Attendance and Seating Charts

The attendance tool provides an option for you to record student absences. Students can access a report from their "Grades" page to see the record of when they have missed class.

Rather than adding a Canvas assignment for each day, this tool will aggregate the days for you and record them in the Canvas Grades as a summary percentage of points possible.


Add the Tool to Your Course

If the Attendance tool isn't already installed to your Canvas course, follow these steps:

1

Navigate to Settings in your course

canvas settings tab

 
2

Select the Navigation tab

Arrow pointing at Navigation tab

 
3

Locate the Attendance tool, click on the 3 dots, then click Enable

Attendance tab highlighted with Enable option emphasized

 
4

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save


Activate the Roll Call Attendance Assignment

After you have successfully installed the Attendance tool to your Canvas course, you will need to "activate" the Roll Call Attendance assignment. To do this, you will need to go into the tool and "take roll."

1

Navigate to the Attendance tab in your course

Attendance tool option in side navigation

 
2

Click Mark All Present, then click Unmark All

This is the simplest way to activate the Attendance tool if you don't want to take roll for today. If you do want to take roll for today, then mark each student accordingly.

Arrow pointing at Navigation tab

 
3

Navigate to the Assignments tab in your course

arrow pointing at the assignments tab

 
4

Verify that Roll Call Attendance appears in your assignments

The assignment Roll Call in assignments.


Adjust Points Towards Final Grade

The default is that attendance is worth 100 points and is displayed in the gradebook as a percentage. You can adjust the number of points and the grade is displayed using the assignment settings.

1

Click Assignments in your Course Navigation

arrow pointing at the assignments tab

 
2

Locate the Roll Call Attendance assignment, click the 3 dots, then select Edit

Assignment more options edit button highlighted.

 
3

Click More Options

More options button highlighted.

 
4

Adjust the points and the format of how you would like to display the attendance grade

Not Graded option highlighted

 
5

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save


Create a Seating Chart

1

Click Attendance in your Course Navigation

Canvas attendance tab.

 
2

Choose the Class tab from the top menu and ensure Edit Seating Chart is selected

Class and Edit Seating Chart tabs are highlighted.

 
3

Drag students' names onto the grid to create a seating chart

arrow pointing from students towards the seating grid.

 
4

Rearrange students as necessary (changes are automatically saved)

Student cards showing in the seating chart grid.


Taking Attendance

There are a few ways to take attendance using this tool. No matter which method you prefer, make sure that you verify that you are taking attendance for the correct date by checking in the upper right-hand corner. This should automatically update to the current date, but if you would like to change the date, click on the calendar icon and select the necessary date.

Key for marking attendance:

- Present

- Absent

- Tardy

Through Seating Chart

One of the simplest ways to take attendance is through the seating chart:

1

Make sure you are on the Class tab

 
2

Navigate to the Take Attendance tab

 
3

Mark your students accordingly

(1) Class tab (2) Take Attendance tab (3) chart of students marked for attendance

Through Class List

An alternative way that you can take attendance is through the class list:

1

Make sure you are on the List tab

 
2

Mark your students accordingly

(1) List tab (2) list of students marked for attendance


Don't Count Attendance Toward Course Grade

Below are instructions on how to be able to take attendance, but not have it count toward your students' final grade in the course.

1

Click Assignments in your Course Navigation

arrow pointing at the assignments tab

 
2

Next to Roll Call Attendance, click the options button and choose Edit

Assignment more options edit button highlighted.

 
3

In the popup box, click More Options

More options button highlighted.

 
4

For the Display Grade as option choose Not Graded from the dropdown menu

Not Graded option highlighted

 
5

Click Save



Download Attendance Report

If you would like to download the attendance report to be able to see your students attendance record in a consolidated format, do the following:

1

Click on the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner, then select Attendance Report

gear icon highlighted with arrow pointing at Attendance Report option in the dropdown

 
2

Fill out the form, then click Run Report

If you would like the data of a specific student, then you will input their SIS Student ID in the necessary field, but if you would like the report of all of your students, then you will leave that field blank.

Assignment more options edit button highlighted.

 
3

Go to your email and click the link provided to download the report

 
4

Open any spreadsheet software to review the report and filter the results as necessary


Recalculating Attendance Grades

If you need to recalculate the attendance grades (either because you change the points possible for the assignments or if you notice a discrepancy), do the following:

1

In the Attendance tool, select a day you aren't holding class

 
2

Click MARK ALL PRESENT

 
3

Then, click UNMARK ALL

 
4

This will trigger a re-calculation of all scores