A

PROJECT PROPOSAL
ON

ATTENDANCE MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM

Submitted by

Jomy George

Student No.

2746308

Submitted To

Dr. Waseem Akhtar

Date

6/01/2010

Contents
Contents................................................................................................................................. 2
1. Abstract.............................................................................................................................. 3
2. Introduction......................................................................................................................... 3
3. Motivation........................................................................................................................... 4
4. Implementation...................................................................................................................5
5. Conclusion.......................................................................................................................... 8
6. Bibliography........................................................................................................................ 8

1. Abstract
An attendance management system is an automated web application, used to
perform all the actions which are needed to record the attendance in an
educational institution. This application deals with all the issues that may arise
in an efficient management of attendance. This type of applications might be
helpful to reduce the down time and human strain. This system avoids long
queue in the office of an educational institution. Its been a huge task for many
colleges and other educational Institution to keep track of an efficient
attendance management system. Even though there are a lot of technologies
available, a lot of college managements still follow old conventional attendance
management schemes. I hope the implementation of this system will find an
efficient solution for this dilemma. Each educational organisation has its own
structure which is different from one another. This proposed system is designed
for the use of Griffith College Dublin.[2]

2. Introduction
Attendance Management System is an automated web application for the
management of attendance of students in Colleges. It provides robust, secure
and automatic attendance management in the college. It has an inbuilt facility of
sending automatic Email alerts to the students and the lecturer. Attendance
Management System is built on web applications and designed to help Colleges
to deal with problems regarding to absenteeism.
Every student has to be registered and activated with the system. While
registering a student the following informations are required

Personal Details
Student Number

Course Details

Course Duration

Subjects Details

After registration of the student the student name will be added in the list and it
will be appear on the students list .For each subject there will be a students list
.Those who are taking the particular subject their names will be on the list.
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The key features of the proposed system are the following

Accurate Student Attendance
Automatic Attendance Collection
Automatic Email alert to constant absentee student
Daily attendance Register
Attendance Summary Report

3. Motivation
Attendance in many educational institutions is a vital aspect of administration
and can often become a time consuming, hard job, which lends itself to
inaccuracies. By employing an automated system, we are allowing resources to
be released to other areas where they can be used more effectively, which in the
long-run will save you both time and money.[2]
Nowadays college managements are spending a lot of effort and time to
maintain an efficient management of attendance in a college. There are efficient
systems for attendance management available, but they are too expensive,
complicated and difficult to maintain.
Frequent absenteeism has become a headache for the college management
.Students are not much caring about their attendance rate. Why it is happening?
In my point of view, this happens because they are not aware about their current
attendance status. They need to be informed frequently about their attendance
status. This will help them to be alert and they will be keen to attend their
classes. All international students in Ireland must have to achieve an attendance
rate of 80% in order to secure their visa. But they came to know about their
attendance only at the time of Visa renewal. At this time it becomes a big issue
and we can see that the international office with long queue in front of it.
For a college like Griffith College, where thousands of international students
studying; it is not at all practical to inform them frequently about their
attendance status. Here comes the importance of an automated, reliable, user
friendly online attendance management system.
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3.1 Objectives
The main objectives of an attendance management system are : Compliance All colleges in IRELAND, offering courses to non-EU
nationals are required to maintain records of students attendance, in
compliance with the GNIB regulations.
More efficient student attendance Attendance management system
automates the student attendance. Also reducing irregularities in the
attendance process due to human error.
Saving Time Important administrative and educational resources could
be freed up by utilizing this system
Environment Friendly Reduces paper and other resource requirements.
[1]
3.2 Benefits
The main benefits of using the system are: Ensure better compliance to GNIB regulations for attendance monitoring
of Foreign Students.
Better student attendance management
Less administrative work
Improves student attendance ratio[1]

4. Implementation
4.1 Technologies
The proposed attendance management system uses PHP as frontend and
MySQL as the backend.
What Is PHP?
PHP is a server-side language which stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. In PHP
the script is run on your web server, not on the user's browser. So there will not
be any issues related to compatibility. As compared to other languages such as
Perl (CGI) and Java, PHP is a new language. But nowadays it is the popular
scripting language on the internet.

I prefer PHP as the frontend because it is new generation language. Learning a

new language can bring a lot of advantages. It might open new opportunities in
the future, because it is becoming the popular scripting language over the
internet. Also it has simple coding as compared with the other language and we
dont need any special software for this. [4]
MySQL
MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS).It is often used
with free software projects that require a full featured database management
system. It is popular due to the popularity of PHP, because PHP is often
combined with MySQL. MySQL is used mainly in data warehousing, Web
databases, e-commerce, logging applications and distributed applications. [5]
I prefer MySQL because it is a freeware database management system. And its
operations are relatively simple to understand. Usually MySQL is paired with
PHP for a number of web applications. It has an ideal combination with the
PHP without any compatibility issues. [5]
4.2 Structure of the system
The attendance management system has mainly four types of users and each
user have their own login sessions to perform certain task. The users are: Administrator
Course Director
Lecturer
Student
All these users have different login sessions and they can perform certain
functions within the session.
Administrator
The main functions in admin session are
Add/Remove Course
Edit
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 Change password
Logout
Course Director
The main functions in course director session are
Add/Remove lecturer
Add/Remove Subject
Add/Remove Student
Update Attendance (in case of submission of medical cert.)
Attendance reports
Daily
Semester wise
Individual
Change password
Logout
Lecturer
Taking Attendance
Submitting attendance
Attendance review
Change Email ID(A copy of attendance will be send to the lecturer)
Change password
Logout

Student
Shows overall attendance of the student
Shows attendance of individual subjects
Change Email ID
Change password
Request for letter(will receive through Email)
Logout

5. Conclusion
Attendance in many educational institutions often becomes a time consuming,
hard job, which lends itself to inaccuracies. Manual attendance system always
accompanied with a lot of confusion and human error. By employing an
automated system, we are allowing resources to be released to other areas where
they can be used more effectively. This system provides a user friendly
attendance management for the students. Students will be aware about their
attendance rate and will get their updated attendance record any time. Hopefully
it might increase the attendance rate in the college. [3]

6. Bibliography
1. NIVID biometrics in College Attendance Management System
(CAMS)
on
http://www.nividbiometrics.com/Products/College_Attendance.asp
2. INFONIC in Attendance Manager on www.infonic.com
3. Eddy Kong in Time Management - How To Create An Attendance
Management System? on http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eddy_Kong
4. W. Jason Gilmore in A Programmer's Introduction to PHP 4.0
5. Luke Welling and Laura Thomson in PHP and MySQL Web
Development (4th Edition)