A Comparative Study of RFID Technology Measuring Efficiency and Acceptance when Capturing Attendance

Abstract

The use of Barcodes and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has become a ubiquitous means of inventory and asset tracking. When considering the application of monitoring people in an enclosed environment, for example in a classroom or an examination setting, previously employed RFID-enabled solutions have yielded high costs and poor user acceptance. Previous studies have also shown that an important factor which has impacted adoption is privacy issues surrounding Ultra High Frequency (UHF) systems. In this paper, we compare attendance recording techniques and technologies to determine the optimum method focusing on the price, efficiency and user acceptance. The three approaches we have examined include manual recording, barcode scanning and Low-Frequency RFID capturing over a fixed period conducted as a technology integration pilot study. From our initial results, we have found that a low cost RFID reader and tags approach is most favoured for user acceptance, drastically reduced the recording time compared to manual methods and is comparative to the cost of barcode systems.