What is Rollcall Attendance?

The Roll Call Attendance tool allows instructors to mark students as present, absent, or tardy for a class session. Students earn full credit for being present, no credit for being absent, and a customizable partial credit for being tardy. Attendance scores are averaged and recorded as a single assignment in the gradebook, which updates automatically each time attendance is taken. This enables students to track how their attendance affects their final grade throughout the term, reducing the likelihood of unexpected grade deductions at the end.

It’s important to note that attendance grades are calculated as an average. For example, if a student misses one of the first two classes, their Attendance grade will initially be 50%. However, if they only miss that one class all semester, their final Attendance grade will rise to 98% by the end. Early absences have a disproportionate impact due to the limited number of attendance records early in the term.

Please remember that your official attendance is recorded in Self-Service. This is ONLY for giving students a grade based on attendance.

Enabling Attendance

Follow these directions for each course that you wish to enable attendance. For more information, see the Change the Course Navigation Menu.

From the bottom of the Course Navigation Menu, select Settings.
From the tabs across the top of the settings page, choose Navigation.
Scroll down until you see Attendance in the lower table
Click on the 3 dots next to Attendance and choose Enable.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save.

Customizing the Attendance Weight

The tool creates an assignment called Roll Call Attendance which you can find in the Assignments section of your course. **Do NOT rename this assignment.**

If you use a total points grading approach, click on the assignment and then choose Edit Assignment Settings on the upper right to change the point value.

If you use a weighted grade approach:

From the Assignments section of your course, click on +Group to create a new group for attendance.
Click on the 3 dots and select Assignment Groups Weights to give the correct weight to your assignment group.
Drag the Roll Call Attendance assignment to your attendance group.

See Set Up and Use a Weighted Grade for more information.

Customize the Point Value for "Late"

Select Attendance from the course navigation menu.
Click on the Gear icon in the upper right corner.
Select Roll Call Settings.
Use the slider to set the percent that should be used when averaging in a late/tardy student.
Click on the X to close the settings.

Taking Attendance

Select Attendance from the course navigation menu.
From the upper right corner, go to the date for which you wish to record attendance. The default is the current date.
You can use the Mark All Present button to quickly mark all students present and then adjust the attendance for individual students who are absent or tardy.
Click on the icon to the left of a student's name to change their attendance status. Each time you click you change it to a different status. It cycles from "unmarked," then "present," then "absent," and finally "late." Each status has a different icon and color.
You can also click on More next to a student's name to set the attendance for that student and to see a running total of their attendance and their attendance grade.
Attendance is saved automatically. Depending on how students have their notifications set, they may receive a notification each time attendance is taken.

Screenshot of the Roll Call attendance screen. Use the text to identity different areas of the screen.