Attendance — An unavoidable part of College

Could it be better?

Attendance systems are, whether you hate it or love it, part of the college experience. Students are more likely to succeed in academics when they attend class consistently. It’s difficult for the professor and the class to build their skills and progress if a large number of students are frequently absent.

Absenteeism negatively impacts a student’s academic performance. Students with poor attendance are more likely to receive poor grades. Most faculty members concede that regular class attendance helps the student learn and improve academic outcomes. Truant students relationship with the faculty is a critical factor that affects attendance.

In today’s competitive environment, with increasing working hours and less classroom time, professors need tools that help them manage precious class time efficiently. Instead of focusing on teaching, professors are often stick with completing administrative duties, of which the most time consuming is conducting attendance every lecture.

Manually taking attendance and marking it in registers, maintaining the register and carrying it along is a tiresome task every faculty member has to go through day in and day out. It’s a mundane task for the lecturers and unnecessarily consumes classroom time. A register maintained is prone to various manual errors as well as manipulation. Though tech has evolved tremendously we are still using redundant methods of marking attendance which results in proxy attendance, errors such as incorrectly marking attendance & manipulation the attendance record which can be avoided using fairly modern tech.

Tools to automate attendance

There are various tools for automating the attendance process and schools can choose a system that suits their requirements the best. Additionally, it helps to maintain accurate records and generate summarized student attendance reports.

RFID

New tech being used to automate attendance is Radio Frequency Identification(RFID). Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) utilizes wireless non-contact use of radiofrequency waves to transfer data. Tagging items with RFID tags allows users to automatically and uniquely identify and track inventory and assets. RFID tags are frequently used for merchandise, but they can also be used to track vehicles, pets, and even patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

It uses a very simple mechanism that marks the attendance of the entire class within seconds. Each student is given a smart card having a unique identification number.

At the entrance of the school or classroom, an RFID reader is installed. Students carrying their smart cards simply have to pass through the reader and the reader scans their unique identification number and the attendance is marked automatically. Since the RFID reader is capable of reading several cards at once, the attendance of multiple students is marked simultaneously.

The data from the RFID reader is automatically fetched by the integrated ERP. Therefore the institution captures the attendance details of every class and section at once.

Bio-metric Scanners

Another useful method that saves efforts, as well as time, is the bio-metric system. The fingerprint of each student is saved in a bio-metric system which is integrated with an ERP. The students just need to scan their finger on the bio-metric scanner installed outside the class room and their attendance is tracked.

Since a bio-metric system works on fingerprints, which are unique for every individual, there are lesser chances of false or proxy attendance. This makes the bio-metric system quite accurate and highly reliable.

As with the RFID system, the data from the bio-metric is also fetched by the ERP and hence can be accessed, viewed, and managed by the college administrators in real-time.

Mobile App based Attendance

School apps not only connect parents and professors but can also be used to manage attendance. A school app is a great way to reduce a professor’s hassles because of the following reasons.

Firstly, a professor can mark attendance in less than a minute with an app.

Secondly, parents can directly send in the leave applications through the school app. The students who are on leave appear as ‘on-leave’ in the app while marking attendance and the professor does not have to think twice about that student. This largely reduces a professor’s time and effort.

Thirdly, an auto-triggered message or app push notification can be sent via the app to inform parents about the student’s absence in class. This further ensures that each student is safe and secure.

The objective of the student attendance management system is to reduce the time that is consumed when attendance is taken manually. Unlike an analog method of conducting attendance, an online system easily helps administration analyze student’s attendance details as they see fit. A detailed summary of student attendance can be obtained in an instant.

But why do we need to automate attendance management at our institutions?

Time Management

A school, college or university can save up to thousands of rupees monthly by automating student attendance. If a professor has 7 lectures a day and requires 10 minutes to mark attendance for each lecture then nearly 70 minutes are consumed in marking attendance. If there are 50 professors in the institution then each day 58 hours are required for the dull task of marking attendance.

The 58 hours can easily be reduced to 1 hour, and the considerable amount of professors’ time saved can be utilized towards improving student outcomes. This time can be utilized by the faculty by going in-depth about the topic they are teaching. More time could be given on the topics which are hard to grasp. Professors can have a problem-solving session for the students. More time could be given to the student who is facing challenges in the subject. Time saved could be used to make a lecture more interactive so that more students get involved in the classroom.

Improved Accuracy

If attendance is automated, you can be sure that the data is accurate and error-free. Once attendance is marked, the captured data gets stored in the database, from where anyone having authorized access can view attendance details. This feature is especially useful to identify student whereabouts. With the stored data college administration could look into the data and analyze the trend, for example, if the students are frequently bunking a common professor’s lecture, that could mean that the professor is not performing well or not engaging enough. If the student is constantly absent from the lectures, appropriate action can be taken against him/her. Individual attention could be given to a student which furthermore help universities improve student performance.

Enhanced Security

The attendance data captured by the app, biometric or RFID device is stored in the attendance management system, which ensures zero data manipulation as the data stored can be accessed only by the person authorized to the database. Once the data is stored, anyone without specific access cannot manipulate it.

In India, there are a plethora of educational institutions who’ve got hundreds of lakhs of students enrolled. Educationists are always looking for ways to manage and efficiently take care of various activities related to their institutions. This is where college ERP system steps in which can help take care of intricate and other essential functions needed to run an educational institution like a well-oiled machine. The data stored in the ERP is protected by multiple layers of security along with strong encryption, making it immune to a data security breach and potential threats.

Furthermore, you can trigger automated SMS, Email or App notifications to parents or guardians, informing them about the presence or absence of their ward. Notifying parents ensures that all the stakeholders are well informed and aware of the student’s whereabouts.

In a student’s life, punctuality & attendance play a role in molding internal discipline and consistency. The more a student invests in lectures, the more she/he will gain knowledge. However, times have changed, bunking classes is considered to be a hallmark of “coolness” among students. On one hand, where we are talking about technological advancements, some colleges still follow the traditional means of attendance that requires the faculty to note down the attendance manually on a register. However, such an old-school methodology of working might not be efficient in today’s fast-paced era.

Therefore, it is a wiser decision for colleges to switch to more modern systems to optimize administration and focus on educating. Automating & organizing the entire attendance system can prove to be a quick fix as it gives ease of use while maintaining its reliability. Students in India can only compete with the other students around the world when the colleges they are into have standards that can be compared to colleges around the world. With the advancement in technology, colleges need to advance in the technological aspect so that they are not left behind from colleges around the world.

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