Design and Implementation of a Heterogeneous Distributed Database System for Students Absence Automation Using Portable Devices

Abstract

Student absence declaration is one of the basic processes that occur on a daily basis in faculties, often relying on paper forms, which is inefficient when the faculty administration wants to gather absences from multiple departments (sites) and calculate the absence rates for the faculty. In response to these challenges, a heterogeneous distributed database system was designed for a faculty to declare and automate student absences using smartphones or laptops, as well as send absences in real time from inside lecture halls or laboratories in departments to the faculty administration to generate absence reports. The system employed a client-server model to deliver services through the local area network (LAN) and the internet to the various departments and the college administration. MSSQL database tables were designed and fragmented across faculty sites using horizontal fragmentation technology, then encrypted with the AES265 algorithm. The proposed system also involved the use of private SQLite or MSSQL databases for the lecture’s Android or Windows devices, respectively. Faculty administration staff, on the other hand, used a secure website built with ASP.NET to access the MySQL database server, which contains the absence table that was populated from all sites. The system was protected against false absence declarations by utilizing the local server’s timing factor, which allowed the lecturer to only declare absences on specific days and times. The experimental results showed high reliability and accuracy of the system and high satisfaction among the users about achieving the desired goals. The findings demonstrated a strong preference for the system among the lecturers over other systems that relied on student devices, biometric devices, and AI-based ones, while the faculty’s administration staff preferred automatic absence collection by the distributed design of the system over manual collection