Attendance

Track student attendance and use attendance as part of calculating grades.

The Attendance tool can assist in the following ways:

To track attendance data and use as part of a students' overall grade.
To record attendance for International students who may need to meet attendance requirements for their visa.
To prove “seat time” for federal funding or accreditation.
To focus on student retention.

For each class meeting, you can mark whether a student is present, late, absent, or excused. The attendance records for each student appear in a single column next to other grades.

You can use attendance as part of calculating grades just as you can for an assignment grade column.

Related weblinks

Blackboard Help: Attendance

Using the Attendance Tool in Interact2

The attendance tool can be quickly and easily turned on within every Interact2 subject site at CSU – including on campus subjects. It is by default ‘turned off’ within Interact2. Please note there are a few considerations to note which follow on from these simple instructions.

To turn on Attendance in your subject’s Interact2 site:

When logged in as an instructor or subject coordinator, find the ‘Subject management’ menu on the left hand side of your subject and select ‘Subject Tools.’
Click on the ‘Add Attendance’ Option.
Each time you take attendance is called a ‘Meeting.’ You will then be able to select present/late/absent via verbal roll call within your class. This column will be called ‘Today’ however it easy to edit the name of the column to a date format. Simply click on the ‘Today’ column label, and then select ‘Edit Meeting.’ Ignore the points/percentage allocation of attendance which is on the right hand side of the attendance roll when you first set up this tool – see below for information about ensuring accuracy of subject grading once Attendance is turned on.

Taking the Attendance in subsequent classes:

At the start of each class, Access the Attendance tool in the same way: Simply select ‘Subject Management’ in the left-hand administration menu, then Attendance. Complete your verbal roll call. Again, you will see the
default name is set to ‘Today.’ This can be edited as per the above method. Note that you can:

Enter attendance data retrospectively- simply add a new attendance and edit the name of the meeting to a desired previous date.
Scroll across using the arrows to see attendance on different dates.
Access the ‘Overall’ attendance by clicking the ‘Overall’ button on the right-hand side of the attendance screen.

IMPORTANT Notes:

Once the attendance tool is turned on, it cannot be turned off.
Always access the Attendance Tool through ‘Subject management>Attendance’.
The use of the Attendance Tool generates a Grade Centre Column. Within the ‘Full Grade Centre’ of the subject site you will need to double check that the value of this ‘Attendance’ column’s contribution to the subject’s cumulative total is ‘zero’ so that there is no impact on the calculated value of the other assessment tasks. Once this is confirmed it is suggested that ‘hiding’ the attendance grade centre column from your instructor view within grade centre will avoid further confusion.
Once turned on, it prevents merging of subject sites (i.e. like any change to assessment/subject outline items).

This video demonstrates how to add and use the Attendance Tool in your Interact2 subject site.