Student Attendance System

1. Student Attendance System Design Document Group #1

2. Background Customer: • Miami Dade College • 6 Campuses and Multiple outreach centers • Largest College in the US (> 160,000 Students per year) Problem: • New Federal Government regulations regarding the disbursement of Financial Aid funds

3. Objectives • Provide a system that allows the college to meet federal financial aid requirements • Allow for the electronic collection of student attendance data without direct instructor intervention • Make the collected data available to both Staff and Students • Leverage the College’s existing technology investments

4. Target Technology Environment • Microsoft Windows 2000/2003 Platform • .NET Framework • Internet Information Server (IIS) (ASP.NET) • Web interface for students / faculty • College ID Card (Magstripe) • Ethernet & TCP/IP for connectivity

5. The Customer’s Expectation

6. Hardware Selection • Approx 800 Classrooms (some with 2 readers) • Total 1,000 Check-In Terminals • Very small off-the-shelf market • Closest Vertical Market is Employee Time & Attendance • T&A has several key differences

7. Hardware Selection • Typical hardware architecture found in T&A was 1 of 2 types. • Network Attached Smart Devices (~$1000/unit) • Network Attached Smart Controllers (~$12,000/20 units = $600/unit) • Price point of both approaches was very high.

8. Hardware Selection • Existing solutions would cost between $1,000,000 - $600,000 for hardware alone. • Needed to reduce hardware cost. • Build on success of smart controllers and consolidate processing. • Selected “dumb” Readers ($100) and Network attached Terminal Servers ($1200/32 readers) = $140/Unit = $140,000

9. Hardware Selection • Digi PortServer TS • IBC SmartMag J

10. Software Design Considerations • High Data Volume / Data-Driven Application • Performance Expectations/Requirements and Scalability • Interaction with existing systems at the database level • Initial Attempts at a Pure OO design were inefficient and offered sub-optimal performance • Final design focuses on a three-tier approach allowing data-tier to be implemented by off-the-shelf components. • New model offers needed performance at the expense of OO model at the data layer

12. Data Layer

13. Data Layer • PersistentDataStore • Microsoft SQL Server 2000 • ADO.Net • DirectorySecurity • Microsoft Active Directory 2003 • ADSI / System.DirectoryServices

14. Business Layer

15. Business Layer • Divided into three subsystems by functionality • CollegeData • Responsible for providing read-only access to required College data. • AttendanceData • Responsible for the management of attendance data collected by the system • ReaderConfiguration • Responsible for the management of

16. CollegeData SubSystem

17. AttendanceHistory Subsystem

18. ReaderConfiguration Subsystem

19. Presentation Layer

20. User Web Portals • The Student Attendance System provides users access via four role focused portals: • Student Portal • Faculty Portal • Financial Aid Administrative Portal • Administrative Portal • Each portal is focused on the needs of the particular user

21. Presentation LayerStudent Web Portal

27. Presentation LayerFaculty Web Portal

34. Presentation LayerFinancial Aid Administrative Web Portal

38. Presentation LayerAdministrative Web Portal

44. Deployment

45. The Customer’s Expectation

46. Deployment Diagram

47. Student Attendance System Thank You