DEVELOPMENT OF A BIOMETRIC CAPTURING SYSTEM FOR PREVENTING IMPERSONATION IN EXAMINATIONS IN TERTIARY INSTITUTIONS IN AKWA IBOM STATE

Abstract

The focus of this work was to develop a biometric capture system for the enrollment, and verification of the candidates into the examination hall. The study comprised two stages: the fabrication of the biometric device and the development of the biometric application software to drive the fabricated biometric device. The list of software components comprised the Windows Operating System, MySQL, a database for storing captured data concerning the students, PHP programming Language, and so on for the development of software applications used in driving the fabricated biometric capturing system. The population of the study comprises all the one hundred and twenty (120) academic staff and eight hundred and ninety-six (896)  students of 200 level from the Vocational Education, Library and Information Science, University of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. The sample size was 908, made up of 12 academic staff of vocational education, library and (896) students of 200 level of Information Science, eight hundred and ninety-six based on ICT proficiency. A 15-item questionnaire titled “Perception Reliability Indices of the designed Biometric System Test Questionnaire “(PRBSTQ) was used. The instrument was validated by three experts in the Faculty of Education, University of Uyo and the reliability of the two instruments was established using perception reliability and descriptive statistic respectively. The perception reliability indices were analysed using mean and standard deviation. Items with a mean score of 3.50 and above were considered agreeable, while those with a mean value of less than 3.49 were rejected based on the rating of items on the decision rule. Findings reveal that the development of a Biometric capturing system for the prevention of examination impersonation was reliable. As such the perception reliability indices of the development of the biometric capturing system for prevention should be highly considered during examination checking. Findings also showed that lecturers' and experts’ responses towards using the developed biometric capturing system to prevent examination impersonation were strongly agreed and agreed, as determined by the responses provided by respondents to the Perception Reliability Indices of the designed Biometric System Test Questionnaire (PBSRTQ). It was suggested, based on the findings, that this biometric technology be adopted by universities and other educational system stakeholders in Nigeria to check for impersonation during exams. To accomplish this, the university should look for a biometric capture system with a strong user interface for enrollment and examination candidate verification.