THE FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION OF ATTENDANCE ANALYSIS

& MANAGEMENT

LEE GUAN HENG

(Software Engineering)

This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Computer Science with Honours

Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology

UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA SARAWAK

2005

ii

DECLARATION

No portion of work referred to in this report has submitted in support of an application for

another degree or qualification of this or any other universities or institution of higher

learning.

_____________________ _______________

(LEE GUAN HENG) (Date)

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ACKNOWLEGEMENT

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Wang Yin Chai

for his guidance and motivation in making this project a success. I wish to thank him for

being very patient and helpful to me throughout the development process of the system.

Apart from that, I am indebted to my examiner, Mr. Sylvester Arnab for his effort in

helping me to improve the report and providing useful suggestions in the system that has

been developed.

Finally, my thank goes to my friends who have given my full cooperation, advice

and support, without which I could not have completed this project.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF FIGURES x

LIST OF TABLES xiii

ABSTRACT xiv

ABSTRAK xv

CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Problem Statement 2

1.3 Objective 2

1.4 Scope 3

1.5 Expected Outcome 3

1.6 Significant 4

1.6.1 Contribution to Administrator/Lecturer 4

1.6.2 Contribution to Student 4

1.7 Outline of Project Report 5

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 6

Part 1: Reviewing Biometric Technologies

2.2 Overview of Biometric 6

2.3 Biometric Technologies 7

2.3.1 Introduction 7

2.3.2 Advantages of Biometric Technologies 7

2.3.3 Biometric Identification Technologies 8

2.3.3.1 Facial Identification 8

2.3.3.2 Iris/Retina Identification 8

2.3.3.3 Hand Geometry Identification 9

2.3.3.4 Fingerprint Identification 10

2.3.4 Comparison of Biometric Identification 10

2.4 History of Fingerprint 11

2.5 Overview of Fingerprint 12

2.6 Fingerprint Identification 12

2.7 Fingerprint Matching Process 13

2.7.1 Fingerprint Identification System Architecture 13

2.7.2 Fingerprint Matching Methods 13

2.7.2.1 Minutiae Matching 14

2.7.2.2 Pattern Matching 15

Part 2: Reviewing Existing Attendance Management System

2.8 Attendance Management System 17

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2.8.1 Attendance Management System 1.0 18

2.8.2 ARCHNET Attendance Management System (AMS) 20

2.8.3 Duvetdays Attendance Management Software 22

2.9 Summary 23

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 24

3.2 System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) 24

3.3 Summary 28

CHAPTER 4: SYSTEM ANALYSIS

4.1 Introduction 29

4.1.1 Purpose 29

4.2 Requirement Specification 29

4.2.1 Administrator Requirement 30

4.2.2 Student Requirement 31

4.3 Hardware Requirements 34

4.4 Software Requirements 34

4.5 Summary 35

CHAPTER 5: SYSTEM DESIGN

5.1 Introduction 36

5.2 System Architecture (Data Flow Diagram) 36

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5.2.1 Context Diagram of Proposed System 36

5.2.2 Diagram 0 38

5.2.3 Child Diagram 39

5.2.3.1 Process 1.0 Login 39

5.2.3.2 Process 2.0 Register New Member 40

5.2.3.3 Process 3.0 Add New Subject 41

5.2.3.4 Process 4.0 Register Subject 41

5.2.3.5 Process 5.0 Check In 42

5.2.3.6 Process 6.0 View Attendance Status 43

5.2.3.7 Process 7.0 View Attendance Report 44

5.2.3.8 Process 8.0 Search Student’s Details 45

5.2.3.9 Process 9.0 Search Subject’s Details 45

5.3 Data Dictionary 46

5.3.1 Data Elements 46

5.3.2 Data Store 47

5.4 Normalization 47

5.5 Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) 49

5.6 Database Design 49

5.7 Summary 51

CHAPTER 6: SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

6.1 Introduction 53

6.2 System Configuration 53

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6.2.1 Installing Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 53

6.2.2 Installing Microsoft Access 54

6.2.3 Installing Biokit SDK 54

6.3 System Decomposition 55

6.3.1 Login Module 56

6.3.2 Register As Member Module 57

6.3.3 Add New Subject Module 58

6.3.4 Register Subject Module 59

6.3.5 Check In Module 60

6.3.6 View Attendance Report Module 62

6.4 Fingerprint Encryption and Matching Features 65

6.4.1 Registration Feature 65

6.4.2 Matching Feature 65

6.5 Summary 66

CHAPTER 7: SYSTEM TESTING & EVALUATION

7.1 Introduction 67

7.2 Objectives 67

7.3 Specification Testing 67

7.3.1 Functional Testing 66

7.3.2 Usability Testing 69

7.3.2.1 Student 70

7.3.3 Graphical User Interface (GUI) Testing 70

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7.4 System Limitation 71

7.5 Summary 72

CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION & FUTURE WORKS

8.1 Introduction 73

8.2 Achievements 73

8.3 Problem Faced 75

8.4 Future Enhancement 75

8.4.1 Intranet/Local Network System 75

8.5 Summary 76

REFERENCES 77

APPENDIX

Appendix A: Formal Attendance Sheet 79

Appendix B: Questionnaire 80

Appendix C: Data Dictionary 83

Appendix D: Data Elements 89

Appendix E: Database Design 91

Appendix F: Evaluation Form 92

Appendix G: Algorithm for Fingerprint Matching 94

Appendix H: Sample of Questionnaire Forms from User 96

Appendix I: Sample of Evaluation Forms from Student 97

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Fingerprint Identification Architecture 13

Figure 2.2 Enrollments with Minutiae Points 14

Figure 2.3 Verification Using Minutiae Points Algorithm 15

Figure 2.4 Enrollment with Pattern-based Algorithm 16

Figure 2.5 Verification using Pattern-based Algorithm 17

Figure 2.6 Attendance Report for Attendance Management System

1.0

18

Figure 2.7 Printing Report Features 19

Figure 2.8 Interface for Attendance Management System 1.0 19

Figure 2.9 An Incoming Employee Attendance Interface 20

Figure 2.10 An Outgoing Employee Attendance Interface 21

Figure 2.11 An Attendance Report Preview 21

Figure 2.12 Attributes of Attendance Data Setting Interface 22

Figure 2.13 Viewing the Attendance Record 23

Figure 3.1 The System Development Life Cycle 25

Figure 4.1 Percentage of Student for Each Problem 32

Figure 4.2 Percentage of Student who satisfied the Current

Attendance Management System.

32

Figure 4.3 Percentage of Student who has personally Use or

Knowledge about Fingerprint-based System

33

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Figure 4.4 Percentage of Student who wants Viewing Personal

Attendance History and Status Feature to be implemented

33

Figure 5.1 Context Diagram of Proposed System, FAMAS 36

Figure 5.2 Diagram 0 for FAMAS 38

Figure 5.3 Process 1.0 Login Child Diagram 39

Figure 5.4 Process 2.0 Register New Member Child Diagram 40

Figure 5.5 Process 3.0 Add New Subject 41

Figure 5.6 Process 4.0 Register Subject 41

Figure 5.7 Process 5.0 Check In Child Diagram 42

Figure 5.8 Process 6.0 View Attendance Status Child Diagram 43

Figure 5.9 Process 7.0 View Attendance Report Child Diagram 44

Figure 5.10 Process 8.0 Search Student’s Detail Child Diagram 45

Figure 5.11 Process 9.0 Search Subject’s Details 45

Figure 5.12 Relation Schema for FAMAS system 48

Figure 5.13 Entity Relationship Diagram for FAMAS 49

Figure 6.1 System Module for FAMAS 55

Figure 6.2 Login Module 56

Figure 6.3 Main Page of FAMAS System 57

Figure 6.4 Register as Member Module 58

Figure 6.5 Add New Subject Module 59

Figure 6.6 Register Subject Module 60

Figure 6.7 Check In Module 61

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Figure 6.8 View Attendance History and Status 62

Figure 6.9 View Attendance Report Module 63

Figure 6.10 Printing Attendance Report 64

Figure 6.11 Attendance Report Summary 64

Figure 7.1 System Functionality Survey Result 68

Figure 7.2 System Usability Survey Result 70

Figure 7.3 GUI Design Survey Result 71

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Comparison of Biometric Identifications 11

Table 5.1 Data Dictionary for FAMAS 46

Table 5.2 Data element for FAMAS 47

Table 5.3 Data Store for FAMAS 47

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ABSTRACT

The Fingerprint Attendance Management System (FAMAS) is a student attendance

management system for university applied with fingerprint technology. The system is able

to manage the student daily attendance. There are five major modules implemented in this

system which is Student Information Module, Subject Information Module, Subject

Registration Module, Attendance Management Module, and Attendance Report Module. In

Student Information Module, it is allows to add, edit and delete student information with

navigation and search features. Administrator/lecturer can add, edit and delete subject

information in Subject Information Module. This module is used to allow administrator

select a class in attendance management module. For convenience purpose, Subject

Registration Module was implemented to allow student register available subject in the

system. With this feature, administrator can view the list of students who are taken the

particular subject. Attendance Management Module is a module where the students’

attendance has been recorded. The fingerprint technology is applied in this module that

captured and template of fingerprint from database is compare. There is a checking

attendance status feature in this module who is request from students for know their

currently attendance status. Besides, reporting the students’ attendance records has been

implemented in Attendance Report Module. Administrator can print out the each class

attendance report or export it into html format for future checking purpose.

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ABSTRAK

Fingerprint Attendance Management System (FAMAS) merupakan suatu sistem

pegurusan kehadiran pelajar bagi universiti dengan mengaplikasi teknologi cap jari.

Sistem ini mampu meguruskan kehadiran pelajar harian. Ia terdiri daripada lima utama

modul iaitu Modul Maklumat Pelajar, Modul Maklumat Subjek, Modul Pendaftaran

Subjek, Modul Pegurusan Kehadiran dan Modul Laporan Kehadiran. Dalam Modul

Maklumat Pelajar, ia membenarkan tambah, edit dan gugur seseorang maklumat pelajar di

samping cir-ciri navigasi dan mencari. Pentadbir/Pensyarah dapat menambah,mengedit

and menggugurkan sesuatu maklumat subjek melalui Modul Maklumat Subjek. Modul ini

digunakan bagi membenarkan pensyarah memilih satu kuliah dalan Modul Pengurusan

Kehadiran. Untuk tujuan kemudahan, Modul Pendaftaran Subjek diimplementasikan untuk

membenarkan pelajar mendaftar subjek yang sedia ada dalam sistem ini. Dengan adanya

ciri ini, pensyarah dapat menyemak senarai pelajar yang mendaftar subjek tertentu. Modul

Pengurusan Kehadiran ialah suatu modul yang mana kehadiran pelajar direkodkan. Cap

jari teknologi diaplikasikan dalam modul ini dengan mengambil dan membandingkan cap

jari pelajar daripada pangkalan data. Ia terdapat penyemakan status kehadiran ciri dalam

modul ini yang mana diminta daripada pelajarbagi mengetahui status kehadiran dari

semasa ke semasa. Selain itu, laporan mengenai kehadiran pelajar telah

diimplementasikan dalam Modul Laporan Kehadiran. Pensyarah dapat mencetak suatu

kehadiran kelas mahupun eksport laporan ini dalam bentuk html fail bagi tujuan

penyemakan pada masa hadapan.

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CHAPTER 1: AN OVERVIEW

1.1 Introduction

Today, Electronic Attendance or also called as E-attendance is well known by

the entire world. It functions in an accurate way on recording the working hours which

is important for some particular system such as payroll system. Besides that, E-

attendance provides a better data integrity and ease of use for users to manage. It works

fast and accurate in terms of processing performance. As for this project, The

Fingerprint Identification for Attendance Analysis and Management works as an E-

attendance concept but in the other way, which is using the fingerprint application to

identify and recording the student daily attendance for each lecture they have attended.

Traditionally, the student attendance now is taken in a manual way which is

either using the formal or informal paper attendance sheet. The manually taken student

attendance is uncomfortable in teaching and learning situations to lecturers even to

students.

This project is developed to manage and reduce the current problems faced by

the lecturers and students in a systematic and structured method. The system only can

be functional after it is activated by the administrator or lecturer to identify and record

students’ attendance. This can prevent the student or other people to access it.

There are some functions provided including adding and editing student

attendance information, calculating the percentage of student attendance and printing

the student attendance sheet.

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1.2 Problem Statement

The current problem is the management of students’ attendance still done in a

manual process. This poses difficulty for lecturers to take the student attendance, which

they have to use valuable time to verify each student who has attended the class.

Besides the lecturer verifying the attendance himself or herself, the other way is

by passing around a sheet of student attendance to the students. This allows

uncomfortable learning lessons to students. The student also faces the problem of

signing their attendance on attendance sheet which sometimes they need to wait until

the end of the lecture just to be able to sign. Moreover, the cheated signature situation

frequently happens in which absent students ask their friend to help them to sign the

attendance sheet.

1.3 Objective

The purpose of this project is to develop a Fingerprint-based Attendance

Management System (FAMAS). The project aims to:

i. Provide a systematic and effective solution for administrator/lecturer to manage the

students’ attendance record

ii. To facilitate the management of student attendance information.

iii. To eliminate the time consuming of manually sign-in attendance by applied

biometric technology.

iv. Provide accurate and immediate calculation percentage for student attendance status.

v. Create a system that assist the administrator in printing the attendance report of each

class.

vi. Build a secure system, which allows safe access by applied biometric technology.

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1.4 Scope

The scope of this project will include automatic management of the check in of

students attendance function. This system will be governed by the administrator or

lecturer and thus covers only student study within UNIMAS. Their attendance will be

automatically record each time they check in to the system by using the prepared

hardware. The system will be maintained daily by the administrator or lecturer and they

can add, modify and delete data on the database of the student. The valid lecturers under

UNIMAS register their fingerprint identification to treat it as unique identification for

login to the system.

The main concern will be the functions of system that identifies the student,

recording check in of each lecture he or she has attended. With this information, it will

lead to the calculation of percentage of the student attendance status.

1.5 Expected Outcome

The system automatically searches and records a particular student’s attendance

after finding the matched fingerprint, which was stored in a certain database. The

database for the particular student will be recorded for each class he or she has attended.

The administrators can view the student attendance information after the class. They can

modify the attendance information through the login to administrator respective

features.

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1.6 Significant

This project contributes to both administrator/lecturer and student.

1.6.1 Contribution to Administrator/Lecturer

The administrator or lecturer can check the record and attendance trend of

students. This can contribute to important decision such as determining students to sit

for their final exam. The automatically calculation of percentage attendance is the

important feature in this system. This can contribute to accuracy in the calculation

process. Moreover, this application can improve the teaching lesson going smoothly.

1.6.2 Contribution to Student

As mentioned before, students face a lot of difficulties to get the attendance

sheet to sign their attendance. This project manages the student attendance as an

alternative solution from the manual way of sign in attendance to computerized method.

From that, students only need to sign their attendance by using fingerprint on prepared

equipment. In the real situation, students usually help their friends to sign the attendance

without attending the lecture. However, by applying the uniqueness of fingerprint

technology in attendance management, it gives an advantage to validate and record the

attended student. This feature has given better alternative for student and also for the

lecturer if compared to the manually way of sign in attendance which is time consuming

and involves uncomfortable learning process.

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1.7 Outline of Project Report

This chapter briefly describes the problem existing in the current system, the

objective of the project, the scope of project and project contribution. Chapter 2

contains reviews of biometric technologies and existing system, which are implemented

in order to manage the attendance. Chapter 3 explains about methodology used in the

system. The methodology will be a guideline to continue the system development.

Chapter 4 describes the system analysis. This chapter will be reviews the

current system to identify the possible problems. Hence, propose a new system to assist

and solve out the problem. Software and hardware specification are identified for

FAMAS to produces the excellent performance. Chapter 5, system design explains the

design issues. Data Flow Diagram (DFD), Entity Relationship Design (ERD), data

normalization and database design are discussed for FAMAS. Chapter 6 describes the

implementation of FAMAS while Chapter 7 reports the testing and evaluation of the

FAMAS. Lastly, achievements and future enhancements for FAMAS are explained in

Chapter 8.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, there is consists of parts. First part, reviewing overall

information concerned with the biometric topics. Besides, the existing biometric

identification technologies have been review through its technology, advantages and

disadvantages aspect. Moreover, it will be an important factor to choose the biometric

identification for this project. Second part, reviews of the interface and functionality of

the existing attendance management system was carried out to assist in designing the

appropriate user interface for the system proposed.

Part 1: Reviewing Biometric Technologies

2.2 Overview of Biometric

The biometric is refer to identification and verification of a person based on

physically or behavioral through a particular techniques. In more easier words to

understand, biometric means a unique personal attributes that we have can used for

identification a person in various purpose. The common biometrics based on physically

or behavioral characteristic that a normal person have are:

i. Face

ii. Iris

iii. Retina

iv. Voice

v. Handprint

vi. Fingerprint

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vii. Signature

Basically, this method of identification a person is preferred over traditional

methods. As rapid increasing used of computer in information technology areas, a

secure restricting access to privacy or personal data must be obtained. The biometric

technique can use in many application area in order to prevent unauthorized access to

use the privacy data such as ATMs, smart card, computer networks, time & attendance

system, desktop PCs and workstation.

Nowadays, there are several types of system developed through biometrics

technique for real-time identification. The face recognition and fingerprint matching are

the most popular biometric technique used to develop the system followed by hand

geometric, iris, retina, and speech.

2.3 Biometric Technologies

2.3.1 Introduction

The biometric technologies can define as an automated system of recognizing a

person based on the person's physical or behavioral characteristics. Nowadays, as an

advanced of biometric technologies may be an option for identification application

rather than uses physical card, documents, passwords or ID numbers. The basic

processes inside the biometric technologies are capture and store the information at

enrollment stage and than compare at a later verification stage.

2.3.2 Advantages of Biometrics Technologies

The overview advantages using the biometric identification technologies are:

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i. It provided a convenience to the user which they no need to remember

identification or password.

ii. When the verification has been swift and it does not require a staff to

manage.

iii. It provided greater security which biometrics will only link a person to an

action.

iv. The user’s identity is stored safety and it is free.

v. The users no need to verify identity via a central repository or server.

2.3.3 Biometric Identification Technologies

The few common biometric identification technologies will be review in this

section such as facial, iris/ retina, voice and fingerprint.

2.3.3.1 Facial Identification

This biometric identification recognized a person’s heat pattern around the eyes

and cheeks to verify their identity. It may use several different techniques through this

biometric technology including video and photo imaging. More advance it able to scan

the dimension of an individual’s head.

There are two significant methods in order to identify an individual which is

detection and recognition. The detection method captured an image human face by a

video camera and taking that face. Next, software goes through the captured image for

general facial structures and measures and determines the rest of the face. After create

an image form a person face, it will be convert into binary mask. The binary mask is

significant in recognition method which use to comparing the captured face that have

been saved and stored in a database.

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However, the accuracy of this biometric technology influence by lighting, age

and hair of an individual’s characteristics.

2.3.3.2 Iris/Retina Identification

It was using the characteristic inside the live iris to recognize an individual

identity. Although, approximately 260 of those are used or captured in a "live" iris

identification application (IRIS and RETINAL Identification, 1997). Because of this

unique characteristic, iris has more distinct identifiable feature compare to fingerprint.

Basically, there are few common steps in iris identification. First, a person has to

stand in front of the iris identification hardware for calculation their position. Second,

the camera will automatic taking the iris image in white and black format that use to

recognize an iris pattern called eyeprint. Finally the captured image is checked against

previously stored in database.

The time its take for an iris identification technology to identify our iris is

approximately two seconds. The probability of mismatch situation occurs lowest of all

known biometrics.

2.3.3.3 Hand Geometry Identification

The basic principle of operation the use of hand geometric is to measure or

record the physical geometric characteristic of an individual’s hand. When using this

biometric technology, three dimension image of the hand need to taken. The usage of

this image is also like other biometric technologies which use to compare with the

template image hand geometry stored in the database. An individual’s characteristic

hand such as length of fingers, widths and depth are use to measure.