Publication Details
Abstract
Manual attendance taking in higher‑education classrooms routinely consumes several minutes per session and is prone to omission errors. This paper presents the design and implementation of an end‑to‑end, RFID‑enabled student tracking and attendance system that integrates low‑cost hardware (MFRC522 RFID reader, Arduino Uno, ESP8266‑01 Wi‑Fi module) with a cloud‑connected backend (Node.js/Express and MongoDB). The proposed architecture authenticates students via contactless smart cards at entry points, validates authorization policies, and records timestamped events to a secure database. We detail the hardware interfacing, firmware, and RESTful data pipeline; define the data model; and describe a deployment blueprint for lecture halls and laboratories. A pilot evaluation plan is included to quantify end‑to‑end latency, read reliability under varied orientations and ranges, and operational time savings relative to roll‑call baselines. Ethical and privacy safeguards (least‑privilege access, anonymization of exports, and encrypted transport) are discussed. The work contributes a reproducible reference implementation and practical guidance for universities seeking to digitize attendance management with modest budgets.