Attendance The Attendance activity is designed for instructors to be able take attendance during or after class, and for students to be able to view their own attendance record. The Attendance module can generate reports for either the entire class or for individual students. Students may also see their own individual attendance record if the activity is not hidden. You can hide the activity from students as well as hide it so it does not show up in the Grade Roster. You can hide the entire module from students and use it for record keeping only. A teacher can mark the attendance status of a student as "Present", "Absent", "Late", or "Excused". These status descriptions can be changed, and more can be added. You can export the Attendance sheet to Excel for your own record keeping purposes, and also turn it in to Enrollment Services at the end of the semester. Check the Moodle Help page for instructions to learn how to export your Attendance roster to Excel. Creating an Attendance Activity... 2 Review / Reset Your Variables... 4 Adding Sessions... 6 How to Take Attendance... 8 Listing 25 students / Sorting the List... 10 The Attendance Activity and the Gradebook... 11 Reports... 11 Attendance for Merged Classes or Groups... 12 Troubleshooting... 14 Helpful Hints... 14 24- hour clock converter... 16 ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 1
Creating an Attendance Activity Turn Editing on 1. Go to Add an Activity or Resource and choose Attendance 2. Type in the name. This is especially important if you will be using more than one Attendance Activity for your class (e.g.: a Class Session and Lab). 3. Select Grade: Choose Scale, or Point Under Maximum points, choose points from 1-100. (If you are using the activity for record keeping only, choose zero points). The Attendance will only show in your gradebook if you add points. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 2
Creating an Attendance Activity, cont d 3. Under the Common module settings section, choose Hide under Visible, If you do not want your students to see the Attendance on the main page of your site. See page 12 for using Attendance with Merged Classes or Groups. 4. Ignore the Restrict Access area at the bottom. 5. Choose Save and Display. This will take you directly to the activity. Later, you can click on the link to access it (see below). Updating in the future Unlike most other Moodle tools, you will need to click on the Attendance link to update it. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 3
Review / Reset Your Variables First, go to the Settings Tab. You will see a series of variables. Variables are also known as Status Descriptions. The default Status Descriptions are: Present, Late, Excused and Absent. You may prefer to change the descriptions (for example, by changing "Late" to "Tardy"), change the way points are counted, or add new status descriptions. To do the latter, fill in the fifth line and click the Add button. Default Variables ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 4
Customizing the Variables: Here is an example of an instructor who has customized the Descriptions: Instructor has added Newly added and Withdrew from class. Finally, when you are done changing items on this page, be sure to click the Update button to register the changes. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 5
Adding Sessions Now, go to the ADD Tab. Create Multiple Sessions: Click this button to create sessions for an entire semester. Set the Session Start Date: for example, the first day of class. Set the time: Your class start time. Note that the time appears in the 24- hour clock. Duration: The length of your class time. Note that the time appears in the 24- hour clock. Session End Date Enter the last day of classes Session Days: Day(s) of the week the class meets Frequency: Choose how often the class meets. (1 means every week, 2 means every other week, etc.) Description: Write a description if necessary. Click the Add session button at the bottom. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 6
Adding Sessions, cont d Moodle will now take you back to the Add Attendance screen (previous image on page 6), which might be confusing. So, CLICK ON THE SESSIONS TAB. If you don t see your semester s worth of sessions, click on the All button. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 7
How to Take Attendance 1. Click on the Sessions Tab. You are now on the Session page. 2. Click the round green dot under the Actions column. When attendance has already been taken, or partially taken, the green dot changes to a curved arrow icon, as shown at right. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 8
How to Take Attendance, cont d 3. After you click on the green dot, you will now be taken to the individual session page. For each student, click on the Status Description button. Add a remark if necessary. Helpful Hint: Note that when taking attendance, the column headings are clickable links. If you click one, all students will have their status changed to the status you selected. Thus, if everyone is present, you can merely click the P column header to change everyone's status to "Present". If only one person is absent, you could first click P to set everyone's status to "Present", and then set the absent student's status to "Absent". ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 9
Listing 25 students / Sorting the List In the individual session pages, by default, there are 25 records per page. To progress further, you must click the Save Attendance button at the bottom of each page. If you don t like this, change 25 to Do not use paging, as shown below. The other pull- down menu sets how you view your session pages. Change Sorted List to Sorted Grid. This might be helpful if you would like to see the students photos. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 10
The Attendance Activity and the Gradebook Attendance will show up in your GradeBook IF: o If you have assigned points to it, AND o You have chosen Show as the selection under Visible in the settings. You may need to categorize the Attendance Activity AFTER it appears in the Gradebook, perhaps in it s own Participation category. Of course, you can always choose NOT to grade it, to hide it from students, and use it primarily for record keeping. You can send the completed Excel report to Enrollment Services, along with your Grade Report, at the end of the semester. (Instructions here: http://www.lbcc.edu/admissions > Faculty Services > Opening Day Bulletin). Reports REPORTS When you chose the Report Tab, you see a big picture view of the entire semester attendance, or by month, week or day. View the Report according to your choices, then Export to Excel. (You might choose one week or one month out of the semester). ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 11
Attendance for Merged Classes or Groups If your have a class with combined classes, the Attendance activity will detect all the class numbers when you set it up. Make sure you choose Separate groups when you set the attendance up, as shown below. Ask an ITDL team member for assistance if necessary. After it is set up, you will be able to access all the classes separately. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 12
Troubleshooting Sometimes, when you enter the Attendance Activity, you will not see all your sessions. Click on the ADD button to go to the proper view. It is important that the Class Start Date IS NOT AFTER the first Attendance date. Insure that your class start date is correct by going to the Course Administration area under Settings > Edit Settings. Helpful Hints Export the Attendance to Excel on a regular basis, as a backup, just in case! Bring the printed out Excel sheet to class, if you need to take attendance by hand, then add it to Moodle later. You can send the completed Excel report to Enrollment Services, along with your Grade Report, at the end of the semester. (Instructions here: http://www.lbcc.edu/admissions > Faculty Services > Opening Day Bulletin). ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 14
Preferred Language Some early adopters to Moodle at LBCC may see the setting "English (en)," which is European English, as the preferred language in their Profile Settings. It is important that you view Moodle using "English - United States." This setting has now been changed for new users. Changing the Preferred Language only effects the Moodle interface, not course content. Date Display Words such as "enrollment" will be spelled in "United States" English, but more importantly, this affects how dates are displayed in some features, such as Attendance. For example, To access the Profile Settings, follow the steps below. View View your own profile by clicking My profile > view profile in the Navigation block, or click on your name in the upper right hand corner. Updating your profile Update your profile by choosing My profile settings > Edit profile on Settings Block on the left side. ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 15
24- hour clock converter You may have noticed that Moodle uses a 24- hour clock. You may have also noticed that the dates appear in the format above: 27.08 : August 28 3.09 : September 3 Here is a 24- hour clock converter: http://www.onlineconversion.com/date_12-24_hour.htm http://www.onlineconversion.com/images/24hour_time_chart.png ITDL Moodle Tutorials: Attendance Attendance27 11/3/15 Page 16