In this article, you can learn how to use the Attendance tool to track student attendance in Brightspace.
This article covers the following topics:
Attendance-tool
With the Attendance tool, you can keep track of who was present at each session. This allows you to quickly see what percentage of classes a student has attended and identify which students have not attended frequently enough
- Click Course Admin in the navigation bar of your course.
- Click Attendance under Learner Management.
Setting up an Attendance Scheme
You track attendance in a Register. Before you can create a register, you need to set up an Attendance Scheme. A scheme defines the options available for recording attendance. For example, you can set it up so that students are not only marked as present or absent, but also as absent with a valid reason or as having left the class early.
- Click on Attendance Schemes. You will see that the System Scheme is the default attendance scheme. Note: You can choose a different scheme than the default by clicking Set next to the desired scheme.
- Click on New Scheme.
If a scheme is already being used in one or more registers, an information icon will appear next to the scheme's name. Click on this icon to see which registers are using the scheme.
- Enter the name of the attendance scheme.
- Choose an abbreviation/symbol for each status. This is what you will use when recording attendance.
- Under Status Full Name, enter what each status means (for example: present, absent, or absent with a valid reason).
- Under Assigned %, specify the percentage value that each status counts for.
- Optionally, add more status options: enter the desired number and click Add Statuses.
- Click Save to save the attendance scheme, and click Close to return to the overview.
Setting up an Attendance Register
To record student attendance, you need to create an Attendance Register. This is where you keep track of attendance.
Do you want to track attendance for multiple course sessions or separately for each group within your course? In that case, you can create multiple registers.
- Navigate to Attendance Registers. (Course Tools > Course Admin > Attendance)
- Click on New Register.
- Enter the name and description.
- Select the Attendance Scheme to be used for this register from the dropdown menu.
- Under Cause for Concern, specify the minimum percentage of sessions the student must attend.
- Under Visibility, select whether students are allowed to view their recorded attendance.
- Under Users, choose whether you want to track the attendance of all students (Include all users in the course) or only those in a specific group (Include all users in the following groups/sections). If you choose a specific group, click Add Groups/Sections and select the group for which you want to track attendance. This way, you can keep multiple registers within a single course, for example, for different working groups or instructors.
- Under Sessions, specify for which sessions you want to track attendance. Enter the name, description, and order of each session.
- Optionally, add more sessions: enter the desired number and click Add Sessions.
- Click Save to save your register..
If you change the settings of a register (for example, if you modify the scheme being used), all entered attendance data will be lost. Make sure all your settings are correct before the course starts.
Recording Attendance
You record the attendance of participants in your course for each session using the symbols you set up in the Attendance Scheme.
- Navigate to Course Admin in the navigation bar of your course.
- Click on Attendance under Learner Management. You will land on the overview of your attendance registers.
- Click on the Register where you want to record attendance.
- Under Sessions, you will see the sessions for which you can record attendance. After entering the data, you can see the status of each student for every session.
- Under Total, you will see how many times a student has achieved a specific status (present, absent, etc.).
- Under Attendance, you will see the score for each student. If a student is below the set minimum percentage, the value will be highlighted in red and a warning triangle will appear.
- Click on the calendar icon next to a session to enter the attendance for each student for that session.
- Select the attendance status for each student from the dropdown menu. You can choose from any option set in the Attendance Scheme.
- You can mark multiple students as present or absent at the same time. Check the students in question and click Set Status to mark the selected students.
- Click on the question mark next to Attendance Status to view a reminder of what the set symbols mean.
- Click Save to save the changes and click Close to return to the overview.
Making Attendance Visible to Students
- Click the arrow next to the name of your attendance list.
- Click Make Visible to Users.
- Select all the lists you want to make visible.
- Click on More actions.
- Click Make Visible to Users.
It is also possible to make multiple lists visible at the same time
Exporting Attendance Lists
- Navigate to your list by clicking on the name.
- Then, click on Export All Data. A new screen will appear where you can download your list.
