STUDENT ATTENDANCE MONITORING SYSTEM USING

FINGERPRINT

BY

AKAEHOMEN EMMANUEL EROMOSELE

136172019

A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF

COMPUTER SCIENCE, LAGOS STATE POLYTECHINC LAGOS.

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE

AWARD OF HIGHER NATIONAL DIPLOMA (HND) IN

COMPUTER SCIENCE.

AUGUST, 2016
 CERTIFICATION

This is to certify that the project titled STUDENT ATTENDANCE MONITORING

SYSTEM USING FINGERPRINT, has been supervised, read and approved by the

Department of Computer Science, Lagos State Polytechnic, Lagos, in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the award of Higher National Diploma (HND) in Computer

Science.

___________________ ______________
MR. FEMI OSUN DATE
(Supervisor)

__________________ ______________
MR. FEMI OSUN DATE
(Coordinator)

__________________ ______________
AKAEHOMEN EMMANUEL DATE
Student
 DEDICATION

This project is dedicated to Almighty GOD for the knowledge, understanding wisdom

and inspiration throughout my project. May his name live forever.

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I sincerely acknowledge Almighty GOD who has given me the strength and guide my

step towards the success of this project and to my humble and ever ready supervisor Mr.

Femi Osun who always guide and contributed to the success of my project.

My gratitude also goes to the Head of the department Mr. Femi Osun for his fatherly

advice and encouragement. I also acknowledge my lecturers from the department of

computer science for whose tutelage have immensely contributed to my academic

success both in learning and character.

Last but not the least; I extend my sincere thanks to my family members and my friends

for their constant support throughout this project. May GOD continue to reward you
 ABSTRACT

This project is on the design and development of portable and reliable fingerprint based
student attendance monitoring system that can be used to monitor attendance of the student. It
will eliminate the problems of manual method. The new system utilizes a portable fingerprint
scanner as the input to acquire fingerprint images and notebook personal computer as the
mobile terminal for the processing of the images and records attendance. It also include
database to store student’s information and attendance records. Visual Basic.net was used as
the programming language to develop this system. The system was tested and found working
correctly.

Keywords: fingerprint scanner, personal computer, mobile terminal, database, visual basic
.net

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Pages

Cover page

Title page i

Certification ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgment iv

Abstract v

Table of Contents vi

List of Tables x

List of Figures x

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 3

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES 4

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 4

1.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY 4

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1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5

1.7 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS 6

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 WHAT IS BIOMETRICS 7

2.2 HISTORY OF BIOMETRICS 9

2.3 TYPES OF BIOMETRIC DEVICES AVAILABLE 14

2.3.1 RETINA SCANNER 15

2.3.2 IRIS SCANNER 17

2.3.3 FINGERPRINT SCANNER 19

2.3.4 FACIAL BIOMETRICS 22

2.3.5 VOICE RECOGNITION 24

2.3.6 HAND PRINT PATTERNS 24

2.3.7 DNA FINGERPRINT 26

2.3.8 DEEP TISSUE ILLUMINATION 26

2.3.9 VOICE PRINT KEYSTROKE PATTERN 26

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2.4 APPLICATION AREAS OF BIOMETRICS 27

2.5 RELATED STUDIES 31

2.6 SUMMARY OF REVIEW 34

CHAPTER THREE: SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.1 ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM 36

3.2 JUSTIFICATIONS OF THE NEW SYSTEM 37

3.3 METHODOLOGY 37

3.4 DATA COLLECTION 39

3.5 THE PROPOSED NEW SYSTEM 39

3.6 DATA STRUCTURE 44

CHAPTER FOUR: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION, TESTING AND INTEGRATION

4.1 CHOICE OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE 46

4.2 THE SYSTEM MAIN MENU IMPLEMENTATION 47

4.2.1 MAIN MENU 47

4.2.2 ADMIN LOGIN PAGE 48

4.2.3 LECTURER ACTIVATOR SETUP PAGE 49

4.3 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE SUB-SYSTEM 50
4.4 QUERY SUB-SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION 53
4.5 SYSTEM TESTING AND INTEGRATION 54
4.6 TEST PLAN 54
4.7 TEST DATA 54

CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 SUMMARY 55
5.2 RECOMMENDATION 56

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5.3 CONCLUSION 57
REFERENCES

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 3.1 ADMINISTRATOR DATABASE 44

TABLE 3.2 COURSE DATABASE 44

TABLE 3.3 LECTURER DATABASE 45

TABLE 3.4 STUDENT DATABASE 45

LIST OF FIGURES

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FIG 2.1 STRUCTURE OF IRIS 17

FIG 2.2 IRIS SCANNER 18

FIG 2.3 FINGERPRINT PATTERNS 20

FIG 2.4 SCANNERS 21

FIG 3.1 TOP DOWN DESIGN APPROACH FOR THE SYSTEM 38

FIG 3.2 FLOW CHART FOR USER START PAGE 39

FIG 3.3 FLOW CHART FOR ADMIN SUB PROGRAM 41

FIG 3.4 FLOW CHART FOR STUDENT SUB PROGRAM 43

FIG 4.1 USER START PAGE 48

FIG 4.2 ADMIN LOGIN IMPLEMENTATION 49

FIG 4.3 LECTURER ATTENDANCE SETUP 50

FIG 4.4 ADMINISTRATOR SUB-MENU 51
FIG 4.5 STUDENT ENROLLMENT SUBMENU 52
FIG 4.6 LECTURER ATTENDANCE ACTIVATOR 52
FIG 4.7 STUDENT FINGERPRINT VERIFIED 53

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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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

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’s found on fingerprint. Therefore, there is

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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 user finger biometric. Finally, since the

system will be design 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 students 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 provide 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 deploy to validate student’s identity in order to cob imposters, with the

use of Authentication System the number of security personnel will be greatly reduce. Most

lecturers’ handout sheet of paper for their class attendance, which can easily be misplaced or

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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 are marked as not present thereby losing the mark accorded to the

particular attendance due to multiple attendance sheet.

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..

Fingerprint sensor is an electronic device used to capture a digital image of the fingerprint

pattern.

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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.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 What is Biometrics?

Biometrics is the science and technology of measuring of measuring and breaking down

natural information. In data innovation, biometrics relates to technologies that examine and

measure physical human body features, such as DNA, fingerprints, eye retinas and irises,

voice patterns, facial patterns and hand measurements, for validation or authentication

purposes (Rouse, 2008).

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The process of Biometric validation is way by which an assessing of some spotting biological

or traits can be distinctly identified in an individual. These unique identifiers constitute retina,

earlobe geometry, iris patterns, fingerprints, hand geometry, voice waves, earlobe geometry

DNA, and signatures. The voice waveform recognition method with tape recordings in

telephone wiretaps of verification which has been utilized for so many years is now majorly

being used in research facilities for access to restrictively databanks. Law enforcement has

implemented Facial-recognition technology to fish out people in congregation with

significant unwavering quality and reliability. Mostly industries utilize Hand geometry for

providing physical access to buildings. For people who try to impersonate another individual,

earlobe geometry is utilized to detect their identity. Signature comparison is not referring to

as being dependable or reliable in isolation to other method of biometric verification but

provides an additional level of check or verification when utilized in together with other

biometric verification methods.

In Computer Science, biometric identification or biometric authentication is utilized as a

mode of identification and access control and also being implemented to detect individuals in

groups that are being watch or under surveillance (Jain, Anil K, Ross, Arun , 2008).

Using biometric verification is turning into a progressively regular for Authentication in

corporate and public security systems, consumer electronics and point of sale (POS)

applications. In addition to security, the motivation behind biometric verification has been

convenience to avert identity theft, biometric data is usually encrypted when it's gathered

(Wayman, 2005). The process of biometric verification process starts by using a software

application to spot some specific points of human physical characteristics which serves as

match point or template. The match point which is stored in the database is then processed

using an algorithm that converts the information captured into a numerical format. The input

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gotten from user input through biometric scanner is now being compared to the numerical

value stored, and the authentication process if matches that of the database template is

approved or rejected if it differs.

The identification verification process is the same irrespective of the biometric methodology

employed. An individual distinct feature is captured, processed by a software application and

stored as a template into a database. Subsequently, when there is need for verification of an

individual, a new physical feature is captured and compared against the template stored from

a data source.

Using biometrics for recognizing users offers some extraordinary favorable circumstances

because only biometrics can recognize an individual as himself or herself, biometrics could

make keys and combination locks could turn out not to be useful due to biometrics and all

data, including biometrics is vulnerable whether in storage or in processing state (Kadry,

Smaili, 2010).

2.2 History of Biometrics

The expression “Biometrics” is gotten from the Greek words “bio” (life) and “metrics” (to

measure) (Rood and Hornak, 2008). Automated biometric systems have just become useable

over the last few decades, because of substantial improvement in the area of image and

computer processing. Although biometric technology is a subject of twenty first century,

nevertheless the Biometrics has its root as back thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians

and the Chinese has a major part in biometrics history. The focus today is on utilizing

biometric face recognition, iris recognition, fingerprint, retina recognition and recognizing

physical features of human being to put a stop to terrorism predicament and improve security

measures. The first recorded systematic capture of hand and finger images for recognizing

15
purposes was during 1858 utilizes by Sir William Herschel, Civil Service of India, who

recorded a handprint on the back of a contract for each worker to distinguish employees

(Komarinski, 2004). During 1870, Alphonse Bertillon created a technology for recognizing

people which is solely dependent on elaborate records of their body measurements, physical

descriptions and photographs. This method was termed as “Bertillonage” or anthropometrics

and the utilization was terminated in 1903 when it was apparent that some people have same

measurements and physical characteristics (State University of New York at Canton, 2003).

Sir Francis Galton, in 1892, created a classification system for fingerprints using minutiae

characteristics that is utilized by educationalists and researchers in this modern day.

The FBI and West Virginia University in year 1920 established a degree program (Bachelor’s

Degree) in biometric system that is after consulting some professional associations like

International Association for Identification. This serves as the first biometrics based degree

program despite some universities having started related courses in biometrics.

In April 2002, a Staff Paper on palm print technology and Integrated Automated Fingerprint

Identification System (IAFIS) palm print capabilities was submitted to the Identification

Services (IS) Subcommittee, Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS) Advisory

Policy Board (APB). The Joint Working Group called “for strong endorsement of the

planning, costing, and development of an integrated latent print capability for palms at the

CJIS Division of the FBI.” As a result of this endorsement and other changing business needs

for law enforcement, the FBI announced the Next Generation IAFIS (NGI) initiative. A major

component of the NGI initiative is development of the requirements for and deployment of an

integrated National Palm Print Service (2002 Palm Print Staff Paper is submitted to

Identification Services Committee).

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The National Science & Technology Council, a US Government cabinet-level council,

established a Subcommittee on Biometrics to coordinate biometrics R&D, policy, outreach,

and international collaboration (2003 Formal US Government coordination of biometric

activities begins). On May, 28 2003, The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

adopted a global, harmonized blueprint for the integration of biometric identification

information into passports and other Machine Readable Travel Documents (MRTDs) …

Facial recognition was selected as the globally interoperable biometric for machine assisted

identity confirmation with MRTDs. The European Biometrics Forum is an independent

European organization supported by the European Commission whose overall vision is to

establish the European Union as the World Leader in Biometrics Excellence by addressing

barriers to adoption and fragmentation in the marketplace. The forum also acts as the driving

force for coordination, support and strengthening of the national bodies (2003 European

Biometrics Forum is established).

The United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indication Technology (US-VISIT) program

is the cornerstone of the DHS visa issuance and entry I exit strategy. The US-VISIT program

is a continuum of security measures that begins overseas at the Department of State’s visa

issuing posts, and continues through arrival to and departure from the US. Using biometrics,

such as digital inkless fingerprints and digital photographs, the identity of visitors requiring a

visa is now matched at each step to ensure that the person crossing the US border is the same

person who received the visa. For visa-waiver travelers, the capture of biometrics first occurs

at the port of entry to the US. By checking the biometrics of a traveler against its databases,

US-VISIT verifies whether the traveler has previously been determined inadmissible, is a

known security risk (including having outstanding wants and warrants), or has previously

overstayed the terms of a visa. These entry I exit procedures address the US critical need for

tighter security and its ongoing commitment to facilitate travel for the millions of legitimate

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visitors welcomed each year to conduct business, learn, see family, or tour the country(2004

US-VISIT program becomes operational). The Automated Biometric Identification System

(ABIS) is a Department of Defense system implemented to improve the US Government’s

ability to track and identify national security threats. The associated collection systems

include the ability to collect, from enemy combatants, captured insurgents, and other persons

of interest, ten rolled fingerprints, up to five mug shots from varying angles, voice samples

(utterances), iris images, and an oral swab to collect DNA(2004 DOD implements ABIS).

In 2004, President Bush issued Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) for a

mandatory, government-wide personal identification card that all federal government

departments and agencies will issue to their employees and contractors requiring access to

Federal facilities and systems. Subsequently, Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)

201, Personal Identity Verification (PIV) for Federal Employees and Contractors, specifies

the technical and operational requirements for the PIV system and card. NIST Special

Publication 800-76 (Biometric Data Specification for Personal Identity Verification) is a

companion document to FIPS 201 describing how the standard will be acquiring, formatting

and storing fingerprint images and templates for collecting and formatting facial images; and

specifications for biometric devices used to collect and read fingerprint images. The

publication specifies that two fingerprints be stored on the card as minutia templates. In 2004,

Connecticut, Rhode Island and California established statewide palm print databases that

allow law enforcement agencies in each state to submit unidentified latent palm prints to be

searched against each other’s database of known offenders. The Face Recognition Grand

Challenge (FRGC) is a US Government-sponsored challenge problem posed to develop

algorithms to improve specific identified areas of interest in face recognition. Participating

researchers analyze the provided data, try to solve the problem, and then reconvene to discuss

various approaches and their results – an undertaking that is driving technology

18
improvement. Participation in this challenge demonstrates an expansive breadth of

knowledge and interest in this biometric modality.

The broad US patent covering the basic concept of iris recognition expired in 2005, providing

marketing opportunities for other companies that have developed their own algorithms for iris

recognition. However, the patent on the iris Codes implementation of iris recognition

developed by Dr. Daugman will not expire until 2011(2005 US patent for iris recognition

concept expires). At the 2005 Biometrics Consortium conference, Sarnoff Corporation

demonstrated Iris on the Move, a culmination of research and prototype systems sponsored

by the Intelligence Technology Innovation Center (ITIC), and previously by the Defense

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The system enables the collection of iris

images from individuals walking through a portal.

2.3 Types of Biometric Devices Available

There are several types of biometric data use commonly today. Each of these devices has a

different mechanism employed to captures data in different form.

The different types of biometric that are frequently in use today are devices that capture data

in various formats using different mechanism. The method of production and trait of the

biometric data indicates the encroaching of the protocol for enrollment and authentication of

users (Woodward, Nicholas 2003). The associated changes in the process of measurement and

production can give a vicious person an access and allowing them to alter the security

shielded around the biometric system by interfering with the operation of the mechanism for

capturing or by changing features of the biometric. There are many types of biometric devices

employed today. Some of these biometric devices are generally detected in commonplaces

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such as movies. Biometrics is essentially the identification of human features that are distinct

to each person. The best way to keep your devices safe and ascertain people don’t illegally

have access to your personal belongings such as files utilizing is to implement a any

biometric technology available in the market.

2.3.1 Retina Scanner

These scan are the distinct biometric feature/pattern in each individual’s iris, and compares it

with a certain number of distinct recognizing patterns which distinguish each individual

separately from other people. In a retinal scan, at the back of the eye, a biometric format is

shaped by recording the patterns of capillary blood vessels. Iris scanning can be carried out

remotely utilizing a high-resolution camera and formats generated by a technique similar to

that of retinal scanning. Iris scanning and retinal scanning are both used to distinguish a

person as indicated by their distinct pattern. Despite their efficiency, implementing them is

more costly and complex. The retina of human being is a thin tissue constituted by neural cell

which is located in the posterior portion of the eye. The composite structure of the capillaries

that supply the retina with blood makes the retina of each individual distinct.

Retinal scanners are regularly used for authentication and identification purposes. Retinal

scanning has been implemented in several places such as several government agencies,

prisons, ATM validation of authentic owners and guiding against fraud, medical application

such as transmitted diseases (AIDS, Malaria, Chicken pox and e.t.c). The network of blood

vessels in the retina of human being cannot be genetically determined in entirety and for that

reason even twins that are identical don’t have same pattern

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There are cases where by retinal patterns may be modified for people suffering from of

diabetes, glaucoma or retinal degenerative disorders, however, the retina generally is

permanent from child birth till death. Considering its distinct and permanence feature, the

retina happens to be the most accurate, authentic of all the biometric except DNA. Its

accuracy level has been concluded by advocates of retinal scanning that its error rate is

estimated one in a million (Homer, Schell, 2012). A biometric identifier known as a retinal

scan is used to represent the distinct patterns of a person's retina. The blood vessels in the

retina can promptly absorb light more than the subordinate tissue and can be recognized more

easily in the presence of lighting. A retinal scan is performed by absorbing an unperceived

beam of low-energy infrared light into a person’s eye as they look through the scanner's

eyepiece. This beam of light draws a similar pattern like a path on the retina. During the scan

process, the total reflection differs due to the absorbent nature of retinal blood vessels of that

light than other part of the eye. The format of the variations from the scanner is translated to

computer code and stored in a database.

2.3.2 Iris Scanner

Iris scanning is an automated method of biometric identification which uses mathematical

pattern-recognition techniques on video images of the iris of a person’s eyes, whose complex

random patterns are distinct and be spotted from a far range. Digital formats which are

referred to as template are converted from these patterns by using mathematical and statistical

algorithms which allow the identification of an individual or someone trying to impersonate

the legitimate person. Globally, there are millions of individuals in so many countries that

have been enrolled into the iris recognition systems for the purpose convenience in passport-

free automated border-crossings, and some national ID systems based on this technology are

being deployed. The significant benefit of iris recognition, apart from its utmost resistance to

21
false matches and speed, is the stability of the iris as an internal, protected, yet externally

visible organ of the eye.

Figure2.1 Structure of Iris

Figure2.2 Iris scanner

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The major feature that depicts iris of the eye as the most ideal and accurate section of human

body for biometric recognition is that it is an internal organ which is better guided from

damage and wear by extremely sensitive and transparent membrane (cornea). This

characteristic makes it more better option to fingerprint, which can be difficult after years of

rigorous involvement in some manual labor.

The iris is mostly flat, and its geometric configuration is only controlled by two

complementary muscles (the sphincter pupillae and dilator pupillae) that control the diameter

of the pupil. This makes the iris shape far more predictable than, for instance, that of the face.

The iris has a fine texture that like fingerprints is determined randomly during embryonic

gestation. Like the fingerprint, it is very hard (if not impossible) to prove that the iris is

unique (Christine, Modi, 2008).

2.3.3 Fingerprint Scanner

When considering the price of biometric identification scanners available in the market today,

fingerprint scanning is always on the lower end. There are some fingerprint scanners that can

only scan the actual print while the costlier scanners can capture the shape and size of the

thumb, presence of blood in the fingerprint and other physical characteristics on a finger. The

expensive scanner can capture a 3D image of the fingerprint which in turn makes it more

difficult for such fingerprint to be duplicated. The process of acquiring image by the scanner

is either though capacitance sensing or optical scanning.

23
Generation of biometric templates is based on matching minutiae characteristic features in

fingerprints. The examining of fingerprints for the purpose of generally requires the

comparison of so many features of the print format. These comprise of patterns which are

aggregated features of ridges and the minutia points, that are distinct features found within

this patterns. Knowing the attributes of human skin and structure is paramount to

successfully utilize some of the technologies of imaging.

The three fundamental patterns of fingerprint ridges are presented below.

(i) Arch: In arch, the ridges will enter from one side of the finger then rise in the center

forming an arc, and then exit the other side of the finger.

(ii) Loop: The ridges enter from one side of a finger, form a curve, and then exit on that

same side.

(iii) Whorl: Ridges form circularly around a central point on the finger.

The arch pattern the loop pattern the whorl pattern

Figure2.3 Fingerprint patterns

Minutia features

24
The major minutia features of fingerprint ridges are ridge ending, bifurcation, and short ridge

(or dot). The ridge ending refer to the point at which a ridge terminates. Bifurcations are

points whereby a single ridge is divided into two ridges. Short ridges are ridges which are

importantly shorter than the average ridge length on the fingerprint. Minutiae and patterns are

very important in the examining of fingerprints since there has not been any record of two

fingerprints proven to be identical.

The ridge ending Bifurcation Short ridge (dot)

Fingerprint sensors

A fingerprint sensor is an electronic device used to capture a digital image of the fingerprint

pattern. The image captured from the sensor is referred to as a live scan, which in turn is

processed digitally to develop an accumulation of extracted features (Biometric Template).

This template is stored in a database and utilized for matching. Figure 2.4 presented some

25
fingerprint sensors.

Figure2.4 Scanners

2.3.4 Facial Biometrics

The image or video of an individual is generally views by the facial biometrics devices and

then compares it to the template stored in database. when matching is being carried out by the

facial biometrics, it compares the ratio, shape and structure of the face, the interval between

the jaw, top outlines of the eye sockets, the sides of the mouth, eyes, mouth, nose, the region

of the cheek bones and the positioning of the nose and eyes. When a user is being enroll in

26
a facial recognition program, various images are captured of the individual at different

positions and angles with various facial expressions. In the process of verification and

identification the individual will maintain a position facing the camera some seconds, after

then the image is verified against the template stored. In other to prevent an individual from

putting on a picture or mask when being scanned, some security criteria have been put into

place. The user may be asked to smile, nod their hand or blink their eyes during the scanning

process. Also as part of the security criteria would be to use facial thermograph to store the

heat in the face.

A new method in facial recognition uses the visual details of the skin, which is captured in

standard digital or scanned images. This technique is referred to as skin texture analysis,

which turns the distinct patterns, lines, and spots obvious in an individual’s skin into a

mathematical space. Facial biometrics is very good when being utilize for facial

authentication than for identification purposes, because of the fact that an individual face can

have a physical damage or altered, disguise with a mask, etc. Environment can also affect the

camera during the process of capturing. Facial biometrics has been confirmed as a method

that can improve validation and authentication of users tremendously.

2.3.5 Voice Recognition

Every individual on the soil of the earth has a distinct voice pattern. Although the changes

can be hardly noticeable to the human hear because it’s a slight change. Nevertheless, with

the aid of exceptional software for voice recognition, those minute variations in each

individual’s speech can be spotted, tested, and authenticated to give access only to the person

owns the tone, pitch, and volume of speech uttered. Voiceprint recognition performs its

operation by comparing the vocal patterns of an individual with template previously stored.

This type of biometric has the ability to determine duress through adequate examining of

27
pattern of stress in the input voiceprint. This feature gives voice recognition an advantage

over other forms

2.3.6 Hand Print Patterns

Similarly to finger print, everybody has distinct handprints. A handprint Biometric Systems

scans hand and finger and the captured feature is compared with the specimen stored for the

user in the system. The user is given access or rejected based on the result of this verification.

Handwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible

handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and

other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by

optical scanning (optical character recognition) or intelligent word recognition. Alternatively,

the movements of the pen tip may be sensed "on line", for example by a pen-based computer

screen surface. Handwriting recognition principally entails optical character recognition.

However, a complete handwriting recognition system also handles formatting, performs

correct segmentation into characters and finds the most plausible words.

28
When a person’s hand is place on a scanner, such user will have a distinct fingerprint pattern,

as well as the size and shape of the entire hand is also very unique. This is a more complex

approach compare to regular fingerprint scanning, and will definitely be more accurate with

minimum occurrence of falsification. Templates generated can be said to be very compact,

and the method is often sensed by users to be less invasive than other types of biometric

devices.

2.3.7 DNA Fingerprint

This method works by taking a tissue sample from an individual and then sequencing and

comparing short segments of DNA. DNA technique has a very low acceptance rate because

samples have to be taken from human body and also the speed at which these samples are

processed

2.3.8 Deep Tissue Illumination

A relatively new method that involves illumination of human tissue by specific lighting

conditions and the identification of deep tissue patterns based on light reflection. This method

is claimed to be less prone to falsification than other forms of biometric techniques, b it is

very complex to imitate the process of light reflection (Nixon, 2003).

29
2.3.9 Voice Print Keystroke Pattern

This method works by discovering patterns while an individual is typing on a keyboard and

these patterns are then compared against previous patterns stored. Biometrics that has to do

with keystroke have been utilized to make password entry more complex, to provide certainty

that a password was inputted by the same person that saved it by comparing the speed at

which it was typed.

Some of these products are tend to be expensive than others simply because they employ

technology that is much more complex. Nevertheless, when considering the level of security

level required the amount of to acquire different types of biometric devices will be almost the

same. The features derived from the biometric are then converted into a biometric template.

The process of retrieving features from the captured data and converting it into a template are

usually important. These templates are then used as the foundation for verification during

authentication. The process by which biometric template are acquired, transmitted and stored

are important aspects of biometric security systems, because risks can surface from these are

areas and spurious attacks can be made which will compromise the integrity of the system.

2.4 Application Areas of Biometrics

The areas in which biometrics can be applicable are government, commercial, forensic,

institutions, access control, counter tourism, law enforcement agency, airport security

and so on. Some of these areas will be briefly discussed below as well as those areas

where biometrics is being applied.

30
Government

The application of biometrics in the government sector such as national ID card, correctional

facility, driver’s license, social security, welfare disbursement, border control, and passport

control. Traditionally in the government, they have used token based systems examples ID

cards and badges which are been given to people or the workers to put on. The government

set up a central database of biometric data, such as fingerprints and digital passport

photographs of all foreign nationals who apply for residence or are already residing in their

nations. Maintaining a central database would prevent people using another person’s identity

or using false documents to obtain permission to reside, work or study in their nation.

Fingerprints would be used to reliably match immigrants to their personal identification data

and documentation. Foreign nationals who apply for a residence permit would be required to

provide fingerprints and a passport photograph once, after which their identity could be

checked against that data using fingerprint scanning and facial recognition for comparison.

The biometric data would be stored in a central databank and on a chip on the residence

permit. This way the information could be used by various public authorities, for example,

the immigration agency when expelling illegal immigrants and the Custom Agency when

incarcerating criminals. The database would also make it easier for the Immigration agency,

the Police and embassies to check the identity of foreign nationals and thus prevent identity

fraud. Foreign nationals themselves also stand to benefit, as the use of biometrics could

prevent their falling victim to identity theft, which can be a serious problem in different

nations. The Minister for Immigration, Integration and Asylum Policy sent his bill amending

the Aliens Act 2000 to widen the use of biometric data in the immigration system to the

House of Representatives on 5 March 2012. Biometric systems work within individual

agencies, producing a range of security and facilitation benefits. The utility of biometric

systems can be enhanced through the ability, where reasonably necessary, to share biometric

31
data between agencies and to verify data against other agency holdings. Enhancing the

interoperability of biometric systems can significantly assist in addressing national security

and criminal threats and offer new opportunities for enhanced service delivery. These benefits

will be realized through greater opportunities for the lawful sharing of biometric information

and biometric capabilities between governments and greater collaboration on biometric

system development.

Commercial

In this area, biometric is generally applicable for logging in to a computer network, electronic

data security, e-commerce, Internet access, ATM, credit card, physical access control, cellular

phone, PDA, medical records management, and distance learning. The ability to identify a

customer had greatly affected trading, as part of a general group or specifically. Monitoring

the attendance of employees becomes a very easy task as employee can clock in and out the

time they get or leave the office using iris scan or thumb print. There are some public

vehicles’ such as Taxi and Trucks that have devices to determine distance, time, and adequate

usage. There are tons of biometric solutions available in the market today and more are still in

the course of development. Access control to computer systems (workstations) USB

fingerprint readers, voice and face recognition software using standard camera and

microphone hardware etc. Time and attendance management in institutions are all biometrics.

The problems generally associated with time registration and attendance management are

peculiar to those encountered with access control. There are some systems employed today

that performs identification through the use of pin code or badge, but this approach can be

easily compromise by users. Some employees can misplace their badge or forget their pin

code. Also some employees can engage the service of their colleagues who gets to work early

to use their pin or badge to the system. Adopting biometric for time registration or attendance

management avoids deceiving the system by users and also reduces overhead for engaging

32
security personnel when badges are lost or pin codes forgotten. Biometric is extremely useful

in institutions especially during classes, tutorials, laboratory sessions and examination during

which heavy security are normally deploy to validate student’s identity in order to cob

imposters, with the use of biometric System the number of security personnel will be greatly

reduce.

Forensic

In forensic, biometrics is in use for corpse identification, criminal investigation, terrorist

identification, parenthood determination, and missing children. The cost of such

implementations of biometrics is very high and for existing surveillance systems the success

rates vary. The police agencies have used fingerprinting as a means of identifying criminals

for well over a hundred years. Police gain the most benefit because a criminal’s biometric

information such as fingerprints, mugs hot, DNA, etc., may already be held in a database.

This enables forensic information collected at a crime scene to be matched against it. An

Automated Fingerprint Identification System is designed to enable a fingerprint to be

matched extremely quickly against a large number of records in a criminal database. To do

this effectively it will always hold encodings of all fingers of criminals that have been saved

on the database of the police. Biometrics is also used for security in places like churches

where people are been search and take biometrics data before entering in order to prevent

tourist, schools for students during examination or their classes and also for investigation

where suspects are been examined and collection of evidence, in which the evidence are

been matched and identify the deceased using biometrics.

33
2.5 Related Studies

There are some existing related works on the application of different methods in managing attendance

of students. One of the methods proposed for monitoring attendance is embedded computer based

lecture attendance management system. In this type of system, a card is reader is interfaced with a

digital computer system and an electronic card is provided and personalizes to each user for

authentication. Authors in, used a wireless attendance management system that authenticates

using the iris of the individual. The system uses an off-line iris recognition management

system that can finish all the process including capturing the image of iris recognition,

extracting minutiae, storing and matching.

Attendance Management has also been carried out using attendance software that uses

passwords for authentication. The authors in designed and implemented a system that

authenticates the user based on passwords, this type of system allows for impersonation since

the password can be easily fiddled. There are cases where passwords could be forgotten

which inturn prevents the user from gain access into the system.

There are attendances software’s that are device centric solutions such as RFID-based student

attendance system and GSM-GPRS based student attendance system. The GSM-GPRS based

systems works by using the position of classroom for marking attendance which is not

dynamic. Wrong attendance might be marked if schedule or location of the class changes.

One of the problems with RFID based systems is that students will be compelled to always

carry RFID cards and also the RFID detectors are needed to be installed. Automated Teller

Machine(ATM ) system authentication using fingerprint Biometrics in the banking sector is a

related study to this Personal Authentication System using fingerprint biometrics of students

in institutions, where the students biometrics data are been collected in their various class,

laboratory, examination halls and even tutorial by their lecturer, invigilators and even

securities personnel in the institution to keep track of each student’s attendance performance

34
in various courses. This biometrics authentication can also be used in the banking sector to

keeping track of all activities been carried out by each customer that performs transaction

through the ATM. With an ATM, a customer or client is able to conduct many banking

activities such as cash withdrawal, paying electricity & phone bills, money transfer, beyond

official hours and physical interaction with bank staff (Mr. John Mashurano 2013). A newer

high-tech method of operating sometimes called card cloning to entangle the installation of a

magnetic card reader over the ATM's card slot & the use of a wireless surveillance camera to

keep the user's Personal Identification Number. Real Card data are then cloned into a

duplicate card & the criminal attempts to cash withdrawal. To overcome this piracy in money

transactions, the idea using fingerprints of customers as password along with the traditional

pin number (Mr. Wang liqiang 2013).

Another related study to this personal authentication system using fingerprint biometric is the

Biometric Voting Machine where voters are been registered and vote using the fingerprint

biometric. This machine makes the registration and voting efficient, fast and accurate in order

to avoid cheating or imposter voting more than once. The objective of voting is to allow

voters to exercise their right to express their choices regarding specific issues, pieces of

legislation, citizen initiatives, constitutional amendments, recalls and to choose their

government and political representatives. Technology is being used more and more as a tool

to assist voters to cast their votes. To allow the exercise of this right, almost all voting

systems around the world includes voter identification and authentication, voting and

recording of votes cast, vote counting, publication of election results and these are achieved

using the Biometric Authentication system using fingerprint. Voter identification is required

during two phases of the electoral process: first for voter registration in order to establish the

right to vote and afterwards, at voting time, to allow a citizen to exercise their right to vote by

verifying if the person satisfies all the requirements needed to vote (authentication). Another

35
important reason fingerprint scanners are used is, they provide a quick, easy, efficient, and

secure measure through which, an individual with the proper access privileges can

authenticate. The fingerprint of an employee for example, is stored in a database that the

scanner queries every time it is used. There are two basic Boolean conditions the scanner then

goes through when an individual’s print is scanned. First, the print is usually searched for in a

database of fingerprints, once it is found it then looks at the print to see what access

privileges are associated with the print and compares them to the access they are trying to

gain (Karthik, 2010).

2.6 Summary of Review

In summary Biometrics is a distinct step to identity management that offers user convenience,

increased security, cost-effective provisioning and a non-repudiated, compliant audit trail for

the system user and operator. The tokens an password cannot ascertain an individual using a

system is the legitimate individual except if natural features such as fingerprints, facial

recognition, irises, retinas, voice recognition and other characteristics possible. The method

of validating users using biometrics can be so frustrating for users and expensive for system

operators however the users just have to do it because it helps in personal authentication in

order to reject imposters or frauds. Using biometrics for identifying human beings offers

some distinct benefits because only biometrics can identify you as you, biometrics could

make keys and combination locks obsolete and all data, including biometrics is vulnerable

whether in storage or in processing state. Biometric have devices, such as fingerprint

scanners, retina scanner, iris scanner, voice recognition that are been used in the

authentication of a person’s confidential or getting a person’s real data. Also Biometric

consist of a reader or scanning device, Software that converts the scanned information into

digital form and compares match points and a database that stores the biometric data for

comparison.

36
Biometrics are applicable in several areas or almost all areas now, areas like commercial as a

whole that in terms of banking sectors, buying and selling, airport etc. the government areas

as in law enforcement agencies, immigration agency, custom agency etc. and in forensic areas

for criminal investigation, terrorist identification, parenthood determination and missing

children.

CHAPTER THREE

37
 SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

3.1 Analysis of the Existing System

Attendance is an important aspect in institutions, regular attendance will not only ensure full

exposure to the scope of majors and opportunities available at institution, and it is also one of

the criteria used in determining your final grade. Tracking and monitoring student time of

attendance using the manual attendance in colleges and universities could be tedious, time

consuming and more prone to errors. The manual attendance system that is use in classroom

(signature system) is not too secure because some students can copy other student’s signature.

For manual attendance signing process, the most common problem is the lecturer need to take

student daily attendance and manually filled the record in attendance sheet or book for every

lecture. If the attendance sheet is missing or misplace, it could lead to big problem because

the lecturer need the attendance record to make analysis and generate an attendance report.

Another problem is the lecturer will need more time to analyze and generate the attendance

report because the lecturer needs to search and refer the old attendance record first. Besides

that, an error could happen when the teacher make the calculations to generate the attendance

report by themselves. Even though the attendance record is hassle to keep by the lecturer,

management report is required in urgent basis. Analyzed attendance record is required by the

school management for future actions is normally being delay because of the lack of precise.

Moreover, delay analyzes would leads to prolong the time to inform the parents about the

truancy students.

3.2 Justifications of the New System

38
The new system is going to deal with the limitations of the existing system by; keeping

historical data that makes it easy for lecturers to access and grade students, providing high

level of security whereby making it impossible for imposters and impersonators in making

their ways to examination halls. The system will allow the lecturer to monitor each student

attendance, track down truants and take the appropriate action and reduces the stress in

queuing up which result in delay and often time in the damage of the attendance sheet. The

new system will provide user friendly interface which will help to guide each user to use it

correctly without any specialized training.

3.3 Methodology

Top-down model was adopted in designing the Fingerprint Based Student Attendance

monitoring System. The result of the analysis was broken down into different components

where the design is started from the main component down to the elementary components.

The System was categorized into three (3) major subsystems which are; admin subsystem,

and lecturer subsystem and student subsystem. Each of the listed subsystems above has a

different user privileges to use the system.

Admin subsystem, here the user of this subsystem has the following privileges;

add/delete/update records and information of the entire system. This subsystem is further

broken down into; add Course, assign course, fingerprint enrollment, enroll student, enroll

lecturer and report. In the listed subsystems the administrator can delete, add, and update the

subsystem information.

Lecturer subsystem, unlike the admin subsystem here most privileges are taken away, the

user can only activate attendance, view a student record or marked attendance or the courses

he/she was assign to lecture on. The subsystem is further broken down into; (I) course (II)

lecture taken (III) activation duration and (IV) profile.

39
 System

User Start Page

Admin Sub program Lecturer Sub program Student sub program

File Settings Setup Reports Activate Att. Mark Att.

Assign Role Activate D.time View marked

Change PW Scan fingerprint Enroll

Fingerprint Enrolment

Figure 3.1: Top Down Design approach for the system

3.4 Data Collection

The major purpose of this work is to eliminate the use of paper in manual signing processes

and all the risk associated with it and carry out the analysis of manual processes involved in

class attendance and examination attendance of students with the aid of Fingerprint based

student attendance monitoring System. For these I met with lecturers and departments, and

asked them to tell me the information that they need from students for the assessment of their

class attendance in order to assign marks. Then they mentioned; student ID, matriculation

number, student name, department, level, gender and fingerprint template. All the

information listed will be the main information to be collected from each student. Then also

ask departments to tell me the information they also need from the lecturers in order to assign

courses to them. Then they mentioned; lecturer ID, courses taken for the semester/session,

40
name, and fingerprint template etc. these information listed will be the primary information to

be collected from each lecturer and so also the administrator.

3.5 The Proposed New System

Start

Display

1. Admin login
2. Lecturer Activator setup
3. Student Att. Manager
41
 Input Select User

4. Admin login
5. Lecturer Activator setup
6. Student Att. Manager

No
Is user
selected?

Yes

Input Select User

Yes No
Is
password
Yes
correct

Yes

Is Admin sub program

user=adm
in
No

Yes
Lec sub program
Is
user=Lec

No

Is Yes Stud sub program

user=Stud

Stop
Fig3.2 Flow Chart for User Start Page

Figure 3.2 showed the User Start page the new system in a flowchart format. The User Start

page is used as the landing page of the system then and each user base on their role will select

the module they have the privilege to access.

42
 Start

Admin sub program

Print main menu

1. Settings
2. Setup
3. Reports
4. File
Yes

Is Settings.Admin subprogram
No
option=1?

Is 43
option=2?
 Yes

No
Setup.Admin sub program

Yes

Is
No option=3? Report.Admin sub program

Yes

Is
No File. Admin sub program
option=4?

A
1. Enroll lecturer
2. Enroll student
3. Assign courses

Yes Is
option=1? Enroll lecturer sub

Admin sub program

No

Yes

Is Enroll student sub

option=2?
No Admin sub program

Yes

Is Assign course sub

option=3?
Admin sub program

Stop

Fig3.3 Flow Chart for Admin Sub Program

Figure 3.3 represents the admin sub-system. Here is where users who logged in as admin are

redirected to. The user of this sub-system maintains the entire system by performing actions

such as; enrolling lecturers and students, assigning courses to lecturers and change password

etc.

Start

44
 Capture Fingerprint

Verification module

Is
No
Fingerprint
valid?

Mark As Present

Display Notification

Stop

Fig3.4 Flow Chart for Student Sub Program

Figure 3.4 represents the student sub-system. Here is where users which are the student take

their attendance for a particular class after the lecturer must have activated it with the

duration of time the lecturer wants the attendance marking to last.

3.6 Database Structure

Table 3.1 Administrator database

45
Table3.1 represents the table structure of admin database. Here all admin personal records are

stored and access.

Table 3.2 Course database

Table 3.2 represents the table structure of course database. All courses that students are to

offer and take attendance are stored and accessed here. The courses sub-system uses this

database to manage courses.

Table 3.3: Lecturer database

46
Table 3.3 represents the table structure of lecturer database. The lecturer database is where

the information needed from a particular lec. This database is only accessed by view lecturer

sub-system.

Table 3.4 Student database

Table 3.4 represents the table structure of student database. The student database is where the

information needed from all students is been stored and accessed by the administrator for

updates.

47
 CHAPTER FOUR

SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION, TESTING AND INTEGRATION

4.1 Choice of Programming Language

The system was designed using common and popular window development technology

which includes Microsoft Visual Basic.net 2010 and MSSQL Server 2008 R2.

 VB.NET: Vb.net is used to implement the server side logic of the design. The reason

for using this language is because of its fastness and easy way in creating web

applications. It is an object oriented programming language which allows objects to

be manipulated easily and also an event driven programming language.

 .NET Framework: Visual basic programs run on the .Net Framework which is an

integral component of Windows that includes a virtual execution system called the

Common Language Runtime (CLR) and a unified set of class libraries. Source code

48
 written in VISUAL BASIC.NET is compiled into an Intermediate Language (IL) that

conforms to the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) specification.

 Microsoft SQL Server: MSSQL server is used to implement the back end of the new

system. The server uses relational database management system that offers a variety

of administrative tools to ease the burdens of database development, maintenance and

administrations. It also allows the use of stored procedure which is used to implement

some of the business logic directly from the database.

 T-SQL: Transaction Structured Query Language is used to write stored procedures

embedded in the Microsoft SQL server.

4.2 The System Main Menu Implementation

This refers to how the main menu in the system is being implemented. There are several

interfaces that make up the entire system. They are described below:

4.2.1 Main Menu

Figure 4.1 shows the administrator login, lecturer activator setup and student attendant

manager. Here the administrator can login by clicking on the Admin login and then proceeds

to other settings or updates, settings in terms of inputing of administrator username and

password. The lecturer and students so also can proceed to other action by clicking on their

various options on the main menu.

49
 Figure 4.1: User Start Page

4.2.2 Admin Login Page

Figure 4.2 shows the login page of administrator. The administrator types in his/her user

name and password in order for them to navigate to the main page where he/she to perform

enrollment, updates and settings.

50
 Figure 4.2: Admin Login Implementation

4.2.3 Lecturer Activator Setup Page

Figure4.3 shows the attendance activator for the lecturer in any particular class. The lecturer

will have to login, input fingerprint for verification and activate a particular session of class

and the duration of time it will take for the attendance marking session of the student.

Students cannot take attendance without the lecturer activating.

Figure 4.3: Lecturer Attendance Setup

51
4.3 Implementation of the Sub-system

Selecting the administrator (Admin) login option from the main menu results in a display of

Login form, after providing a valid username and password, access is then granted to the

administrator who can also be the lecturer, which then leads to the administrator sub-menu,

which have the file menu, settings menu, setup menu and report menu. The administrator can

enroll fingerprint of the lecturers and students, change password etc from the settings menu in

the administrator’s sub-menu.

Figure 4.4: Administrator Sub-menu

In figure4.5, the students are been enrolled by the administrator or lecturer. The students bio

data is been registered and the fingerprint of each student is been captured for authentication

of the attendance.

52
 Figure4.5: Student Enrollment submenu

Figure4.6, the lecturer activates the system for each session before student marks attendance.

The lecturer inputs his/her course for the session and the duration for the attendance marking.

Figure4.6: lecturer attendance activator

The figure4.7 shows the fingerprint verified of the student for a particular session of class. At

this time the duration time that the lecturer set is still on, if any student comes after the

duration time the attendance manager shows session not activated.

53
Figure4.7: Student fingerprint verified

4.4 Query Sub-system Implementation.

The MSSQL Server 2008 R2 which setup the relational database of is very important because

it provides the authentication system with efficiency, consistency and reliability. However,

after the administrator must have input the information’s of all the students for a particular

session, the administrator can therefore query a particular department to know how many

student is in that particular department from the database and also how many student had

being enrolled and authenticated for a particular course. The lecturer can also query the

attendance update from the database to know how many students were present in class for a

particular lecturer in order to assign marks for attendance to the present students.

4.5 System Testing and Integration

This is a formal process of soliciting feedback on or from a system that is being developed. It

is used to determine the effectiveness, the correctness, efficiency, reliability and robustness of

the proposed system. Unit testing was carried out on individual components of different

layers in the application to verify and ensure all different components such as classes are at

54
the required minimal functional level. Also, integration test was carried out, where all the

independent components or modules are then integrated together to further verify the

functionality of the interfaces of each components so as to spot defects in various interfaces

and the behavior or responsiveness of each components when interacting together.

4.6 Test Plan

It involves a stage-by-stage assessment of all the subsystems which are carried out to

determine the performance and efficiency on the authentication system and comparing the

result to the over-all desired result. This verifies that the system elements have been properly

integrated.

4.7 Test Data

The data needed for the testing comprises of all student information such as student ID, mat

no, name, level, department and sex and the lecturer personal information such as staff ID,

name and department which is to be filled when administrator is enrolling students or

lecturers. The course details so also such as course code, course title, course description, add

course and course unit which is to be filled by administrator after the students and the

lecturers have been rolled and authenticated.

CHAPTER FIVE

SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Summary

55
This project is focused on the protection of student manual attendance system using

fingerprint biometric. The fingerprint Biometrics is one of the most successful applications of

biometric technology was used in this Fingerprint Based student attendance monitoring

System which serves as an alternate for traditional manual signing processes involved in class

attendance and examination attendance. Reviewing and assessing the authentication system

for student class attendance follows a hierarchical flow from policies down through the

specific actions taken to enforce them.

Attendance is usually noted using paper sheets and the old file system, this approach has been

in use for a long time. It becomes difficult for the management to regularly update the record

and manually calculate the percentage of classes attended. For any growing institution,

tracking and monitoring student time of attendance could be tedious, time consuming and

more prone to errors. There are many concepts to understand and the technological solutions

can be complex. Dynamic institution driven solutions continue to tout a silver bullet but none

ever really exists. Keeping up with security threats and countermeasures requires a

continuous education and understanding.

This project covers the basic concepts so one’s knowledge can be outfitted and applied to the

situations that you will face as a certified IS auditor, however diverse they may be. Again for

this project, the focus is not only on the technical details of how this fingerprint biometric

works under the hood. Rather, it assumes that you have some base knowledge of these issues

and is geared more towards identifying the risk and control points of the authentication

system. The system’s inner workings and the exact technology used to secure them will

change over time, probably in the time it takes you another researcher to work on it.

In chapter four, the programming languages that was chosen were Microsoft Visual Basic.net

2010 and MSSQL Server 2008 R2 those languages was discussed briefly. The

implementation of all the components were tested and integrated for proper performance and

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evaluation of the system. This verifies that the system elements have been properly

integrated.

5.2 Recommendations

Through analysis of the data and research conducted for this study, the school district

maintain or develop strict guidelines for student attendance and monitor factors that could

hinder a student from attending school on a regular basis. The use of encryption for files in

the database transit is an area of protection that should be visited. I strongly believe in

protection. Window based authentication system is an important management tool which

reduces the lecturers/teachers work load of colleges and university. Therefore, is highly

recommended that all schools should adopt it.

The system was designed to ease the lecturer work and also allow lecturer and students to use

the system without taking special training for it. Should any modification or upgrading arises

it should be done with the idea of making it a user friendly so as to make it easily accessible

to users, efficient and readily available to specified user.

5.3 Conclusion

It can be concluded from the above discussion that a reliable, secure, fast and an efficient

system has been developed replacing a manual and unreliable system. Results have shown

that this system can be implemented in academic institutes for better results regarding the

management of attendance. This system will save time, reduce the amount of work the

administration has to do and will replace the stationery material with electronic apparatus.

Hence a system with expected results has been developed but there is still some room for

improvement. Having presented a biometric identity based fingerprint scheme. I have

utilized, extended and implemented ideas in the areas of error corrected string construction

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from biometric data, key generation, and pairing based fingerprint schemes to form the

components of the system. The research presented the application of such a scheme to

repudiation situations. Discussion on advantage of using the biometric data in the public key

and described the utility of using biometric evidence in disputes that may arise. This work has

been an insight into the hidden problems; the manual attendance system tends within daily

activities. The problems are fair and need computerized authentication system to replace the

manual student attendance system.

REFERENCES

Books
1. Introducing Microsoft .NET, Second Edition author David S. Platt.

2. Joe Mayo, “Microsoft Visual Studio 2010: A Beginner's Guide”, Tata McGraw Hill,
2010.

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 3. Alex Mackey, “Introducing .NET 4.0: With Visual Studio 2010”, Press, USA, 2010.

WEBSITES
1. http://www.msdn.net/

2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/orm-9780596518455-02.aspx

3. http://www.w3schools.com/asp.net/

4. http://www.cramerz.com/aspdotnet

5. http://www.dotnetspider.net/

6. http://www.stackoverflow.com

7. http://www.codeproject.com

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