When the attendance policy goes into effect, students in online portions of classes will need to complete a graded assignment in Canvas each week. To prevent accidental administrative withdrawals, create a weekly auto-grading quiz using New Quizzes in Canvas. Auto-grading quizzes use only multiple-choice, multiple-answer, true/false, or matching question types.

Make sure the "Available from" and the "Until" dates are set for the week when students should take the quiz. If students take the assignment named "Week 4 Attendance Quiz" during week 2, for example, they will receive attendance credit only for week 2 even though the name of the assignment says week 4. Assignment dates will need to be set up by each instructor when they prep their class, not when designing the model course. In the model course, course designers or managers should include directions to the instructor about which assignment is the attendance activity for each week.

Tests, quizzes, or activities from 3rd party tools like Cengage or Pearson will not meet the attendance requirement. Even though those tools will export to your Canvas grade book, they may not include the date the student submitted the assignment in the report that Auditing receives so they can't be used for attendance. Also, Classic Quizzes in Canvas are not a good choice. For the attendance report, Classic Quizzes will only pull the last attempt not all of the attempts, so if a student takes the quiz during the assigned week but then tries again during the next week they will not get credit. For that reason, we recommend that you convert Canvas Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes in your Model Course. This is a very easy process for a basic quiz. Here are directions on converting quizzes. If you use question banks for your Classic Quizzes, contact eLearning for support on converting your question banks to item banks that can be used with New Quizzes.

Ideas for Attendance Activities

Knowledge Check

Create a New Quiz in Canvas that asks three to five multiple-choice, true/false, or matching questions similar to those that students will see on the next test or quiz. This quiz must be graded to count for attendance, but it can be low points so students can use the quiz as an opportunity to check their understanding and identify areas they need further study. To get the most benefit from this, add "Answer Feedback" to each incorrect answer to help students correct their misconceptions.

Reflection Check-in

Create a New Quiz in Canvas that asks one or more questions about how well the students feel they understand or can do the week's module learning objectives (MLOs). This may feel like "fluff" that we're trying to cut out of compressed courses, but a student's self-efficacy (a belief in their ability to accomplish a goal) has a strong impact on their academic success. Also, one of the challenges associated with compressed courses is when students fall behind it's very difficult for them to get caught up. Identifying and supporting struggling students as early as possible can help mitigate this.

These directions explain how to set up a reflection "quiz". Remember, to count as an attendance activity it must be graded but all the answer choices should receive full credit. You can also give "Answer Feedback" to encourage students to reach out to you for extra help.

Studio Video Quiz

If you have students watch videos, you can create a quiz that students complete while they watch the video. Using the Studio tool, you can record your own video, upload a video file, or import a video from YouTube or Vimeo. When you create the quiz, you add questions at specific time codes in the video. The video will pause playback until the student answers the question. Studio quizzes support multiple-choice, true/false, or multiple-answer question types. Make sure you follow the directions here to both create the quiz and import it into your gradebook.