Navigation - some disabled items visible to instructor and some not

[probinson1]

Hi all,

According to a Guide page, 

"Disabling a course navigation link creates the following redirects:

• Hidden only (cannot be disabled but still accessible via direct URL): Discussions and Grades
• Page disabled; redirected to Home page: Announcements, Assignments, Conferences, Collaborations, Files, Modules, Outcomes, Quizzes, Pages, People, Rubrics, and Syllabus
• Page disabled; won't appear in navigation: Any LTI links, such as Attendance, Chat, and SCORM

Reordering and hiding Course Navigation links for Announcements, Assignments, Discussions, and Files also affects the course tabs in the Dashboard course view for all users. Additionally, disabling the Files link will hide the Files tab in the Content Selector in the Rich Content Editor for students."

My question is this: (See red text above)...why? Why not have Attendance available for me to see but not students? I use it to track attendance before the "Drop for Nonattendance Date."

Thanks in advance,

Polly

[SusanNiemeyer]

I've been teaching remote synchronous classes since the pandemic began, and I stopped using the Attendance tool when I realized that students could mark themselves as "present" on their own. I was rather surprised when I saw that two students had done this before I had even met my class on Zoom. Unless Canvas has fixed this, Attendance is not a reliable tool.

I still take attendance the old-fashioned way with a paper ledger book. It works. 

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

@SusanNiemeyer ...

Curious to know where your students were able to use the "Attendance" tool in Canvas to mark themselves as "present".  According to this Guide, the "Attendance" tool (course navigation button) is not available to students.  (See the "Note" under "Open Attendance".)

How do I use the Roll Call Attendance tool in a co... - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com)

Note: The Attendance link does not display to students, so you do not need to hide this link in the Navigation tab within Course Settings.

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Thanks!

[SusanNiemeyer]

This was back in Fall 2020. Maybe Canvas has fixed this problem since then.

Another reason that I don't bother with Attendance is that my remote synchronous classes meet only one or twice a week. It would be nice to be able to set up Attendance, so that I can designate the dates for which I would count attendance.

Attendance is a pretty worthless tool, in my opinion.