STUDENT
ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING RADIO FREQUENCY IDENTIFICATION (RFID)
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of Study
The
accessibility of virtually all material on the World Wide Web nowadays have
make students less encouraged to come to lectures than ever before (Hornback et al 2005) and lecturers are worried
about student erratic class presence. Checking students’ class attendance is
one of the vital concerns for universities and colleges, because many
universities and colleges calculate students’ attendance while giving the final
grade for a semester (Nurber & Selim, 2012).
Administrators
or lecturer with a large lecture room may find the hassle of having the
attendance sheet being passed around the class and the manual signing of attendance
by students are burdensome and most likely distract them from teaching and
getting full attention from the students (Gatsheni & Kuriakose, 2007).
An
attempt to solve the above problems, brought about the motivation to research
on how to design a system that record attendances of students as well as
controlling impersonation among students during lectures and examination automatically.
The
proposed system is built using Radio Frequency Identification technology.
This
project is aimed at presenting an intelligent Radio Frequency Identification
student attendance management system around Federal University of Technology
Minna so as to meet up with Nigeria University 70 percent course attendances
before a student can seat for that courser examination.
The
application of Radio Frequency Identification Technology to student class
attendance checking problem will eliminate time wasted in signing of attendance
sheet and roll call method of attendances taking use by most lecturers in FUT
minna.
1.2 Statement of Problem
Virtually
every lecturers within the various departments in FUT Minna, still uses the
normal technique to record student attendance by passing attendance sheet to
student to write their names and sign. By using this strategy, truant students
will ask their course mate to write down their names when they are absence from
that class instead of taking permission from the lecturer, lecturers have to analyst
the attendance sheet to record who was absent and who attend the lecture. In
the event that the lecture miss place the attendance sheet, he will have to
take the class attendance again which is a stressful and time consuming process.
Checking students’ by roll call which involves calling the students’ surname and
marking presence or absent may take roughly around 12-15 minutes out of every
lesson time.
This
project work intend to solve the following problems:
a. Eliminate
or reduce the quality time lost through manual checking of student attendance
as well as control impersonation among students
b. Eliminate
the manual process of analyzing the attendance sheet to record student class
percentage.
c. The
possibility of a courser lecturer losing his attendance sheet or forgetting to
come along with it to class will be eliminated
1.3 Aim
and Objectives
Students
Attendance Management System is aimed at implementing a system that aids
lecturers of Federal University Technology Minna record the number of student’s
attendance automatically as well as controlling impersonation among students
during lectures and examination respectively using Radio Frequency
Identification technology.
The main objectives of
this project are to:
1.To
explore the challenges existing with the manual system and infer solution.
2.Design
and Implement a fully automated system that will record student class
attendance
3.To
test the functionality of the design by using the program to test 20 students.
1.4 Significance
of Study
This
project will be beneficial to lecturers and administrators of Colleges and
University around the world with large number of students per class and still
uses the manual method of taking students class attendance by roll call or
signing attendance sheet.
1.5 Scope of
Study
The
goal of this project work is develop an attendance management system using
Radio Frequency Identification technology, the design and implementation is
limited to Federal University Technology Minna Department of Computer Science.
Two scope will be consider in this project work, firstly the use of suitable Radio
Frequency Identification Technology Tag (wireless device) & Reader for this
application and secondly the design of Graphic User Interface (GUI) to
integrate with Radio Frequency Identification Technology.
The
following programming languages were employed to build the graphical interface:
C# in Microsoft Visual studio and MySQL for the database. The system
functionality was tested with 20 students.
1.6 Limitation
of the Study
Every good design innovation has limitations, incorporating
biometric security features in the system design such as facial recognition
application or fingerprint to control impersonation among students is the
limitation of the current system.
1.7
Operational Definition of Terms
1. Radio Frequency
Identification: is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer
data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached
to objects.
2. Tag: An RFID
transponder, typically consisting of an RF coupling element and a microchip
that carries identifying data. Tag functionality may range from simple
identification to being able to form ad hoc networks.
3. Active Tag: Active
RFID uses an internal power source (battery) within the tag to continuously
power the tag and its RF communication circuitry. A tag with its own battery
that can initiate communications
4. Passive Tag: A tag
with no on-board power source that harvests its energy from a reader provided
RF signal.
5. Semi-passive Tag: A
tag with an on-board power source that is unable to initiate communications
with a reader.
6. Reader: An RFID transceiver, providing read and
possibly write access to RFID tags.
5. Microchip: A
microchip (sometimes just called a “chip”) is a unit of packaged
computer circuitry (usually called an integrated circuit) that is manufactured
from a material such as silicon at a very small scale
7. Receiver: is an
electronic device that receives radio waves and converts the information
carried by them to a usable form. It is used with an antenna
8. Transmitter: is an electronic device which, with the aid
of an antenna, produces radio waves
9. Antenna: is an
electrical device which converts electric power into radio waves, and vice
versa. It is usually used with a radio transmitter or radio receiver.
10. Microwave: are a
form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from as long as one
meter to as short as one millimeter, or equivalently, with frequencies between
300 MHz (0.3 GHz) and 300 GHz.
11. Systems: An
assemblage of interrelated elements, which we find interesting to study, it
could be a process, machine or program.
12. Design: It is a
detailed plan or arrangement to achieve a particular purpose.
15. RF: Radio
Frequency.
14. LF: Low frequency;
120-140 KHz.
13. HF: High Frequency;
13.56 MHz
15. UHF: Ultra-High
Frequency; 868-928 MHz
16. Lecturer: A
university teacher
17: Attendance: The
frequency with which a person is present (at an event or meeting etc.)