Make Attendance Visible to Students

[judyk]

  This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

I would like for the attendance to be visible to the students in their grades. If students are being graded on attendance, I believe it is important that we as instructors are able to effectively communicate this to the students.

  Comments from Instructure

For more information, please read through the Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-09-17)

This feature release has been delayed and will not be available in production on September 17. An updated release date will be made available soon.

[molly]

Please, please, please add this function! Students need to be able to clearly see how many time they have been late or absent. Using the percentage is extremely unclear.

[judyk]

 @molly ​ thank you for commenting on this! Make sure you go vote on July 1! If we don't get enough votes, we really don't have a chance at this being a priority right now

[lesley_cryderma]

Considering that Canvas has traditionally been all about providing more information to the student, rather than less, I'm surprised that this is not already available for students.

If we are holding students accountable for attendance, then it only makes sense that they should be able to see how they are doing.  Just looking at their current score via the Attendance feature, does not provide any worthwhile information to the student.  They are not going to understand that it is based on how many times the class has met, etc.

They should have access to their own report, including lates or any other "badges" an instructor chooses to use, as well as to see the dates that they missed, etc.

Big thumbs UP vote on this request.  Most of our instructors choose NOT to use this feature because they find it easier to keep track of attendance on paper.  The only reason they consider switching to it is the desire to provide the students a view of their attendance online.

[mbmattes]

This was actually something that really frustrated me when I started using Canvas last semester. I just wanted Canvas to create a column that would show the number of absences a student has. Failing that, a number of times the student was present. That info is available to me via a mouseover on their name in the list, but that's a clumsy way to do things. I really hope this is added.

[dianepbh]

When this becomes a feature, it should has the option to have ZERO points. Attendance, while an important data point, cannot be included in grades in our schools.

[kona]

 @dianepbh , I totally agree about the option to be worth zero points, but technically you can already do this. Most of our faculty do one of the following: (1) change Roll Call Attendance to "not graded," (2) make it worth zero points, or (3) put it in a 0% assignment group. What each of these does is make sure Roll Call Attendance doesn't count toward the final course grade.

[kerry_gonzales]

I teach college. Students should be responsible adults. Coming from a graphic design background, I expect my students to view punctuality as part of the job, not as Brownie points. They are either on time (and ready to go, not just walking in), late or absent.

Nor do I use a percentage as part of attendance. I grade on the college standard of those meeting two class periods per week.

3 lates = 1 Absence

6 absences = E (Failing grade

I can guarantee students, being able to track their own attendance, would make an effort to be in their seats, and ready to go when the class begins!

[jherron]

I'm surprised this hasn't received more votes yet. Allowing students to see attendance data would be much more efficient for students and faculty, and it can help an instructor keep accurate records when a student notices a mistake on his/her record.

[schnipker]

I completely agree with everything stated above and concur that student should also have access to see the instructor's assigned badges.  The percentage of attendance feature currently in place is not really helpful for how I figure attendance into final grades.

[carrie]

I have heard recently that in addition to allowing students to view their attendance record, it would be helpful to allow students to checkin to mark their own attendance. This would be particularly helpful in large enrollment classes.

• A suggested workflow from a medical school: Have an "I am here" button for an Event students can use to checkin for that lecture/lab/small group.
• A special code for each event checkin might help ensure some level of security with this feature. For example, when students select the "I am here" button they might be prompted to enter a code the teacher has posted on the board.

Any thoughts on this? I'm curious to hear from other edu sectors (K-20).