master other student's signature. Thereby, helping their colleague who are absent for a particular class to sign the attendance sheet using the duplicated signature. The Fingerprint Attendance monitoring system designed in this research work for the student is a more secure platform where students mark their attendance with their fingerprint.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to design and develop a reliable, scalable and cost-effective Fingerprint based Student Attendance Management system. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To carry out the analysis of manual processes involved in class attendance and examination attendance;
2. To implement the design using Web Based programming languages such as; HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, and PHP;
3. To develop a fingerprint students' attendance capturing system and compare it with manual system;
4. To design a new system for the (i) above; and
5. To develop a software to store students' database and attendance records.

1.5 Scope of the Study

The scope of this work is to develop an Attendance Management System that will improve how attendance management is done by using a fingerprint as a form authentication for proof of attending a class. The system will be a window based application developed using Web Based programming languages such as; HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, and PHP as the preferred programming language for building the user interface and MySQL for database design. It does not cover other aspects of biometric. The software will be integrated with a fingerprint Hardware designed with Arduino.

1.6 Limitations of the Study

The efficiency of the scanner can be reduced due to the roughages in the captured images which are often caused by worn-out or cut or dirt's found on the fingerprint. Therefore, there is every possibility that enrolled users can be rejected by the system. Also, the scanner or sensor cannot distinguish between a real and an artificial finger, therefore it is possible to fool the scanner. In addition, if an enrolled fingerprint is been duplicated or spoof, it is not possible to change fingerprint as in the case of password because of user finger biometric. Finally, since the system will be designed using Web Based programming languages, it won't be able to run on any other platforms other than Microsoft Window operating system.

1.7 Significance of the Study

The System for Students using fingerprint Biometric will eliminate the use of paper in manual signing processes and all the risk associated with it. One of the risks of using a paper in class attendance is that it can be easily misplaced and students cheat by signing for each other not present in the class thereby defeating the aim of taking the attendance. Tracking and monitoring students' time of attendance could be tedious, time-consuming and susceptible to error. Thus, the System will drastically reduce the time needed to verify attendance data.

The System also allows the institution management to track or investigate student class attendance in a particular course having poor attendance thereby enabling the management to rectify the situation by providing the necessary interventions. The system provides high level of security whereby making it impossible for imposters and impersonators in making their ways to examination halls. The System using fingerprint Biometric will keep historical data making it easy for lecturers to access and grade students.

Fingerprint Based Student Attendance Management System is extremely useful in institutions especially during classes, tutorials, laboratory sessions and examination during which heavy security are normally deployed to validate student's identity in order to cob imposters, with the use of Authentication System the number of security personnel will be greatly reduced. Most lecturers' handout sheet of paper for their class attendance, which can easily be misplaced or damaged and poses a lot of stress in cumulating grades for their students.

The system allows the lecturer to monitor each student attendance, track down truants and take the appropriate action. Thus, the system eliminates all these downsides. The Authentication system is not only useful to the institutions and lecturers alone, even the students benefit a great deal by reducing the stress in queuing up which result in delay and often time in the damage of the attendance sheet. It also prevents mistakes and anomaly that is associated with manual signing in which student that attend a class is marked as not present thereby losing the mark accorded to the particular attendance due to multiple attendance sheets.

1.8 Operational Definition of Terms

Biometrics: Is physiological or behavioral characteristics unique to individuals, this Include Fingerprint, hand geometry, handwriting, iris, retinal, vein, and voice.

PIN: Personal Identification Number.

Biometric Verification: Is any means by which a person can be uniquely identified by evaluating one or more distinguishing biological traits.

Scanner: A device for examining, reading, or monitoring something in particular..

Fingerprint Sensor: Is an electronic device used to capture a digital image of the fingerprint pattern.

Rapid Application Development: Is a concept that products can be developed faster and of higher quality.

Authentication: Is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it declared to be.