Computer-Based Test System With Fingerprint Authentication

As flexible and online learning mediated by ICT becomes more pervasive, there is a growing need for educators to consider modes of assessment using similar tools. Computer Based Test (CBT) is an effective solution for mass education evaluation. Though, a variety of e-assessment approaches and systems have been developed in recent times, yet lack of flexible timing functionality to automatically log-off candidates upon expiration of allotted time, result integrity comprise, stand-alone deployment, lack of flexibility, robustness and scalability as well as human error are major limitations of the existing platforms. In this paper, a computer based test system is developed to address these aforementioned drawbacks. The system is designed to facilitate the school test processes and manage challenges surrounding the conduct of examination, auto-submission, auto- marking and examination result report generation. The conceptual design including the Data Flow Diagram (DFD), the Use Cases and the Entity- Relationship Model (ERM) for the system developed is also presented. The programming tools used for the front-end development of the system are Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 integrated development environment while Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is used as the database backend.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

• • PROBLEM STATEMENT

• • AIM OF THE STUDY

• • SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

• • SCOPE OF THE STUDY

• • PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

• • LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

• • BENEFIT OF THE STUDY

• • PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• • REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS

• • ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEMS USED IN NIGERIA

• • ARCHITECTURE OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM

• • METHOD OF PREPARING THE QUESTIONS

• • EXAMS RESULT PRESENTATION/CHECKING

• • REVIEW OF BIOMETRIC

• • EXISTING FINGERPRINT BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS

• • BIOMETRIC PERFORMANCE TESTING STANDARDS

• • MOTIVATIONS FOR USING BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS

• • HUMAN IDENTITY AND BIOMETRICS

• • BASIC OPERATIONAL CONCEPTS BIOMETRIC SYSTEMS

• • MEASURES OF OPERATIONAL EFFICACY

• • BIOMETRIC MODALITIES

CHAPTER THREE

MATERIALS AND METHOD

• • DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE OF THE CBT SYSTEM

• • ACTIVITY DIAGRAM FOR THE CBT SYSTEM

• • DATA FLOW DIAGRAM (DFD) FOR THE CBT SYSTEM

• • USE CASES DIAGRAM FOR THE CBT SYSTEM

• • PROGRAMMING TOOLS FOR THE DEVELOPED CBT SYSTEM

• • PROPOSED SYSTEM ARCHTECTURE

• • IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

• • RESULT

• • DISCUSSION

CHAPTER FIVE

• • CONCLUSION

• • RECOMMENDATION

• • REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

            1.0                                                            INTRODUCTION

Formal school test can rightly be defined as the assessment of a person‘s performance, when confronted with a series of questions, problems, or tasks set him, in order to ascertain the amount of knowledge that he has acquired before examination, the extent to which he is able to utilize it, or the quality and effectiveness of the skills he has developed [1]. The formal method of assessment requires the examiners to submit a copy of their test/examination questions to their departments’ examination officer. This is where the questions are printed and given to the invigilators on the examination day to administer on students in the examination hall. Answers booklets may also be distributed to students on the examination day as the case may apply. Each student on conclusion of a test session is supposed to submit their answer booklets to the invigilators on duty. From the examination hall, the submitted answer booklets are returned to the examination officer. This is where the answers sheets are collected by the lecturers for marking. After marking the questions and each student score computed, the lecturer submits the computed scores to the department’s examination officer for further processing by the MIS (Management Information System) before the students are been allowed to check their results after academic board approval.

The paper and pencil method of writing examination or test, which has been in existence for years and one of which was described here may not be appealing for use because of the problems usually experienced, these includes, delay in the release of result, examination malpractices, high cost implication of printing examination materials and human errors. With the introduction of the first computers in the 1970s the potential of this new technology was not only for learning environment but also for the design and administration of assessment were quickly recognized [2].

Computer Based Testing (CBT) has become widespread in recent years. Some countries now use an online platform as the primary delivery mode for one or more computer-based tests for accountability purposes. CBT seems to have advantages over paper and pencil testing, both for organizations that run the assessment programs and for the students who use them. The CBT advocate have identified many positive merits of this approach of assessment which include efficiency administration, student preference, self- selection options for students, increased in authenticity and immediate score reporting and so on [3], [4].

This paper presents a Computer Based Assessment (CBA) client/server application which uses unique features of identification by means of fingerprint biometric system instead of manual method of verification using identity card.

1.1                                                             BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The paper and pen (manual) method of writing examination, which has been in existence for decades, may not be appealing for use because of the problems usually experienced including examination venue capacity constraints, lack of comfort for examination candidates, delay in the release of results, examination malpractices, cost implication of printing examination materials and human error. This brings about the need for automation of the examination system. Over the years, there have been various automated examination systems that have been developed with one or more limitations. Some of these limitations include lack of scalability, near-realibility, lack of robustness, lack of flexible timing functionality to automatically log-off candidates upon expiration of allotted time as a challenge (Ipaye, 2009); malpractice due to questions not randomly generated (Ayo et al, 2007); not well secured application domain in terms of data security and integrity (Levy & Ramim, 2007); most existing computer based test (CBT) systems are deployed as stand- alone applications that run on distributed networks making access to such applications restricted to the networked geographical domain and are only suited for the application environment only (Huszti & Petho, 2008). As such, no unified development model exists and this alone undermines the success of the e-examination platform for real-time adoption in practice. An online assessment however, is expected to offer several advantages for the institution and the learner. These include (Andrew et al, 2009):

1. 1. Time analysis of responses to the question level to better discriminate between candidates

1. 1. Including video in questions, particularly for scenarios in authentic

• • Adaptive testing, where the next question to be posed is determined by prior response(s).

• • Question banks and randomization of questions and response orders to reduce

1. 1. Automated analysis of results from entire candidate cohorts.

• • Immediate feedback can be

In this paper, a unified, scalable and flexible CBT system that addresses the aforementioned limitations of the some existing e-examination systems is developed. The conceptual design including the Data Flow Diagram (DFD), the Use Cases and the Entity-Relationship Model (ERM) for the system developed is also presented. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are the tools used for the development of the CBT system. The result of the user assessment survey of the CBT system conducted indicates that setting, conducting and grading examination as well as generating and managing results become highly time-efficient, less prone to human error, more secured and at the comfort of both the lecturers and the students; thus preferred over the existing platforms for conducting examination.

1.2                                                                    PROBLEM STATEMENT

Electronic examination has been highly interested and suitable in both educational and pedagogical aspects. School Examination or test is one of the best methods of evaluating the knowledge and ability of students. To this end, various methods has been employed in examining the ability of an individual, starting from manual means of using paper and pencil to electronic, from oral to written, practical to theoretical and many others.

The present information technology means of examining students is the use of electronic systems with security system (fingerprint) in place of manual or paper method which was characterized by massive examination leakages, impersonations, demand for gratification by teachers, bribe-taking by supervisors and invigilators of examinations.

1.3                                  AIM / OBJECTIVE OF THE PRTOJECT

This study deals with examined the impacts, associated challenges and security lapses of the existing electronic-examination system with the aim of ameliorating and developing a new acceptable educational testing system that takes care of the existing system’s challenges and security lapses. At the end of this work the objectives of the work will be acheived, students involved shall be able:

1. 1. To create a CBT application platform

1. 1. To create a biometric login platform for the registered candidates to take the exam

• • Provides interface for registration of Admin and users capturing finger-print

1. 1. Provides for Admin to upload/enter Subjects/ Exam questions/ answers

1. 1. Provides examination module and fingerprint authentication

1. 1. Provide any other enhancement to existing CBT systems in use for GC courses in UNN

1.4                                                             SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Employers used this device in conducting aptitude test for their job seekers through electronic means; the universities and other tertiary institutions are registering and conducting electronic examination for their students through the internet and other electronic and networking gadgets, various examination bodies in the country like the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO), National Board for Technical Education (NABTEB), National Teacher Institute (NTI) e.t.c. register their students through electronic means, recently electronic examination has been widely adopted by nearly all the Nigeria University for post Unified Tertiary and Matriculation Examination (Post-UTME) otherwise called pre-admission screening. With these aforementioned and many more educational bodies engaging in electronic examination and registration for testing the ability of their candidates, which determine the future of this great country and our dear youth, there is need for serious examination of the system which has great impacts on the populace.

1.5                                                                     SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The advancement in Information and Communication Technology has brought about a great revolution in the way most of our activities are being done in this era. Standard examinations and tests are now being conducted globally using the information technology tools. These examinations/tests are being referred to by several names, some of which are the Computer Based Tests (CBT), Computer Based Assessment (CBA), e-examinations, e- assessment and so on. The assessments carried out with these technologies have had its own several challenges in form of examination malpractices most especially impersonation. This paper presents a Computer Based Assessment (test) system which uses biometric fingerprint data capturing of students/candidates for assessment as a measure of preventing impersonation. The system was implemented on Visual Basic.Net platform, tested with a set of students in HND II Computer Science department of the Federal Polytechnic, Bida and the system was able to record zero percent impersonation among the selected students.

1.6                                                                  PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of any biometric device is to increase security. Therefore the main purpose of this work is to solve the problem of impersonations, demand for gratification by teachers, bribe-taking by supervisors and invigilators of during test.

1.7                                                               LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

1. 1. Security: Both existing biometric and non-biometric e-Examination system involved sending examination questions to the e-Exam centre from the department, where operator will then enter the questions into the system. The biometric system consists of picture box and fingerprint scanner that collect the biometric data of the candidates. But due to the transferring of the question involved, the security of the system is at risk and there is a need to take care of this by designing intranet and send the question through the internet in encrypting language while the questions will be decrypted at the opening of the questions to be answered by the candidates. With these operators at the centre will not be able to interfere with the questions but just to take care of candidate complains.

1. 1. Human interference: As long as human being is monitoring the e-Exams, it will certainly be influenced by the invigilator. There should be a data capturing and monitoring machine that can revealed the activities of the examinee during the e-Examination. Another area where human can interfere is the delay of the e-Exam result where examinee has to wait for more days to collect his results. The examinee should be able to check their result immediately after the e-Exam so as to prevent the human manipulation of result of whatever

• • Inadequate training for the students and Staff: Many candidates engaging the e-Exam do not understand the proper usage of computer system talk less of the system software. There should be adequate training and awareness for the students prior to the period of e-Examination. So also the staff should be well informed the issues concerning e-Examination.

1. 1. Complexity of Software: The software being used in most of the e-center is a little bit cumbersome. The interface of the software to be used should be highly friendly to increase the effectiveness of the system.

1.7                                              BENEFIT OF THE STUDY

E-exams simply the process by which examinations are delivered, taken and scored electronically. It entails questions being deployed onto computer workstations (intranet and internet) and candidates answering the questions on to the computer. The process of writing exams is thus completely paperless. It is sometimes referred to as CBT (Computer-based testing) or CBA (Computer-Based Assessment). This testing method is now being extensively used in many parts of the world today. The use of e-exam simplifies the entire testing cycle, including generation, execution, evaluation, presentation and archiving. This simplification saves time and money while improving reliability. Advocates for the e-exams models argue that it not time-consuming but rather time saving, (McCormack and Jones 1998, Ryan et al 2000) and identify these advantages:

1. 1. Time saving; as assessments can be created using software tools and adapted and reused as needed. They can be distributed and collected using a web-based system which saves development and distribution

1. 1. Reduces turnaround time; as the systems enables assessments to be corrected by computers. Reduces time further enables students to use the knowledge obtained from corrected assessments to address further assessments sooner.

• • Reduces resources needed by replacing human resources with computer

1. 1. Keeping records of results that can be stored centrally and assessed by interested parties, such as students and

1. 1. A key element in computer-based testing is that fewer people are required to supervise each examination. This will result in considerable cost savings. While the thought of a computer-based assessment or electronic assessment may intimidate those who are unfamiliar with a computer, electronic tests require only minimal computer knowledge and will offer a familiarity tutorial allowing the test-taker to get acquainted with how to move the mouse, answer questions and move through the test. With computer-based assessment comes the possibility of radically changing how assessments are implemented and improving the quality of the information they can yield.

1. 1. Increasing ease with which data can be used as corrected assignments corrected and stored electronically can be analyzed easier and the data can be used in spreadsheets and other statistical

• • Now-a- days institutes are organizing exams online. In this module a user can give online exam of a particular subject and get the results instantly through which the user can know his/her potential and how much more effort he/she needs to put in to get better marks. No time is spent on evaluation that means results are available

• • The best available physical and data security techniques to protect the integrity of our tests and to ensure that each candidate takes the exam in a controlled environment. We are proposing stringent security policies and procedures to protect the content of all examinations, ensure that candidate taking the test is the person he/she is supposed to be, ensure that the candidate takes the test unaided and maintain security of data concerning the candidate and the testing

1.8                                                         PROJECT ORGANISATION

The work is organized as follows: chapter one discuses the introductory part of the work, chapter two presents the literature review of the study, chapter three describes the methods applied, chapter four discusses the results of the work, chapter five summarizes the research outcomes and the recommendations.