The Attendance (Roll Call) tool is an app used for taking attendance in Canvas courses. The Attendance tool can be used for online or face-to-face courses.
Once the Attendance tool is set up in your course and your course is published, you can start to take attendance using Roll Call.
The Attendance tool is configured by default to allow taking roll seven days a week. This setting is useful for courses where there may be a need to take attendance for an event that takes place outside of a regular school week. However, the attendance tool will only calculate grades in the gradebook out of the total number of days roll has been taken.
Currently, you can only view Roll Call on a day-by-day basis. To view additional dates, you can run an attendance report for your course.
Notes: Students cannot access the Attendance tool; only instructors can take attendance. However, students can see the Attendance assignment on the Assignments page and view their attendance report as part of the Roll Call Attendance submission details page. If you are using attendance for grading, students can also view their attendance grade on the Grades page if you have published the Roll Call Attendance assignment.
The article covers how to:
Enable the Attendance tool in your course
In order to use the Attendance tool in your course it must first be enable for you as the instructor.
- Click on the Settings link in the Course Menu.
- Select the Navigation tab from the Settings page.
- Under the Drag items here to hide them from students menu [1], click on the three dots to the right of the Attendance tool [2] and select + Enable from the menu [3].
- The Attendance tool will be displayed under the shown items menu for students.
- Scroll down on the Settings page and click on the Save button.
- The Attendance tool will now display for the instructor only in the Course Navigation menu.
Open Attendance
In Course Navigation, click the Attendance link.
Take Attendance in List View
In the List View, you can take attendance by toggling the correct mark next to each student's name [1]. Click the attendance mark until you arrive at the desired mark:
- To mark the student as present and on time, click one time (green check mark icon).
- To mark the student as not present, click two times (red X icon).
- To mark the student as late, click three times (orange clock icon).
- To unmark the attendance status, leave the button as the default (gray no symbol icon). The unmarked attendance status also indicates an excused absence.
You can also take attendance by clicking the Mark All Present button [2] and then update any student that was late or absent.
If you need to start over or clear all attendance entries, click the Unmark All button [3].
Create a Class View Seating Chart
The first time you edit the seating chart, all your students' names will appear in the left column [1]. Drag your students onto the grid and arrange them as desired [2].
To edit the seating chart, make sure the EDIT SEATING CHART tab [3] is selected. Remove students from the seating chart by dragging them to the green box in the left-hand column [4]. You can rearrange the placement of students in the grid as necessary.
Take Attendance in Class View
In Class View, you can also toggle the correct mark next to each student's name (present, absent, or late) [1] or click the Mark All Present button [2].
To unmark all student entries, click the Unmark All button [3].
Additional Resources
Please review the following Canvas Guides for more information on: