BENGALURU: Bunking lectures and getting away with proxy attendance will now be a thing of past in colleges in the city. Pioneering the move with the aid of technological advancements is MVJ College of Engineering (MVJCE), which would implement a new Bluetooth Attendance Tracking System, a student innovation from their own campus.
Vice-Principal and professor of Electronics and Communication M. Brindha told Deccan Chronicle that the system would replace the current biometric attendance system, if the current testing session provides positive results. "The new system will be implemented from the beginning of the next academic year (2018-19) as it saves time and energy for students and teachers together," Brindha added.
The system works from an app developed by a group of four students - Gautam D. Hariharan and Narein Rao (both from Computer Science department), Akhilesh Sridhar (Electronics) and Jason Joy Manoj (Industrial).
The app makes it possible to monitor attendance from signals produced from the bluetooth-enabled chip embedded in each student ID card. "Teachers can then take a headcount of students in class to ensure that no student has carried another card to help his/her classmate get proxy attendance. The app can also be connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) smart classroom board and with WiFi the live attendance data can be transferred to the online records stored in the cloud making the entire process fast and error-free," explained Gautam.
Ask the students whether they believe in mandatory attendance system and their outright reply is 'no'. Numerous instances of many trying to fudge the biometric system and getting away with proxy markings have led to this, they said. The team of budding engineers is hopeful that the innovation gets acknowledged at the varsity level as well in near future.
