Android-based attendance management system

Until today, most lecturers in universities are found still using the conventional methods of taking students´ attendance either by calling out the student names or by passing around an attendance sheet for students to sign confirming their presence. In addition to the time-consuming issue, such method is also at higher risk of having students cheating about their attendance, especially in a large classroom. Therefore a method of taking attendance by employing an application running on the Android platform is proposed in this paper. This application, once installed can be used to download the students list from a designated web server. Based on the downloaded list of students, the device will then act like a scanner to scan each of the student cards one by one to confirm and verify the student´s presence. The device´s camera will be used as a sensor that will read the barcode printed on the students´ cards. The updated attendance list is then uploaded to an online database and can also be saved as a file to be transferred to a PC later on. This system will help to eliminate the current problems, while also promoting a paperless environment at the same time. Since this application can be deployed on lecturers´ own existing Android devices, no additional hardware cost is required.