There are many methods to track the attendance of an individual. A few years ago, when Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) electronics were still at their adolescence stages, the time stamping technique was greatly followed. As software programming and technology progressed, especially in electronics, they gave way to a much more secure and reliable arrangement known as RFID Attendance System.
Most educational institutions still utilize the traditional paper method to mark attendance. This is both paper and time-consuming. By utilizing RFID Systems in the daily activities of students, data can be well organized and recorded.
The RFID method has enormous benefits. With it maintaining daily attendance on Excel sheets could be avoided, labor can be reduced, and the monthly attendance record of staff and students can be assembled in a single place and format.
RFID is being used actively in retail, healthcare, and other sectors to monitor workers. Since the workers in these sectors are large in number, hard to handle and their work can be performed by others in case of absenteeism; there the attendance mechanism is of trivial significance.
In the case of educational institutions, where monitoring students’ regularity is of utmost importance, this attendance management system comes in handy but with some minor drawbacks and pitfalls.
RFID card-based time attendance system was an abstract concept that craved path to biometric fingerprint systems. The latter is a topic of discussion for another day; this article elaborated on how the former can be implemented in educational institutions to monitor and track students, teachers, and staff whereabouts, their absenteeism, and regularity.
A rectangular Plastic Card sometimes called Tag, and Reader devices are part and parcel of the RFID machine. The card serves as an identity mark of an individual and contains essential identification data of a person. The Tag is incorporated with a chip that stores a unique serial number – EPC – Electronic Product Code. Every individual is issued a card with a different unique code.
The reader is the brains of the RFID Attendance System as it stores data of every person in the organization and only records people’s attendance, for a respective day, when the Smart Card is displayed or put under it. This is a wireless system that can be integrated with SMS notifications too.
EduSys cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software is programmed with 21st-century codes to take in and track attendance, and datasheets in any format. Attendance Management is one of the many modules in the application.
The application can be integrated with any RFID and Biometric Systems. From managing staff data to tracking school buses, everything and anything can be performed online simply on EduSys.
RFID Attendance System includes hardware and software. Generally, the hardware, Biometric Fingerprint & RFID ID card reader cost between 40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to40to200 (India: Rs.2,800 to 14,000) and RFID Walk Through Attendance Gate costs between 300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to300to1200 (India: Rs.21,000 - 84,000). And software costs 5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto5/yearto100/year per user or student.
Plan (Months) |
Average Cost |
3 |
$ 90 - 100 |
6 |
$ 104 - 110 |
9 |
$ 106 - 110 |
12 |
$ 106 - 113 |
Note: The cost of the Card is excluded from the cost of the system.