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Attendance Activity

  • Article Updated:

The Attendance Activity is designed for instructors to take attendance during class or discussion sections. It can also be set up to allow students to take their own attendance. Attendance can be graded and displayed in the gradebook. There are three steps to set up Attendance: 

  1. Add the Attendance Activity
  2. Set the Attendance Preferences
  3. Create the Attendance Sessions 

 

Here's how to add the attendance activity to your course page: 

  1. Log in to GauchoSpace, enter your course site, and Turn editing on.
  2. Select the week/section block in which you would like the activity. Then, click +Add an activity or resource.
  3. Click Attendance.

    add_att.png

  4. Enter a name and optional description for the Attendance activity (for example, Lecture Attendance). 

    Editing_Attendance_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-19_11.11.31.png

  5. In the subsection Grade, specify the total point value for the activity.
      • Regardless of the number of sessions created, the maximum point value for this activity will be the Maximum grade listed. Attendance points for individual sessions may be scaled up or down based on the the Maximum grade.

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  6. The Common module settings allows you to have different attendances sessions for different groups
      • For example, different discussion sections in a large lecture course.
      • If you have different sessions for different groups, set Group mode to "Separate groups" and select the appropriate Grouping. 

        Editing_Attendance_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-19_10.43.03.png
  7. Click Save and display.

The Attendance activity allows for settings to be established that will cover all of the sessions within the activity. Here's how to view and update them: 

  1. Enter the Attendance activity. There are a series of tabs which control different aspects of the activity

    ATNDCETEST__Attendance_documentation_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-20_09.51.02.png

  2. Click the Status set tab. Here, you customize attendance statuses and point values. The default attendance statuses are Present, Late, Excused, and Absent.
      • To add a new status, type in an acronym, description, and point value. Then, click Add.
      • In the "Points" column, you can update the point value for each status.
      • In the "Available for students" column, you can specify how long after a particular session starts you wish to allow students to record a particular status.
        • If you leave these columns empty, that status will be available for the entire duration of the session.
        • If you set this column to 0, the status will not be available at all.
      • For example, if you specify 15 in the column for Present status, students will only be able to record themselves as "present" for the first 15 minutes of the session. After, this status will no longer be available.
      • In the "Automatically set when not marked" tab, you can choose which status to assign to students who do not have an attendance mark present. This is a useful way to automatically mark any student Absent who did not submit attendance for a particular session. Note, this also requires you to select  = "Automatic Marking" when creating new sessions. See the section "How to setup Automatic Marking" on this page for more information. 
      • Be sure to click Update to save your changes.

        ATNDCETEST__Attendance_documentation_-_Settings_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-20_10.45.19.png

  3. In the Status Set tab, you can also select the drop the lowest number of sessions for the activity. 
    • Click on the down menu to select how many sessions you would like to drop.
    • Students will not see a grade for attendance in the gradebook until after the number of dropped session has passed.

      GTS_2__Attendance_-_Settings_-_Google_Chrome_2019-10-29_14.03.53.png
  4. The Report tab will display data for students and the sessions.
  5. The Export tab allows you to export data including information on groups, students and session data.

Individual class meetings are referred to as sessions within the Attendance activity. It is not necessary to create multiple Attendance activities for each class meeting. Rather, you will create multiple sessions under one Attendance activity. Here's how to create a session: 

  1.  Within the Attendance activity, click the Add session tab.

    ATNDCETEST__Attendance_documentation_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-20_09.53.08.png

  2. Select the session date, start time, and end time. If you selected Group Mode = "Separate Groups" when adding the Attendance activity, you will also need to select the Group(s) these sessions apply to. 
  3. In the Multiple Session subsection, you can set up reoccurring sessions. Check the boxes for which days of the week to repeat the sessions Set a date for the session to repeat until under the Repeat until setting.

     ATNDCETEST__Attendance_documentation_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-19_10.34.19.png

  4. In the Student recording subsection, select if you wish to allow students to mark their own attendance. See the section "How to Allow Students to Mark their Own Attendance" on this page for more information. 
  5. Click Add.

If your students are not recording attendance by themselves, you must take attendance manually. Here's how to take attendance manually:  

  1. Open the Attendance activity and ensure you on the Sessions tab.

  2. You will see a full list of sessions. Click the green dot next to the session you would like to take attendance for.

    ATNDCETEST__Attendance_6_14_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-20_11.58.52.png

  3. Record attendance for each student by selecting the corresponding option next to their entry. You can also enter comments in the Remarks column or select the column status header to apply that status to all students on the page (For example, if you select "P", it will mark all students with that status).

    Gus_Sandbox_Site__Attendance_Live_-_Google_Chrome_2019-06-21_11.24.11.png

  4. Once attendance has been recorded, click Save attendance. 

You can allow students to record their own attendance and optionally require a password that can be communicated in class. Here's how to enable students to record their own attendance: 

  1. On the Add Session tab, under the Student Recording subsection, check the box Allow students to record own attendance.



  2. ​Here, you can set the box to require a Student password.

  3. Check the boxes with "Random Password" and "include QR code" to set up password protection for recording student attendance. You can also specify your own password if you wish but we would recommend simply going with a random password as there may be multiple sessions and it is advisable not to recycle the same password for each session.

    student_mark_expanded.png

  4. ​While in class, navigate to the Attendance activity. Click the "key" symbol next to the active session. This will show you the password and the QR code on the page. Please display this page to your students to allow them to record their attendance.

If enabled, automatic marking sets the status of any student who did enter their attendance for a particular session. Most commonly, this is the Absent status. 

  1. On the Add Session tab, under the Student Recording subsection, change Automatic Marking to "Enabled (See Status Set Tab)." 

    Auto-marking.png

  2. On the Status Set tab, designate what status to give students when they are not marked. In the column Automatically set when not marked, mark the appropriate attendance status.

  3. Commonly this is set to the Absent status so that if students do not mark themselves they are automatically marked as absent.

    Status_set_automatic_marking.png

 

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