DESIGN & IMPLEMENTATION OF STUDENT ATTENDANCE MONITORING SYSTEM USING FINGERPRINT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background to the Study

Attendance management of students in an institution can be rigorous using the conventional method of paper sheets and an old file system method. Every academic institution poses some standards concerning how attendance is to be confirmed for a student in classes, laboratory sessions, and examination halls. That is why keeping an accurate record of attendance is very important.  The approach of using paper sheets and the old file system to confirmed students has been in use for years. There are so many bottlenecks with the conventional method, one of such problem is the difficulty for the management to compute the percentage of student attendance in classes and frequently modify their information. Also in the institution, tracking and monitoring student time of attendance could be a tedious task, time-consuming and as well prone to errors. As an alternative to the traditional manual clocking process by students in classes or during the examination, biometric characteristics can be used for authenticating students. This research will focus on developing the Fingerprint-based Biometric Student Attendance Monitoring System.  The fingerprint Biometrics is adopted in this research work for the fact it is one of the most successful applications of biometric technology. In the manual signing processes, where lecturer give a sheet of paper to student to write their names and signature as a form of confirming their presence for a particular class session, falsification in student attendance mostly occur a situation whereby a student can sign on behalf of his or her colleague as being present in the class when not true can be so difficult to prevent from happening especially for large classes where row count can take longer time International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security (2009). The trending concern in this modern world is regarding national security, identifying theft as well as on-line terrorism. The researcher refers to Biometric as a solution for detecting the user’s identity and security challenges emanating in this modern day. Biometric identification is any automatically measurable, robust and distinctive physical characteristic or personal trait that can be used to identify an individual or verify the claimed identity of an individual. Biometric science utilizes the measurements of a person’s behavioral characteristics (keyboard strokes, mouse movement) or biological characteristics (fingerprint, iris, nose, eyes, jaw, voice pattern, etc). It is the features captures that is being transformed digitally into a template. The recognition software can then be used to discover an individual as the person they claim to be. Fingerprint recognition is the most common biometric method adopted in the identification of a person (Ismail 2009). Biometric is a field of technology that uses automated methods for identifying and verifying a person based on physiological and behavioral traits. Because some parts of the human body are used in biometrics, the issue of getting lost is not possible and a password to easily guess can be easily avoided.   Also, utilizing biometrics in most cases can be said to be more efficient when speed is considered and convenient than employing the password and ID cards method. Using a particular person’s fingerprint as a form of authentication is just like using natural physical data like a password. The benefit of using biometric authentication is that it is absolutely distinct to each person. There are no two different individuals with the same fingerprint, it is difficult and impossible for one another to have the same fingerprint, and fingerprints from different people can never be the same. Also, a fingerprint can never be guessed by a criminal, such as a password which imposter can easily predict using a user birth date or any other common password. Infiltration is very hard to come by due to the fact that criminals will not be able to snoop around to steal user passwords when using ATM with the 4-digit passcode (Valasquez 2013). Fingerprint can be categorize as one of the most mature biometric traits and is accepted in courts of law as a legitimate proof of evidence. Fingerprints are adopted in forensic analysis globally in investigations of criminal. More recently, there are growing numbers of individuals and commercial users that are currently using or strongly putting into consideration of using fingerprint-based identification for no any other reason other than the matching performance biometric technology has demonstrated as well as a better understanding of fingerprints. Although there are so many positive impacts on using biometric authentication, however, unlike username and password, biometric data is a physical feature of a person that is fixed and cannot be changed. If a person could have access to adequate scan another person fingerprint, that scan has the capability to trick the Touch ID system. In that case, the fingerprint features of a person can’t change consequently a criminal can’t be prevented from having access to your personal information or files. As fingerprint scanning becomes more widely accepted anywhere anytime, this may become a substantial challenge. A criminal can have access to different accounts because, with one fingerprint, a criminal may have access to multiple accounts that implemented authentication using fingerprint.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The traditional system is still mostly used in lecture rooms or laboratory sessions in most institutions today. The lecturer or instructor will give out a sheet of paper containing the list of student’s names 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 the 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 are now use in 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 a student is a more secure platform where students mark their attendance with their fingerprint.

1.3 Aim and Objectives

The aim of the study is to design and develop a reliable, scalable and cost-effective Fingerprint-based Student Attendance Monitoring System. This is to be achieved by the following objectives:

(i) To carry out the analysis of manual processes involved in class attendance and examination attendance.

(ii) To design a new system for the (i) above and

(iii) To implement the design using Microsoft Visual Basic.net.

1.4 Scope of the Study

The scope of this work is to develop a Fingerprint Based Student Attendance monitoring System that will improve how attendance management is done by using fingerprint as a form of authentication for proof of attending a class. The system will be a window based application developed using Microsoft Visual Basic.net as the preferred programming language for building the user interface and Microsoft SQL Server for database design. It does not cover other aspects of biometric.

1.5 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 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 the password because of user finger biometrics. Finally, since the system will be designed using Visual Basic.net, it won’t be able to run on any other platforms other than Microsoft Window operating system.

1.6 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 student’s time of attendance could be tedious, time-consuming and susceptible to error. Thus, the System will drastically reduce 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 a 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 monitoring 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, but even the students also benefit a great deal by reducing the stress in queuing up which results 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.

1.7 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

The 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.

Use Case Diagram is used to show scenarios used for understanding the requirements of the system and to show the interaction between the user and the system.

Flow chart or Activity Diagram is a Unified Modeling Language that represents the graphical workflows of stepwise activities and actions with support for iteration, choice, and concurrency.

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