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ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING FINGERPRINT

RECOGNITION TECHNIQUE: AN OVERVIEW.

Osumah, Thomas Osigbemhe

Department of Computer Science,

Federal College of Education,

Okene, Kogi State.

Email: osigbe16@gmail.com

Abstract

In tertiary institutions, attendance at lecture venues is required for students’ eligibility to partake

in end-of-semester examination. It is always a difficult task in most tertiary institutions to

determine the 75% attendance requirement using the manual method. Automated attendance

management systems have been developed over the years to overcome the problems associated

with manual approach. This paper reviews various attendance management systems developed

by several researchers with emphasis on the integration of fingerprint technique because of its

unique feature to enroll and verify the exact identity of any student thereby eliminating any form

of impersonation. Attendance management system is software developed for students’ daily

attendance in schools and in various institutions. Modern attendance management systems are

web-based and with the availability of internet, they served as better tools which provide weekly

reminder messages to lecturers of their time and venues of lectures for effective and optimized

learning in tertiary institutions.

Keywords: Attendance management system, Tertiary institutions, Fingerprint, Radio frequency

identification, Biometric techniques.

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Introduction

The integration of Information Technology tools into the field of Education has improved the

way students work and study in their various academic institutions and environments. Despite

this improvement, the interaction between lecturers and students during class period cannot be

rule out in the educational system. Some students usually stay away from their regular lecture

period by depending on electronic learning method as against the fact that electronic learning

technologies are designed to complement the lecturer-student interaction for optimal learning

and development. In order to provide solution to students’ deliberate absence from the lecture,

the management of most tertiary institutions in developing countries such as Nigeria has

designed compulsory attendance policy required for students’ eligibility to partake in end-of-

semester examination. This policy has not been adhered to strictly in most tertiary institutions as

it is very difficult to determine the 75% attendance requirement using the manual method of

attendance as applicable in most tertiary institutions. The manual method of taking attendance is

usually characterized by impersonation, error in calculating percentage attendance, delay and

sometime loss of the attendance sheet (register). Attendance during lecture and examination

venues are very imperative in tertiary institutions but the manual method of taking student’s

attendance requires a lot of human effort specially to record and to maintain it. Karwan, Falah

and Shahab (2018) observed that the ability to compute the attendance percentage becomes a

major task as manual computation produces errors, and wastes a lot of time.

The need for fingerprint attendance management system to track students’ attendance in

educational institutions is receiving attention because these systems are more accurate, faster,

and convenient besides being a more active tool to protect student identities and privacy. Several

automated academic attendance management systems have been proposed to address the above

mentioned problems (impersonation and calculation of 75% attendance eligible for any student

to write end-of-semester examination) in such a way that each student and lecturer should be

uniquely identified by the system and this also help to solve the problem of truancy and lateness

to class especially on the part of the student. Most of the existing systems developed to address

the above mentioned problems involved the use of Biometric solutions (such as Fingerprint

recognition, Iris recognition, Voice recognition, Facial recognition, Signature verification, Gait

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recognition, DNA identification and Hand geometry recognition) and Radio Frequency

Identification (RFID).

With manual attendance system, there is little or no attention paid on how the data are managed

and stored for future use as well as security measure taken to safeguard the data from

unauthorized access from using the records for dubious purpose. Managing large volume of data

of students in an academic environment is a difficult task and maintaining the attendance record

of students on daily basis is an important task to both lecturers and management of tertiary

institutions. According to Tabassam, Saim, Arash and Azhar-ud-din (2009), the use of manual

method to take attendance and maintaining it for a long time adds to the difficulty of this task as

well as wastes a lot of time. This paper seeks to review the various literature work of automated

attendance management system with emphasis on the advantages of using fingerprint technique

over other approaches.

Fingerprint recognition technique in attendance management system

Fingerprint recognition technique is an automated method of identifying or confirming the

identity of an individual based on the comparison of two fingerprints. It is one of the most well-

known biometrics, and it is one of the most widely used biometric solutions for authentication on

computerized systems. In the Fingerprint recognition technique, the process involves comparing

known fingerprint template stored on a database against another fingerprint to determine if the

impressions are from the same finger or palm. This technique is easy to use and has low cost,

though it is the oldest biometric technology, but still it is most widely used in financial

institutions, registration processing into various institutions etc., because it is unique, permanent,

good anti-fake and easy to use. So it is recognized increasingly by most people across different

fields. The fingerprint technique is unique to each individual and cannot be shared, thus allow

students to register for lecture with ease and eliminate errors associated with manual attendance

report (Shoewu and Idowu, 2012). Using fingerprint attendance system provides a faster and

convenient way to automatically track students’ check-in and check-out during lecture times.

The system does not require complex technical knowledge for students to operate it, and it also

provides accurate attendance when implemented as well as saves the lecturer’s time and energy.

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Akinduyite, Adetunmbi, Olabode and Ibidunmoye (2013) implemented an attendance

management system using fingerprint technology in a university environment. The system

consists of two processes - enrolment and authentication. According to the authors, the

enrolment stage allows the fingerprint of the user to be captured and its unique features extracted

and stored in a database along with the user’s identity as a template for the subject. During

authentication stage, the fingerprint of the user is captured again and the extracted features

compared with the template in the database to determine a match before attendance is made. As a

result of the uniqueness of the fingerprint technique, it is highly in field of telecommunication,

government institutions to capture important data from time to time.

Impact of automated attendance management system in tertiary institutions.

Attendance is very important in tertiary institutions and it serves for several purposes. These

include record keeping, assessment tool for reward of consistent/ available staff or student in the

class and promotion of optimal and consistent presence in class. According to Shoewu and

Idowu (2012), attendance management system is software developed for students’ daily

attendance in schools and in various institutions. They noted that taking attendance is time

consuming and difficult to ascertain the number of students that have made the minimum

attendance eligible to qualify them for examination. It takes time to manually calculate the

percentage attendance of students at lecture in every department in a University or Polytechnic or

College of Education environment toward the end of the semester before the examination is

administer and this make it extremely difficult to know which student that was not present during

lecture period, that is not eligible to write the semester examination.

The attendance policy put in place in most tertiary institutions in Nigeria which served to

persuade students to attend classes before they are eligible to write their end-of-semester

examination is without difficulty to manage and implement using manual approach. Similarly, a

scenario can come into play whereby a lecturer may be wrongly accused for not be regular in the

class to perform his duty and a well secured and automated attendance system can serve as an

evidence that such an alleged staff has been consistent to his or her duty or not. The management

of a given tertiary institution may decide to motivate and reward committed academic staff who

are dedicated to their duties in every department in a university or other tertiary institution

environment. The criterion to select the most dedicated staff to duty without prejudice is a record

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of well-kept automated attendance system accessible to management of an institution through the

click of the mouse. Attendance management in tertiary institutions entails several components

and processes which can lead to inefficiency in the system and wastage of stationery when it is

manually handle.

Review of related works in attendance management system

Several works on attendance management systems have been designed and developed using

various biometric solutions and Radio Frequency Identification techniques on how to monitor

students both at lecture, laboratory and examination period. Some of these works include Internet

systems like web-based system, mobile-based attendance system, computerized attendance

system with hardware technology like fingerprint based attendance system, iris-based attendance

system, face recognition based attendance system, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) based

attendance system, and communication technology (Karwan, Falah and Shahab, 2018).

Kadry and Smaili (2010) proposed a wireless attendance management system based on Iris

Recognition using Daugman’s algorithm. The system uses an off-line iris recognition

management system that can finish all the processes including capturing the image of iris

recognition, extracting minutiae, storing and matching but it is difficult to lay the transmission

lines where topography is bad. Asari, Navada, Agarwal, Patil and Sonkambi (2011) designed and

developed a portable classroom attendance system. The system was a web based and used

Arduino and Fingerprint Biometric system. However, there was no strong security measure to

protect and secure the database from unauthorized access. Shoewu, Olaniyi and Lawson (2011)

proposed an embedded computer based lecture attendance system where an improvised

electronic card and the card reader were made to interface serially to the serial port of a Personal

Computer. In their design, the electronic card was modeled to serve as smart card which contains

the student’s identity – name, matriculation number and five pins encrypted. The student ID is

authenticated by the card reader which compares the entrance code with the encrypted code on

the card swiped through the card reader. The student is granted and/or denies specific lecture

attendance based on the result of the comparison by the backend software system running on the

PC to which the card reader is serially interfaced. The system though provided a simplified, low

cost embedded computer based system solution to the management of lecture attendance

problem in developing countries but does not eliminate the risk of impersonation. The system is

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devise-based in which students have to carry RFID cards and also the RFID detectors are needed

to be installed.

Shoewu and Idowu (2012) developed an attendance management system using biometrics. The

system takes attendance electronically with the help of fingerprint device while the records of the

attendance were stored in a database. The system was faster and better than manual method. It

also eliminates the need for stationary materials and personnel for the keeping of records but its

limitation is that it was a stand-alone system and lack proper security to safeguard the student’s

records generated from the system. Mohammed and Raghu (2012) developed fingerprint

attendance system for classroom needs using micro-controller to send information to other

devices attached to the system. The system was portable and easy to use with GUI available for

marking the attendance records. The system was designed to export attendance data to an excel

format which the lecturer has to manipulate to create a report which can lead to virus attack or

damage to the host as there was no properly security measure put into place.

Prajakta and Shubhan (2014) designed and implemented a Zigbee based student attendance

system using Local Area Network (LAN). The system makes use of Biometric system and was

able to automatically mark and report attendance of students to administrative office through

Zigbee module. Its limitation is that if the device get damage, the students’ attendance records

will be exposed to unauthorized access. Ikuomola (2014) developed a fingerprint based

authentication system for time and attendance management system in a university community.

The system used fingerprint technology to enroll and marks the attendance of students. The

system was efficient and easy to use but it was a static system that needs to be placed at the

entrance of the class and lack security.

Alhothaily, Alradaey, Ophah and El-Kustaban (2015) developed micro controller based

fingerprint attendance system for educational institutions which was aim at saving the time spent

in marking attendance by students. The system was a web-based and stores its data on server

machine. The system was designed to accommodate several micro-controller devices connected

to the host in daisy chain of fingerprint devices. This was done in order to minimize time

wastage in taking attendance records. Though the system was fast in handling many students

within a short period but its limitation is that it lacks proper security measure to safeguard

attendance data. Almed, Olanyi, Kolo and Durugo (2016) developed a prototype of multifactor

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student attendance management. This system used fingerprint biometrics and RFID techniques to

mark the attendance of students. The system when tested was able to read RFID cards, scanned

fingerprint placed on the fingerprint device and compare them with those saved in the database.

Its limitation is that the system used SD card as a storage media which may be damage or stolen.

It was stand-alone system (not web based) and lack security measure to safeguards students’

records.

Anitha, Krishna, Kshama and Correa (2016) developed a Web service for student attendance

management system. The system used a QR Code technology to register the student presence by

scanning the QR Code using a QR Code scanner. The attendance information capture is

delivered to the server and initiates a call to the Application Programming Interface (API) and

the attendance is taken. Bais, Rawat and Kaur (2016) designed and developed a Biometrics

attendance system circuit that makes use of R305 FP + PIC MCU board as the fingerprint sensor.

The system was designed to read fingerprint into the sensor flash memory. Though the system

was economical but its limitation is that it was not a web-based and its report cannot be

accessible from anywhere.

Suryawanshi, Aundhakar, Mane and Kambe (2017) developed Attendance system using

fingerprint identification with GUI. In the system, the fingerprint sensor and LCD screens were

placed at the entrance of each classroom while the records of students were saved to a computer

server. In its operation, it uses a controller to read and store data in memory and later transfer to

the system database. The system was interface with driver IC through protocols in order to report

and send information to both parents and management. The system was easy and reliable to read

and store attendance of students but its limitation is that it was static i.e. position at the entrance

of the classroom. Isman, Hassan, Billah and Udin (2017) designed and developed smart-phone

based student attendance system. In their approach, the course lecturer mark and save the

attendance data to a database after a roll call was used for each lecture. Though attendance

records were quite safe and well secure as two databases were used but its limitation is that the

system waste a lot of time when the course lecturer is marking attendance verbally for large

class. The system is suitable for a small group of students or small class.

Anilkumar, Akash and Sonica (2017) developed IoT Based Attendance system which automate

the process of attendance in real time via an android application. The system consists of a

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module used to transmit the fingerprint matched ID and a server to receive the data from the

transmitting module as well as calculate attendance percentage of each student. The android

application enables the students to check their attendance in real time. It is also used by teachers

to give assignments to students so that students can get the notification. The system lacks

security needed to safeguard the data generated from unauthorized access. Tenuche, Elisa, Umar,

Ahmed and Sambo (2018) developed student attendance management system using Biometric

Fingerprint technology for university students in order to identify and verify students during

lecture. The system has a web-based interface designed for administrator to manage users and

attendance and lecturers to view and analyze students’ attendance as well as generate appropriate

report. The system provides faster, accurate and efficient way of registering and managing

students’ attendance related issues associated with manual method but it does not fully address

security challenges to safeguard the data that will be generated over a long period of time.

Karwan, Falah and Shahab (2018) designed an efficient Web-based application for attendance

management system to track student’s activity in the class. The system takes attendance

electronically and the records of the attendance are stored in a database using the Model, View,

and Controller (MVC) architecture, and implemented using the power of Laravel Framework.

JavaScript was used for the GUI while MySQL was used for the database. However, the authors

did not state the technology used to capture and mark students’ attendance in the system

developed. The system also lack security measure to safeguard students’ attendance records. Soe

(2018) proposed a framework on Cloud storage-based automatic student attendance system using

RFID in IOT. The proposed system aims to collect University attendance system by using Radio

Frequency Identification (RFID) to solve the manual processes, difficulty and time wastage used

for attendance purpose and power of professors to teach. This system included system overview

design, system flow chat, architecture design, cloud storage, local area network server. The

proposed system is to draft an automated system for catching attendance and post data to the

cloud storage to save the attendance record and attendance status to the particular user. However,

the system does not solve the problem of impersonation.

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Conclusion

The attendance management systems developed by several researchers has been reviewed in this

paper. Attendance is usually carried out in tertiary institutions for the purpose of record keeping,

served as an assessment tool for reward of consistent staff and students in the classroom setting

as well as promotion of optimal and consistent presence in classroom system. Creating and

managing attendance using manual method is usually characterized with human errors and it is

always difficult to calculate the required percentage attendance to qualify student to write end-

of-semester examination. In order to eliminate the challenges associated with manual method of

taking attendance, automated systems have been developed over the years. Some of these

systems were designed as single user’s system, others were designed as web-based systems.

Some of them include the use of biometrics solutions (such as Fingerprint recognition, Iris

recognition, Voice recognition, Facial recognition, Signature verification, Gait recognition, DNA

identification and Hand geometry recognition) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID).

Attendance management system which consists of fingerprint technique has been widely adopted

in most tertiary institutions as result as of its simplicity and ease of use of the technique and it

does not give room for cheating and impersonation by the students. With the availability of

modern information and communication technology tools and advancement in software

development/presence of internet, it has become very easy to implement attendance management

systems that are able to provide weekly reminder messages to lecturers of their time and venues

of lectures for effective and optimized learning in tertiary institutions. These systems are also

provided with appropriate security measure to safeguard the data generated from the system over

the years and some of these systems are hosted in the cloud environment for better management.

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