Monitor progress guide

You can use the Attendance activity and block to keep a record of student attendance in lectures, tutorials or practical sessions where the Count me in attendance recording system is not available.

1. Turn Edit mode on.
2. Open the section where you want the activity to display.
3. Select Attendance from the Activities tab.
4. Provide a Name or leave it as the default name Attendance.
5. Provide a Description. Check the box to Display the description on the module page.
6. Grade: Select None unless students are gaining marks for their attendance.
7. Use Common Module settings if you need to hide the Attendance activity from students. This is available from the Availability setting.
8. Select Save and display.

On the new page that displays you will be able to add sessions to your Attendance activity for every event that you would like to take attendance for.

1. Select the Add Session button.
2. Date: Select the first date that you wish to start taking attendance (i.e. the first day of class).
3. Time: Select the start time and end of the session.
4. Description: Define the session i.e. seminar, team meeting.
5. You also have the option to create a calendar event for the session. If you would like to do this, please select the checkbox.

   

6. If you need to take attendance over a series of sessions select Multiple sessions. Check Repeat the session above as follows to copy the details of the first session.
   • Repeat on: Select the day(s) of the week when your class will meet.
   • Repeat every: i.e. If your class will meet every other week, select 2; every 3rd week, select 3, etc.
   • Repeat until: Select the last day you want to take attendance (i.e. the date of the last class).
7. Student recording. If checked students will be able record their own attendance status for the session. When this option is checked, a new series of settings display.
   If you create your own password, do not use any special characters, as there are issues with these being recognised if a student uses an Apple or non-English keyboard.
   • Allow students to update on attendance: If checked students can update their attendance status.
   • Open session early for marking: Option to add in how early the activity should open to enable attendance to be taken before the actual start of the Attendance activity.
   • If you are allowing students to record their own attendance, you can choose to set a random password by checking the Random password box. This provides an additional check for students taking their own attendance. You can reveal the password at the start of the class and ask students to record their own attendance using the random password.
   • The Include QR code option generates a QR code which students can scan and use to mark attendance.
   • The Rotate QR code option rotates the QR codes.
8. Under the additional settings for Student recording, there is a setting Prevent students sharing IP address. This must be set to No. When students are connected to Eduroam, Moodle considers them all to have the same IP address and stops them registering.

View sessions

1. Once you have added your sessions, select the All button to view a list of sessions.
2. You can view past sessions, or filter by months, weeks or day. Select the relevant button from the right of the screen.
3. To edit a single session, select the cog icon in the Actions column to the right of the session. 
4. If you wish to change the duration or delete of all the sessions you will need to check the box above the list of sessions. This will select all your displayed sessions.
   • From the drop-down menu, underneath the list of sessions, either select change the duration, to change the length of the session and select OK. You will then get the option to change the duration of the sessions.
   • Or select Delete and then OK to remove the sessions.

1. Select More from the contextual navigation menu.
2. Select Status set.
3. You can add the status sets that you will use to take attendance or for students to take their own attendance. If you make any changes to the default Status set, select Update.

• Default status sets are pre-populated. You do not need to change these. Alternatively add new status sets to meet your requirements for attendance monitoring. (Acronyms can only be two characters long).
• Select the box in the column Automatically set when not marked alongside the status that you want to appear when a status is not set by students when they are taking their own attendance.
• You can add a number of minutes to the column Self-marking availability for any status. For example, you might want the Present option to be hidden from students 15 minutes after the start of the class. In this example, go to the Present row. Open the Self-marking availability menu for this row. Select Limited time. Type 15 into the new input field that displays. 15 minutes after the scheduled start of the taught session the option Present will be hidden from students and they will not be able to mark themselves as Present if they arrive over 15 minutes late for the lecture.

1. Select the Attendance activity to open it or select Take attendance in the Attendance block.
2. Under the actions column select the triangle icon in the Actions column adjacent to the session for which you want to take attendance.

   

   • If you have set up a groups setting you can select the relevant group from the drop down menu in the top left corner.
3. You will then be shown a list of all students on your module. From the View mode drop-down menu, select Sorted grid to display the status key alongside each student.

   

4. To take attendance, select the relevant option:
   • P=Present
   • E=Excused
   • L=Late
   • A=Absent
   • (These options can be changed – see Adding status sets) next to the students name.
5. Once you have finished taking the attendance, select Save and show next page. 
6. To update attendance, select the arrow from the Actions column.
7. If you have chosen to take attendance with the password and QR code, the first icon with four squares opens up a new tab with the password and QR code.

Select the Attendance activity and select Reports from the contextual navigation menu to see a report of your students attendance. You can filter the report by months or weeks.

Export Attendance Reports

1. Select the Attendance activity and select Export from the contextual navigation menu.    
2. Select a group if relevant.
3. If you would like to export details of the student username select the relevant box. Please note the student ID is not the student number.
4. The default setting is to download a list of attendance that you have already taken. If you wish to include sessions that have not been taken select the relevant box and input the date of the last session you wish to include.

Now that you have created the Attendance activity, you can add the Attendance block, if required. The Attendance block can be used in the same way as the Attendance activity; to manage the attendance and provide feedback to students on their own attendance.

1. Select Turn Edit mode on.
2. Open the Block drawer on the right of the page.
3. Select Add a block. An overlay window will open displaying all available blocks.
4. Select Attendance block.
5. The Attendance block will be added to the bottom of the Block drawer.