Attendance

The Attendance tool allows instructors to set attendance grading rules, enter attendance for each class meeting, and import attendance grades into the Blackboard gradebook. 

Add Attendance to course gradebook

In the Details & Actions menu, select Mark attendance.

When you access the attendance feature for the first time, you will be prompted to add attendance to your gradebook.  Select add attendance.  An attendance column will appear in the gradebook.

Once you select Add Attendance, the Settings panel opens.  Select from Letter, Points or Percentages from the drop down menu. If you want to include excused in the grading calculations, toggle it on.  Save your settings.  If you close the panel without hitting the save button, your changes won't be saved.

• Present: Set at 100%. You can't change the percentage at this time.
• Late: Default is set at 50%. Adjust the percentage in the Settings panel.
• Absent: Set at 0%. You can't change the percentage at this time.
• Excused: Counts as Present for scoring purposes. You can choose whether to include Excused in calculations.

Edit Attendance Settings

If you need to edit the settings after you have initially set up the attendance tool, from the Details & Actions menu, select Mark attendance.  Select the settings icon (gear) in the upper right hand corner.  The settings panel will open where you can make your changes.  Once you have updated your changes, be sure to Save your settings.

Attendance Meeting View

By default, when you open attendance, you'll see the Meeting view for the current day even if you haven't finished marking a previous meeting.  

In the Meeting view, you can mark each student's attendance. You can also use the menu in a status's heading to mark all students present or absent. Then, you can change individual students' statuses or clear all marks. Your work is saved as you go.

As you mark students' attendance, their attendance grades are posted automatically.  If you change students' attendance or clear marks, students see the changes immediately.

Use the Previous and Next Meeting arrows to navigate between meeting dates.

Select the today tab and select from the menu options.  Mark all present or absent will update the attendance tool for all students to reflect the choice you made.

• • Mark all present 

    marks all students present and is denoted with a green box with a check

To change a student's attendance, click in the green box with the check.  This will allow you to select one of the other options.

• • Mark all absent

    marks all students absent and is denoted with a red box with an X

1. • Clear Marks

     will clear attendance marks

• • Exempt meeting

You can exempt a meeting that no longer requires an attendance grade.  When you exempt a meeting, the status options are disabled until you clear the exemption.  Exempt meeting columns will appear gray and all grid cell menus are disabled.  A null or empty value (--) appears for all students without a mark.  If you marked students with a status, those statuses remain but are read-only and you can't change them.  Students' overall attendance grades will not include the exempted meeting, even if you've marked some or all student cells.  The status options will remain disabled until you clear the exemption.  To clear the exemption, click on the date column header and select Clear exemption.  

• • Edit Meeting

    Select the Today column header to open the menu and select Edit meeting. You can choose a new date from the pop-up calendar. If you change the date of a meeting or select Go to Today, all meetings are chronologically sorted when you close and open the Attendance page.

• • Delete meeting

    In the Meeting view, select the date column header to open the menu and select Delete meeting.  Once deleted, all attendance information cannot be retrieved.  Student's overall attendance grades update to exclude the deleted meeting.  If you accidentally deleted a meeting and want to put it back, you will have to select the Today column header and select edit meeting.  From here, select the date from the calendar you deleted and add student attendance.

Attendance Scores

Click on a student's names to view a summary of their overall attendance records. You can see how many class meetings each student has attended, missed and/or was late.  Each student's Overall Score appears with the schema you chose in the Settings panel. This view is read-only.

Attendance Overall View

Overall course attendance statistics

In the Overall view, you can view several meetings and see overall course attendance statistics.  If a student has only excused records, no records at all, or is removed from your course, the student's attendance is NOT included in the course summary statistics. If every student has an attendance record, the average/above average and below average statistics add up to all students.  Unavailable students' information appears read-only and their previous attendance grades won't be included in the course summary statistics.

• Course average displayed in the grade pill
• Number of students with perfect attendance
• Number of students with average or above average attendance: Students with perfect attendance are included
• Number of students with below average attendance

Download course attendance

In the overall view, you can download the attendance data by clicking on the download icon to the right of the course statistics.

Add a new meeting

In the overall view, you can add more than one meeting for attendance on a specific date.  Select the plus icon next to an existing meeting's date to add a new meeting.  To change the date, click on the date, select Edit Meeting and select a date from the calendar.

Delete a meeting

To delete a meeting in the overall view, select a date column header to open the menu and select Delete meeting.