Awareness Analysis and Development of Low-Cost Smart Attendance Management System for Tertiary Institutions in Developing Countries

With the advent of technology, the need for real time smart attendance processing has emerged as an essential pre-requisite for more efficient and accurate students attendance recording and management. The traditional method of attendance keeping which entails the use of pen and paper as well as calling names is time consuming and in most cases is associated with duplicate data entry, falsification/impersonation and errors. Conversely, smart attendance recording provides seamless services with reduced error and enhanced support needed in higher institutions for appropriate login/logout time of students. Thus, this research is focused on creating awareness about smart attendance management system (SAMS) based on data-driven smart technologies, as well as to develop a low-cost SAMS for higher institutions in developing countries with Nigeria as a case study. To this effect, an empirical survey using structured questionnaires was carried out in six tertiary institutions in Nigeria, and results of the statistical findings were synthesized with scientific tools for the design frame work. Moreover, the work built a prototype testbed to capture and disseminate the attendance of students in real time. The developed prototype comprises of Arduino Uno Microcontroller, Real time clock, Data logger shield, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) card, Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and Switches. The Arduino microcontrollers were programmed using Arduino C programming language. The RFID smart attendance system was tested via status display device in real time (deterministic mode). A satisfactory result index of 99% was observed through various test case scenarios.