Biometric applications in education

Abstract

Educational institutions are acquiring novel technologies to help make their processes more efficient and services more attractive for both students and faculty. Biometric technology is one such example that has been implemented in educational institutions with excellent results. In addition to identifying students, access control, and personal data management, it has critical applications to improve the academic domain's teaching/learning processes. Identity management system, class attendance, e-evaluation, security, student motivations, and learning analytics are areas in which biometric technology is most heavily employed. A literature review is performed to present an overview of biometric technology applications for educational purposes, challenges that must overcome to implement biometric technology, and potentially foreshadowing trends effectively. The future seems promising for biometric technology; the biometric technology market is expected to reach a value of USD 94 billion by 2025 at a compound annual growth rate of 36%. New characteristics are under development for commercial applications, such as vascular pattern recognition, ear shape recognition, facial thermography, odor sensing, gait recognition, heartbeat authentication, brain waves, and human body bioacoustics. The biggest challenge this technology must overcome is security and privacy issues, which must be addressed to fully develop the technology to its full potential. It is desirable that this literature review can provide researchers with a sound vision of the potential that biometric technology will have in education.