2012 IEEE Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2012)
Web-based Student Attendance System using RFID
Technology
Murizah Kassim, Hasbullah Mazlan, Norliza Zaini, Muhammad Khidhir Salleh
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
Universiti Teknologi MARA
40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
murizah@salam.uitm.edu.my, hasbullahmazlan@gmail.com, drnorliza@salam.uitm.edu.my, khidhir193@gmail.com
Abstract— This paper describes the development of a student
attendance system based on Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) technology. The existing conventional attendance system
requires students to manually sign the attendance sheet every
time they attend a class. As common as it seems, such system
lacks of automation, where a number of problems may arise. This
include the time unnecessarily consumed by the students to find
and sign their name on the attendance sheet, some students may
mistakenly or purposely signed another student’s name and the
attendance sheet may got lost. Having a system that can
automatically capture student’s attendance by flashing their
student card at the RFID reader can really save all the mentioned
troubles. This is the main motive of our system and in addition
having an online system accessible anywhere and anytime can
greatly help the lecturers to keep track of their students’
attendance. Looking at a bigger picture, deploying the system
throughout the academic faculty will benefit the academic
management as students’ attendance to classes is one of the key
factor in improving the quality of teaching and monitoring their
students’ performance. Besides, this system provides valuable
online facilities for easy record maintenance offered not only to
lecturers but also to related academic management staffs
especially for the purpose of students’ progress monitoring.
Keywords-RFID, students attendance, online system, web,
sensor
I. INTRODUCTION
The most common means of tracking student attendance in
the classroom is by enforcing the students to manually sign the
attendance sheet, which is normally passed around the
classroom while the lecturer is conducting the lecture. There
are numerous disadvantages of using such system. For
instance, lecturers with a large class may find the hassle of
having the attendance sheet being passed around the class and
the manual signing of attendance by students are burdensome
and most likely distract them from teaching and getting full
attention from the students [1]. Besides, as the attendance sheet
is passed around the class, some students may accidentally or
purposely sign another student's name. The first case leads to a
student missing out their name, while the latter leads to a false
attendance record. Another issue of having the attendance
record in a hardcopy form is that a lecturer may lose the
attendance sheet [2]. As a consequence of that, lecturer can no
longer trace the students overall attendance record throughout
the particular semester. Apart from that, a lecturer also has
limited access to the single-copy record, e.g. only at the work
978-1-4673-2036-8/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE
place. In terms of attendance analysis, the lecturer also has to
perform manual computation to obtain the students’ attendance
percentage, which normally consume a lot of time.
Having said the limitations imposed by the conventional
attendance recording system, we propose a solution in the form
of an attendance tracking system based on RFID technology.
The main idea behind the system is to capture student
attendance in a semi-automated way where the students are
required to flash their student card at the RFID reader upon
entering the classroom. This way, the student ID is instantly
captured by the reader, after which the data is sent to the online
server for recording purpose [3]. Such system promotes a more
organized and systematic student attendance recording.
Having the attendance data instantly uploaded to the online
server prevents data loss, while allowing the data to be
available and accessible to the lecturers or other academic
staffs as long as they are connected to the internet [4]. The
system also helps to automatically compute the percentage of
attendance for each individual student. One related project was
referred [5], where an attendance system using the RFID
technology was developed in the university environment. This
work was taken as guidance in developing our web-based
student attendance system by using the RFID technology.
II. SYSTEM DESIGN
The web-based student attendance system using Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promotes semi-
automated recording of student attendance, developed
especially for the university. In drawing the system design, a
number of web-based methods and frameworks have been
reviewed and referred [6-7]. Some comparisons performed on
the different technologies being used in the similar systems
were also learnt [8]. Related research on the system-
development and testing were also reviewed to provide
guidance in customizing and evaluating the process, while
learning the disciplined approach in designing the proposed
system [9-13].
Our proposed system consists of three main modules
namely the RFID reader module, Data Reporter module and
Web server module. Those modules are integrated together in
order to allow its full functionality. Each module carries its
own functions and special features. The general process flow is
illustrated in Figure 1, where all of these components are
involved and operational.
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 2012 IEEE Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2012)
Figure 1: The overall student attendance recording process
Figure 2: System Architecture of the web-based student attendance system
using RFID
The overall architecture of the system is illustrated in
Figure 2, where the three main components are shown. Each of
these components will be described in the following sub-
sections.
A. RFID Reader and Tag
RFID reader is the device capable of reading and retrieving
information stored inside the RFID tags. There are two types of
RFID reader, which are the active and passive RFID readers.
Active RFID reader can detect an active RFID tag while
passive RFID reader can only detect passive RFID tag at a few
centimeters away from the reader. The RFID reader being used
in the system is a low cost reader for reading passive RFID
tags. It operates at 0~ 400C temperatures, 20~80% of humidity,
125 kHz frequency and 12V power supply [7]. The effective
detection range of the reader is around 5-8cm.
Each RFID tag has a unique serial number or ID. There are
three types of RFID tags which are active, semi-passive and
passive. The main difference between these RFID tags is that
active and semi-passive RFID tags require internal battery
while passive RFID tags do not use any internal battery.
Adapted to our scope of work, the student cards being used to
identify each individual student are the RFID cards that consist
of passive RFID tag, which do not require internal battery [6].
When such cards are passed through the field generated by a
compatible Reader, they transmit information back to the
Reader [7]. Figure 3 illustrates how data transmission is
performed between an RFID reader and a student card.
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AC900
RFID reader Student
ID card
Figure 3: Data Transmission between an RFID reader and a student card
B. Data Reporter
Data Reporter is a component that fetches all logging data
from the RFID reader such as the captured student ID, time and
date for every 30 minutes interval. The collected data are then
passes to the online server, which will record the data into the
database. This component should always be kept up and
running and needs to be automatically restarted each time the
operating system reboots.
C. Web Server
The web server here refers to either hardware (computer) or
software (application) that helps to deliver content publicly
accessible through the Internet. It provides the web site
functionality by accepting requests from the user’s browser and
responds by sending back HTML documents (Web pages) and
files. To enable the system dynamic functionalities, the web
server hosts the data collector component, a database and the
graphical user interface (GUI) pages enabling online
interaction with the system users.
D. Data Collector
The role of the online data collector is to continually listen
to incoming data sent by the Data Reporter component. The
received log data will then be inserted to the database for
recording purpose.
E. Database
A database is defined as an organized collection of data and
tailored to our system, our database is employed to mainly
store the data captured by the RFID reader. Secondarily the
database is also used to store data gathered from the online
web-interface, such as class schedule and students personal
information. In offering more features to the users, our online-
system can manipulate the recorded student attendance record
by querying the database for complex data retrieval [14]. This
includes automated operation, such as summarizing an
individual student attendance by calculating the attendance
percentage for a particular course.
F. Graphical User Interface (GUI)
The GUI component of the system is purposely developed
for friendly interaction with the users. Both types of users,
namely the students and academic staffs are given unique
 2012 IEEE Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2012)
access to their individual member area, where the students can
access their personal information, while the academic staffs can
monitor their students information. The developed GUI is in
the form of dynamic web pages, which are database driven.
This signifies that the information displayed on the web pages
are constructed based on the data extracted from the database.
The web pages are categorized into four modules, namely the
User List, Log, Timetable and Attendance. The pages are
developed using the Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) scripting
language and compatible with all major web browsers [15].
III. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
Based on the system design presented earlier, the system
implementation was carried out. The overall process flow of
system implementation is illustrated in Figure 4, which
composed of 5 main steps. The deployment of networked
RFID readers is also illustrated in Figure 5.
Figure 4: Overall process flow in developing the Web Based Student's
Attendance System
A. RFID System Device
The system employs RFID-Mifare terminals as the readers,
which can be installed across all classrooms or laboratories,
each denoting a specific venue [15-16]. These readers are
connected to a hub or a switch through RJ45 port or also
known as LAN port. In this setting, the hub or switch is linked
to a router for internet access, which is required in order to
connect the RFID readers to the Data Reporter component via
TCP/IP protocol.
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Figure 5: Network connection multiple RFID Reader to Web Based Attendance
System server
B. Web Development
The web application was initially developed on a local host
that runs the XAMPP server. Having such web server hosted
on the local host allows the PHP scripts to be developed and
locally tested and debugged. Besides the web server, a database
server is also run on the local host allowing the scripts’
connectivity with the database. The database design will be
briefly described next.
C. MySQL Database
The web-based Student Attendance system is connected
directly to a MySQL database. In general, there are four main
tables created to store the collected data. A table called the Log
table is used to store all users’ logging data that include the
check-in date and time, paired with the student ID. These data
are initially captured by the Data Reporter component from the
RFID reader, which are then submitted to the Data Collector,
which is responsible in storing the data onto the database. The
User table is another table in the database that is used to record
the students’ details that include their profile information such
as name, address, email, phone number and etc. Courses
information such as the course code, scheduled class venue,
start and end time class are loaded into the Timetable table.
Meanwhile the analyzed students’ attendance information is
recorded in the Attendance database. A set of pre-defined SQL
queries are written into common functions allowing easy data
insertions, update and retrievals for web-page displaying
purpose.
D. Web Graphical User Interface (GUI) Design
A user is allowed to enter the member area by logging in to
the system via a login form. This type of authentication is
important in order to prevent access by unauthorized users. The
system grants access to 3 different types of users namely the
Administrator, Lecturer and Student. According to the user
type, each user is given the specific level of access. For
instance, the Administrator level is given an access not only to
view but to moderate and modify data in the system. In
contrast, other user levels will be given only limited access to
the system.
For easy reference, the GUI is designed with the horizontal
style for navigation menu. For administrators, a navigation
 2012 IEEE Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2012)

menu is given that provides links to the four main

functionalities of the system. These include the “User List”
function for adding and removing the students’ personal
details. “Log” function is provided for the purpose of
monitoring the students’ check-in details. The “Timetable”
function is used to manage the classes’ schedule, while the
“Attendance” function is to monitor the students’ attendance.
Figure 6 shows the navigation-menu design of the system.

Figure 7: The hardware and application testing process flow

Figure 6: GUI navigation menu

IV. SYSTEM TESTING AND RESULT

To ensure the system correctness and completeness, system
testing has been performed across the system environment that
includes the client-side application, server-side application and
the hardware.

A. Hardware and Application Integration Testing

RFID Reader was tested by having it to capture the ID and
current timestamp for several RFID student cards in order to
ensure the device is not malfunction and operates as desired.
Firstly, a new student card is flashed to the RFID Reader to
capture and recognize the card’s unique ID. The captured ID is
then used to register the mapped student ID into the system.
Once registered, the student card can then be used by flashing it
to the RFID Reader to record the student attendance. For this
purpose, the log data, which include the current timestamp, is
also recorded.
Figure 8: The online system testing process flow
The next step was to set up the Data Reporter component so
that it is able to fetch log data from RFID Reader and pass it to
Data Collector. Both Data Reporter component and the log B. Online System
table (in the database) are then monitored for new log data Unit testing for each online component was performed by
specifically to detect whether Data Reporter has successfully monitoring the outputs they produced through a web browser.
fetched and passed the log data to Data Collector, which will Such testing was done while coding each of the defined
store the data into the log table. If no new log data was component. In detailed, after coding a particular function of a
recorded, Data Reporter and Data Collector components would particular online component in PHP, the result or output is
be debugged and reconfigured until they successful perform the observed through the web browser. If there was no display or
required function. Figure 7 illustrates the process flow of the an error was displayed, the recently coded function will be
hardware and application testing. debugged through a PHP editor. The similar test was
performed to validate SQL queries performed onto the
database. If an SQL query was found to return a wrong result,
then the query would be debugged to attain the desired result.

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 2012 IEEE Control and System Graduate Research Colloquium (ICSGRC 2012)
Once all online pages are correctly displayed, an integrated
system testing would be performed between the RFID reader
and the online system together to complete the overall system
testing. Figure 8 illustrates the process flow of the online
system testing.
C. System Testing Results
In general, our aim to develop a prototype of a Web Based
Student Attendance System was successful. The user-login
authentication process was successfully tested, which prevents
an unauthorized access into the system. Once a user is
successfully logged in, the user is given the access to the main
page that displays a menu listing a set of features offered to the
user. Figure 9 illustrates the Web Based Student Attendance
System login interface.
Figure 10 shows the system Web Based Student Attendance
System Users List page, viewable only by the system
administrator. On this Users List page, all users’ details are
displayed. In addition the administrator may choose to display
a list of users according to their role, namely administrator,
lecturer or student role. From the displayed list, the
administrator is allowed to add new users or to delete existing
users by clicking the delete or add user button. Figure 11 shows
a page displaying the student’s detailed information. This page
is called the Student Attendance System User details page. For
the similar feature, an administrator may view details of all
users, while a lecturer may only view details of users identified
as student. A particular student may only view details of their
own account. On such page, an administrator can edit details of
any user and a lecturer may edit details of a student but a
student is not allowed to do any modification to their data.
Figure 9: Web-Based Student Attendance System login menu
Figure 10: Attendance List menu
V. CONCLUSION
The developed Web-Based Student Attendance System
using Radio Frequency Identification technology will
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significantly improve the current manual process of student
attendance recording and tracking system, especially in a
university or school environment. The system promotes a semi-
automated approach in capturing the student attendance, i.e. by
having the students to flash their student cards to the RFID
reader.
Figure 11: Web Based Student Attendance System User details page
In addition, a number of other advantages are gained by
having an online web-based system, acting as a central
repository of student attendance record. Firstly all processes of
managing the student attendance record are performed online,
allowing administrators and lecturers to view or modify the
users’ data through any computer via the web browser, as long
as they are connected to the Internet. This way, no specific
software installation is required. The captured student
attendance data are also processed and analyze automatically
with less risk of data loss, compared to a manual filing
approach. Specific to lecturers or teachers, they can easily
monitor their students’ attendance online and this could
improve the quality of teaching since less time is needed to
manage the student attendance record. The developed system
can be improved and upgraded further, e.g. by extending the
system with new features and modules or by improving the
web-interface layout with new display style. Better yet the
system can be enhanced further to offer another significant
enhancement where the system can be extended to monitor
staff attendance record.
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