Attendance in Canvas

Description

This article provides a guide on how to use the attendance tool in Canvas. It includes steps for enabling the attendance tool, customizing settings, and recording attendance. This guide is designed to help instructors efficiently manage attendance records in their courses. This feature is sometimes labeled by Canvas as “Attendance” and in other places as “Roll Call.” For clarity, the terminology used in this guide is consistent with how items are named in Canvas. 

Note: This article does not refer to the Online Attendance feature found within New Analytics. An FAQ about Online Attendance is available.  

Environment

Canvas in your web browser

Solution 

How to Add Attendance to Your Course Navigation Menu 

Note: Attendance is available on the navigation menu by default in Ohio University Canvas courses, this step is only needed if you have previously disabled Attendance in your course navigation menu. 

  1. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu 
  2. Navigate to the course where you want to enable attendance
  3. Select Settings on the Course Navigation menu
  4. Select Navigation
  5. Locate Attendance
  6. Select the three dots on the Attendance item
  7. Select +Enable
    1. Note: You can use the three dots to reorder items in your Course Navigation
  8. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Select Save

Outcome: Attendance has now been added to your course navigation menu.  ​​​​​​​

How to Customize Roll Call Attendance Settings 

  1. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu
  2. Navigate to the course where you want to customize your Roll Call Attendance settings
  3. Select Attendance from the course navigation menu 
  4. Select the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner 
  5. Select Roll Call Settings 
  6. Customize your settings based on your needs in the Roll Call settings pop-up window ​​​​​​​
    1. You may select a check-box to not count attendance toward final grade, and customize your lateness penalty 
  7. Close the Roll Call settings pop-up window 
    1. Note: You do not need to save, your preferences have been applied 

Outcome: Your Roll Call settings have been customized to meet your course needs. 

How to Download Roll Call Attendance Report 

  1. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu
  2. Navigate to the course where you want to customize your Roll Call Attendance settings ​​​​​​​
  3. Select Attendance from the course navigation menu
  4. Select the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner
  5. Select Attendance Report 
  6. If desired enter the Start date, End date, or SIS Student ID in Field 1. Filter your data
    1. ​​​​​​​Note: SIS Student ID refers to a student's full email address (ex.fl123456@ohio.edu) and allows you to run a report for an individual student.  ​​​​​​​
  7. Enter your email address in Field 2.  Tell us where we should send the report 
  8. Select Run Report ​​​​​​​

Outcome: Your attendance report will be sent to the email address you have indicated with the subject “Roll Call Attendance Report.”  

How to Customize Roll Call Attendance Point Value 

Be default after you have marked a student using the Attendance tool, an assignment will be created in your Canvas courses. This assignment is labelled “Roll Call Attendance” and by default is worth 100 points.  

Note: if your course was created using a template from the Commons, you may already see the Roll Call Attendance assignment without recording student attendance. 

These steps will allow you to customize the Roll Call Attendance assignment to meet your course needs.  

  1. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu
  2. Navigate to the appropriate course
  3. Select Assignments on the Course Navigation menu
  4. Locate Roll Call Attendance assignment 
  5. Select Roll Call Attendance by clicking on the name of the assignment 
  6. Select Edit Assignment Settings on the upper right corner  
  7. Make desired updates
    1. You can update the assignment name, point value, assignment group, and grade display preferences. 
  8. Select Save

Outcome: Your attendance assignment has been customized to meet your course needs.​​​​​​​

Steps to Record Attendance 

  1. Log in to Canvas at canvas.ohio.edu
  2. Navigate to the course where you want to record attendance ​​​​​​​
  3. Select the Attendance tab from the course navigation menu
  4. In the attendance tool, you will see a list of your students and a calendar view 
    1. Note: By default, the attendance tool will display the actual date
  5. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Use the calendar to select the date for which you want to mark attendance​​​​​
  6. Select the Toggle Attendance icon next to each student's name to mark them as present, absent, or late
    1. Note: You can also use the Mark all Present icon to mark all students as present
  7. To change a student's previous attendance record, you may navigate to a previous date and update their attendance status using the Toggle Attendance icon 
  8. You do not need to save, the attendance data will be automatically updated in your gradebook 

Outcome: Your class attendance has been recorded and added to the Canvas gradebook based on your assignment settings.  

Get Help from Canvas

  • Live chat with Canvas support (Faculty) 
  • Get 24-hours/7-days a week Canvas support  
    • Dial the Canvas Support Hotline number located under "Get Help" in the Canvas Global Navigation Menu 
    • Contact OIT at 740-593-1222 for questions related to logging in, test courses/manually created courses, or third-party tools (Panopto, VoiceThread, Inclusive Access, etc.) 

Get Help from OIT

Additional Resources 

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Canvas Learning Management System (LMS)
Canvas is an online Learning Management System designed to facilitate communication and the sharing of course content between instructors, teaching assistants, students, and guests.