Mark Attendance from Conference

[glennber]

Our district is operating in hybrid.  In building: Mon & Tues = Cohort A;  Thurs & Fri = Cohort B. Virtual Wed.

Some students are 100% virtual, even when their cohort is in the building.

Attendance tool is great, as it is by last name.  However, the conference, from which we must take attendance, is by 1st name. Can we sort USERS in a Conference to make it easier to take attendance?   

OR   How about integrating a Conference with Roll Call, so USERS in a conference will be flagged in Roll Call (ie when 100% virtual or using a hybrid model)? Teachers can then manually update attendance for students in the classroom.

[Naomi]

Hi @glennber,

Just to clarify, are you using the BigBlueButton conferencing tool or another conferencing tool like Zoom or Teams? 

Naomi

[glennber]

This class is using BigBlueButton.  Of course you'd need some kind of API to work with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams & other video conferencing tools.

[Naomi]

Hi @glennber,

Is your school using the premium tier of BigBlueButton? 

Naomi

[glennber]

@Naomi  I'm sorry, I do not know.  I'd think your sales and/or customer service team would know if our district does.

[Naomi]

Hi @glennber, 

Thanks for responding. If you're not sure, I'd recommend reaching out to someone at your school with Canvas Admin access. They should know if your institution is using the regular or premium version of BigBlueButton.

Naomi

[glennber]

@Naomi - just found out, REGULAR

[ffdixon]

Hi @glennber 

I am the product manager for BigBlueButton. While I work at Blindside Networks, the company that provides hosting for Canvas Conferences to Instructure, and can't speak on behalf of Instructure, I can respond to your question.

We recently updated the Save user names feature so it gives you a list of users sorted by last name.

This should make it easier for instructors to capture attendance.  Also, on the Premium Tier hosting, we also provide instructors a report ('statistics' recording format) that shows participation by all students.  See

  https://blindsidenetworks.com/statistics/

If your school is interested to upgrade to get these reports (along with permanent recordings), they can reach out to their Canvas Success Manager.

Regards,... Fred
BigBlueButton Developer

P.S. I also moonlight as the CEO of Blindside Networks

[Stef_retired]

@glennber 

Thanks for sharing these ideas.

In both the Free and Premium Tiers, moderators can save the user names and the list is displayed sorted by last name. 

 

Users who wish to take advantage of the attendance functionality will need to upgrade to the BBB Premium Tier. The functionality is described in statistics - Blindside Networks 

We've archived this idea, and hope you will bring your use case for the attendance functionality to your local eLearning Department or Canvas admin to see if they will consider an upgrade.

Thanks!

[glennber]

@Stef_retired @ffdixon @Naomi  Thank you for responding. 

FYI, To help you understand my perspective, my full time profession is as a Business Analyst.  Due to the down economy, I'm working as a guest teacher.  -->  Hey, can I get a consulting fee?? 🙂 

I saw the Save user names.  Nice feature.  Please note that you might consider modifying Sorted by last name:  to sort  last name, first name instead of  first name last name   or allow the user to choose.

ie.  Instead of:
Glenn Berman

Mary Smith 

Sort as:  Berman, Glenn

 Smith, Mary

The reason being that many attendance lists print last name, first name & are sorted alphabetically by last name.  Thus, last name, first name makes it easier to compare the 2 lists.

I hope this helps.