CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In many institutions, and academic organizations, attendance is a very important criterion which is used for various purposes. These purposes include record keeping, assessment of students and promotion of optimal and consistent attendance in class.
In developing countries, a minimum percentage of class attendance is required in most institutions and this policy has not been adhered to, because of the various challenges the present method of taking attendance presents. This traditional method involves the use of sheets of paper or books in taking student attendance. This method could easily allow for impersonation and the attendance sheet could be stolen or lost. Taking of attendance is time consuming and it is difficult to ascertain the number of students that have made the minimum percentage and thus eligible for exam. Thus, there is a need for a system that would eliminate all of these trouble spots.
An attendance management system using biometrics would provide the needed solution. An attendance management system is a software developed for daily student attendance in schools and institutions. It facilitates access to the attendance of a particular student in a particular class. This system will also help in generating reports and evaluating the attendance eligibility of a student.
Rather than signing an attendance sheet, individuals will pass their thumb over the fingerprint scanner, the finger print is compared against a list of pre-registered users, and once a match is made, the individual will be registered as having attended that lecture.
The paper discusses related works in the problem domain; highlights the general overview of the proposed system; details design considerations of the system, both at the hardware and software level; discusses the operation and how the system was tested in conformity to system design and functional objectives; concludes the observations made; and makes recommendations for future improvement.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

The traditional system is still mostly used in lecture room or examination hall 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 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 

The aim of the study is to design and develop a reliable, scalable and cost effective Fingerprint based Student Attendance Management 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 6.0.

1.4 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 management 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 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. .

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 
The scope of this work is to develop an Attendance management 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 Access for database design. It does not cover other aspects of biometric.

1.6 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 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.

1.7 DEFINITION OF BASIC CONCEPTS 
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.
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.