[Attendance] Mark excused absences clearly

[professorlusnia]

Problem statement:

There is no way to keep track of reasons for absences or lateness in the Canvas Attendance tool. I allow students a certain number of unexplained absences, but after that number has been reached, I ask for explanations. It would be especially helpful to be able to add these to Attendance so that all of the information about a student's attendance record is in one place. As it is now, I have to keep track of myriad emails outside of Canvas.

Proposed solution:

Add a NOTES field to the "more" area in Attendance so that we can include a note about a student's absence and ADD a NEW OPTION for attendance: "EXCUSED", along the existing Present, Absent, or Late options.

User role(s):

instructor

[dpchristianson]

Problem statement:

On our campus, and on others where I have worked, some absences are considered "Excused" or "Authorized" due to participation in school-sponsored events (e.g. athletics, academic conferences, illness). These excused absences need to be recorded as absences, but not count against the students' attendance grades. There is currently no way (adding a badge does not make it an option in the rotating list of designations) to effectively mark absences as excused. Adding a badge does make Excused an option, but does not appear on the roll call page default view, which is confusing to faculty who think they just forgot to mark the student's attendance for that day (default is the prohibition sign 🚫).

Proposed solution:

Add an option in the Roll Call Attendance software to indicate whether an absence is Excused/Authorized or Unexcused/Unauthorized, with Excused not hurting the students' grades, and Unexcused counting against the students' grades. Perhaps use E for excused absences and U for unexcused absences.

User role(s):

admin,instructor