Attendance policies are standard practice at Ball State. Whether individually created or departmentally assigned, most instructors keep track of their students’ absences. One way to monitor attendance is through Canvas’ Roll Call feature. Roll Call allows instructors to record attendance, while providing a grade based on the number of absences entered, but the tool does not allow instructors to set unique rules to reflect their attendance policies. To better reflect instructors’ attendance systems, this article offers three solutions to monitor attendance without leaving the Canvas learning management system.  

Utilizing Roll Call’s Features 

When taking attendance using the Roll Call feature, an assignment automatically populates to score students’ attendance.  

While this feature is helpful if instructors wish to score students simply on their presence in the class, there is no way to create special rules (e.g., excuse the first three absences) for the tool to follow.  

Instead, instructors can leave students unmarked in Roll Call to excuse absences.

To keep track of these excused, unmarked absences, instructors can also use Roll Call’s badges feature. A badge can be added by selecting the “More” tab to the right of the student’s name. 

After selecting ”More,” select the ”+Add Badge” button. This will allow instructors to create a badge that is available to everyone in the Canvas course, conveying that the absence is excused. 

If a student runs out of excused absences, instructors may continue to take attendance as usual, marking the student as absent when necessary.  

It is important to note that even if instructors decide to incorporate unmarked, excused absences or excused absences badges, the course’s Roll Call Attendance grades will still be accurate. Excused (unmarked) absences do not count against students but any unexcused absences (when the student is marked absent) will automatically detract from students’ attendance grades.  

Creating an Excused Absence Column in the Gradebook 

Another option for scoring attendance is creating an Excused Absence column in the gradebook. Similar to what Eva Grouling-Snider suggests in her blog on incorporating late passes in Canvas, instructors may set a few excused absences at the beginning of the semester and incrementally lower them with students’ use.   

For example, if an instructor were to offer three free absences to students, they would create an assignment with the full amount and then manually decrease the point-value as students use their absences.  

In the Roll Call attendance feature, instructors would then mark students as present during their free absence period, later resuming normal attendance procedures after students use their free absences. 

Tracking Attendance through Gradebook  

For instructors looking to maximize transparency while tracking attendance, creating multiple Attendance assignments may be the most efficient—especially if there is a deduction for missing a certain number of classes.  

Depending on how often instructors want to notify students—I recommend every four weeks to allow students accurately track their progress—they will need to create corresponding assignments for each update.  

Therefore, if an instructor were to update their students four times a semester, they would create four assignments. Each assignment should be worth zero points, as absence total will vary by student, and the “Display Grade” selection should be “Points.” Remember to select “Do not count this assignment towards the final grade,” as instructors should set their own deductions at the end of the semester.  

To update each ‘absence total’ assignment, instructors should select the “More” option in Roll Call.  

After selecting “More,” instructors should note the number of absences for each student and reflect this number in the corresponding ‘absence total’ assignment in gradebook. 

When implementing a deduction, instructors will first need to decide how many absences constitute the deduction. In COMM 210, we decided if students missed more than 1/3 of the class, usually around 15 absences, they would receive half a letter grade’s deduction at the end of the semester (e.g., from a B+ to a B). Of course, there are multiple ways to implement a deduction, such as lowering the Roll Call attendance score or creating a separate assignment altogether, so instructors should consider which option works best for their class.  

Conclusion 

Monitoring attendance in a way that is streamlined and transparent can be a complicated task on Canvas, especially for those with rule-based attendance policies. While there is no “best” solution to tracking attendance, implementing practices such as unmarking and badging in Roll Call, creating an Excused Absence column in the gradebook, or utilizing multiple attendance assignments are effective ways to organize attendance in Canvas.  

If you have a creative solution to tracking attendance or have tried the methods listed in this article, please comment below! 

References

Grouling-Snider, E. “Late Passes in Canvas: One Approach to Structured Flexibility.” Ball State University Teaching Innovation Blog, April 10, 2024. https://blogs.bsu.edu/teaching-innovation/2024/04/10/late-passes-in-canvas-one-approach-to-structured-flexibility/.