CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background of the Study

Attendance management of students in institution can be rigorous using the conventional method of paper sheets and old file system method. Every academic institution poses some standards concerning how attendance is to be confirmed for student in classes, laboratory sessions and examination halls. That is why keeping the 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 institution, tracking and monitoring student time of attendance could be tedious task, time consuming and as well prone to errors. As an alternative to traditional manual clocking process by students in classes or during examination, biometrics characteristics can be used for authenticating students. This research will focus on developing 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 where by 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 takes 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. Researcher refers to Biometric as a solution for detecting 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 identify 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 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 is use in biometrics, the issue of getting lost is not possible and for password to be 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 password and ID cards method.

Using a particular person fingerprint as a form of authentication is just like using natural physical data as 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 guess 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 criminal will not be able to snoop around to steal user password when using ATM with the 4-digit pass code (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 for using biometric authentication, however, unlike username and password, biometric data is a physical feature of a person that is fixed and cannot be change. 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 be 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 room or laboratory session 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. Fingerprint is 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 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 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.