Development of a Digital Exam Hall Management System with QR Code-Based Seating Verification for a Nigerian University

Examination malpractice and seat-mix fraud at Nigerian universities undermine academic integrity and the validity of academic credentials. This project developed a digital examination hall management system with QR code-based seating verification for a department-scale deployment at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, North West Nigeria. A PHP and MySQL web application allowed the academic office to upload candidate lists, auto-generate seating plans, and produce unique QR codes linked to each student's exam seat assignment. QR codes were printed on exam cards and also sent digitally to student email addresses. At the hall entrance, an Android app using the ZXing library scanned QR codes on students' exam cards and cross-referenced the seating database to confirm identity and seat assignment in real time. Unauthorised entry attempts (wrong exam, duplicate scan) triggered an audio alert and were logged with a timestamp. The system was piloted across five examination sessions covering 1,200 students. Seating verification throughput was 28 students per minute per scanning station. Identity mismatch detection accuracy was 100 percent for deliberate swap test cases. Student check-in completion rate was 99.3 percent. Staff rated the system's operational simplicity at 4.4 out of 5. The study recommends integrating NFC-based student ID cards as a backup to QR code scanning to improve performance in low-light examination environments and expanding to multi-venue examination coordination.

Keywords: examination management, QR code verification, academic integrity, Ahmadu Bello University, North West Nigeria