Recording Attendance (Canvas)
There are several methods available for recording attendance covered in this section. Some these may not be enabled on your system and others may not be appropriate for your situation.
- Manual entry by status and/or time - entering attendance manually for each student
- Student code self-registration - students enter a unique code provided to them by their instructor
- USB scanning entry by status and/or time - students scanning their ID cards into the web browser
- Stand-alone scanners or kiosks - recording attendance by students scanning their ID cards or entering their details.
On the Students screen you can navigate to previous weeks, or change the number of days included in this view by altering the view settings:
To enter attendance, select the session that you would like to record attendance for by clicking on the column header (circled in red).
Your session will now be ready to record attendance against. The attendance statuses that you are able to select are configured by your system administrator.
- The “Fill blanks” option allows you to set all attendance at once. For example, if the class was fully present except for one student then you could begin by marking everyone to Attended and adjusting just the single student who was absent.
- Adjust attendance for an individual student.
- Add any notes that may be relevant for a student's attendance status.
- Save.
Some courses require that attendance is recorded by time in and time out.
To record the time in and/or out
- Select the clock icon (this will already be selected if times have already been recorded)
- Time in will always default to the session start time. You can make a manual adjustment by enter +minutes late. In the example Tracie has been marked as 12 minutes late. You can also use a full time format if you choose.
- Time out will always default to the start time plus the duration. You can make a manual adjustment by enter -minutes early. In the example Matthew has been marked as leaving 15 minutes early. You can also use a full time format if you choose.
Some courses allow multiple visits in a single session.
The student code self-registration option allows students to register their own attendance by entering a unique code that is provided by the instructor. The instructor can control the time window for when the provided code will be accepted.
To use Codes:
- Select Codes
- Select Code entry as the Entry Method
- Take note of the unique code generated for this session, and provide it to your students
- Select how you would like to control the time window
- Default time window: This will use the globally set default time window, in relation to the scheduled start time of the session. This option supports the recording of tiered tardy statuses as well. In this example, students will be able to enter the code for a time window that is 5 minutes prior to the session start time.
- Manual control: This allows you to open and close the time window at your discretion. In this example the window has been opened and will stay open for 2 minutes, unless stopped prior.
- Specify time window: This allows you to define your own time window in advance.
Students will login to Canvas and select attendance in the course menu. They can do this using the Student Canvas App on their device or on any web browser. This will bring them to their aPlus+ Attendance student portal. They select the session that they have been given a code for and enter the code. Note that a session that is available for code entry will show in blue with a question mark next to it.
Please note that this can be restricted to a predefined IP address to allow access from the university campus only.
Once students have entered their code and submitted, you will see their attendance appear in the attendance module for the session. You can open this session and make any edits or overrides that you wish that you wish. You may need to refresh your screen to see the updated attendance.
The student button self-registration option allows students to register their own attendance by clicking a button when prompted. The instructor can control the time window for when the button can be selected.
To use Button:
- 1 - Select Codes
- 2 – Select “Button Click” from the entry method (if enabled)
- 3 – Select how you would like to control the time window
- Default time window: This will use the globally set default time window, in relation to the scheduled start time of the session. This option supports the recording of tiered tardy statuses as well. In this example, students will be able to click their button for a time window that is 5 minutes prior to the session start time.
- Manual control: This allows you to open and close the time window at your discretion. In this example the window has been opened and will stay open for 2 minutes, unless stopped prior.
- Specify time window: This allows you to define your own time window in advance.
Students will login to Canvas and select attendance in the course menu. They can do this using the Student Canvas App on their device or on any web browser. This will bring them to their aPlus+ Attendance student portal. They select the session that they are in and click the attendance registration button. Note that a session that is available will show in blue with a question mark next to it.
Please note that this can be restricted to a predefined IP address to allow access from the university campus only.
Once students have submitted, you will see their attendance appear in the attendance module for the session. You can open this session and make any edits or overrides that you wish that you wish. You may need to refresh your screen to see the updated attendance.
Attendance can be taken by recording swipes of students cards using a USB scanner. This option requires prior setup by your Canvas administrator.
- (optional) Turn on Privacy Mode to prevent student attendance information being in screen while students are scanning.
- Select Capture from the navigation.
- Select the session you are scanning for, and set focus to the “scan” textbox.
- Students are now ready to begin scanning.
Notes – USB scanning will respect the globally defined scanning selectors. This means that scans may only be accepted within predefined time windows in relation to the session start and end time.
USB scanning can be used to record time in and time out.
Typically standalone scanners do not require any input from instructors. Attendance can be overridden using the manual attendance options.
The reconcile scan option can allow you to reallocate scans from another location should you have an unexpected room change. You can choose to view scans which match students and the session time but may not match location, or may fall outside of scan windows. This is an advanced option and usage should be discussed with your Canvas administrator.
Please note that in many circumstances Zoom no longer provides us the email addresses for guest visitors. As such is will be important for students to attend the Zoom session with the name that they have recorded in Canvas to ensure a match.
This functionality will work the best when students are required to sign into Zoom using their university email address. We use this address for matching the students in aPlus+
The Zoom integration allows instructors to record attendance based on the participants who joined their Zoom session. Please note that the Zoom session must have ended before it will be available in aPlus+.
Select your session by selecting the column header.
Select the Zoom button, if this button is not shown, please speak to your Canvas Admin.
Select the Zoom session that you would like to retrieve attendance from. Note that this does not have to be the exact same time as the scheduled session in aPlus+. By default meetings +/- 24 hours are shown.
aPlus+ will attempt to map the participants, to students who are on the roster for the aPlus+ session that you selected. This will be based on the students email if they were logged into Zoom when they joined, or their name. You may wish to require students to register with their primary school email when setting up Zoom meetings to make sure that a match can be found.
Select “Record as Attended” to mark the matched students as attended in the session.
Note that if a student has an existing attendance status set, then it will not be overwritten. This it to protect against any manually set attendance such as ‘late’.
Note that sometimes you may see multiple entries for a student. This can be cause by waiting rooms.
Students will be marked as attended (or to the status that is setup for your school). The time that the student joined and left the zoom meeting is also shown, along with a comment noting how many minutes they attended total. This total does include multiple sessions if a student dropped and rejoined.
The intent of populating the times and minutes joined to make it easier to eyeball a session and make manual adjustments as needed.
Please be sure to select save when you are finished.
The MS Teams integration allows instructors to record attendance based on the participants who joined their MS Teams session. MS Teams integration must be configured by system administrators for the MS Teams button/s to show.
At the conclusion of the Teams session, the instructor should open the corresponding session in aPlus+ attendance, and select the Microsoft Teams button.
aPlus+ will retrieve the instructors Teams account information in order to provide a list of meetings that were completed close to the time of the scheduled session.
A list of completed Teams sessions, 24 hours either side of date and time of the aPlus+ session, will be shown for selection. (This is adjustable through settings available to an administrator)
The instructor should select the session that they would like to retrieve attendance from. Alternatively if available a meeting Join URL can be entered to select that meeting.
Students are matched from the Teams session based primarily on their email address that their Teams account or user is associated with.
Instructor should select “Record as Attended” to record attendance for the matched participants.
A confirmation screen is shown, the window can now be closed:
Matched students are marked with your chosen attendance status. In this case “Attended – Teams”. The first time of arrival on the Teams session is shown, along with a total showing the total number of minutes attended. This excludes any time where a student may have disconnected from the Teams session temporarily.
Instructor should review attendance, make any manual adjustments, then select save (top right):
The recorded attendance will then show:
