Summary
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Summary
- Set-up (optional) .
- Taking Attendance
- Students
- Attendance managers
- Date filters on attendance reports
Set-up (optional) .
This documentation refers to the attendance system that is connected to calendar events. (It is not relevant for schools that are using an older version that is not connected to calendar events.)
Enable attendance reporting for the course To take attendance for a course, you need to first ensure that Attendance reporting is enabled by the Administrator.
1. Go to Course > [..] menu choose Settings
2. Under "Manage Course setting", choose Course properties and features
3. Ensure that the Attendance reporting is enabled
Create timetable
Attendance is taken on calendar events. Calendar events can either be automatically set up from an integration, or events can be manually created.
- Go to Calendar
- Select Add event, or click at the appropriate time in the calendar view
- Select to create an individual event, or a recurring event
- Ensure Take attendance for this event is enabled (enabled by default if course has attendance enabled)
- Click Save.
- Tip 1! Create the timetable after enabling attendance reporting for the course. "Take attendance for this event" will be automatically selected.
- Tip 2! Events created through the API will always have "Take attendance for this event" enabled, to ensure that the timetable is set up for attendance tracking.
- Tip 3! You can also assign events to any course groups. Attendance will then only be taken for the members of the groups.
Note!
When attendance is kept for an event, it will not be possible to change the course or course groups associated with the event.
Now you are all set to start taking attendance
It’s simple and quick. We recommend you take attendance at the start of the lecture/event.
There are several ways to start taking attendance. Look for the clock icon. Taking Attendance is quick and easy, so teachers are able to take attendance at the beginning of the lesson.
Taking Attendance
Attendance opens 15 minutes before the event starts, and there are several ways to start taking attendance.
Event list on Home Page |
Event list on Course dashboard |
Calendar |
Attendance overview in courses |
Click on the attendance icon to open the Take attendance window:
By default, all students will be marked as present, so the teacher/lecturer only needs to mark those who are absent for that day.
It is also possible to take partial absence, in case the student is only participating in parts of the event, by changing the number of missed minutes.
Once saved, the attendance icon will change to reflect the status:
29/2 means 29 students present and 2 absent.
Calendar
The calendar gives educators a good overview of their events together with the status of the attendance. The attendance icon will indicate:
- Events where attendance has not been taken
- Present/Absent indicator of attendance for an event
- Events that are excluded (for courses where attendance is normally taken)
Simply click the attendance button to start taking attendance, or make changes.
Overview of attendance for a course
Lecturers can find an overview of attendance for their courses in the “Status and follow-up” menu tab in the respective Course (Course > Status and follow-up > Attendance). It is listed in a reverse chronological format with most recent events shown first. Click Next to see attendance for earlier events.
Mar 5, 2025 Attendance report can be filtered by date. When filtered, the table includes events from the date range and total absence is recalculated using the events from the selected time period.
Changing attendance for an event
There are two ways to change attendance for an event.
- Open the "Take attendance" window, and change the status of the student, or
- Change the event by clicking the corresponding cell in the attendance overview in courses
Removing attendance for an event
Lecturers can remove all attendance for an event at their discretion:
- Go to Course > Settings and follow-up > Attendance
- For the event that should be removed, click the dropdown icon on the column header, and chose "Remove all attendance". Attendance is now removed for all participants.
View attendance for a single student
Teachers and lecturers can now view detailed attendance records for students in their courses. From the attendance overview page, click on a student to get to the detailed view. You can then see the overall average, and status for each event. You can also change attendance for an event on this page.
(As of March 5, 2025) Attendance report can be filtered by dates. When filtered, the total absence is automatically recalculated for the selected time period.
Student self-registering presence
It is possible for teachers to allow their students to self-register their presence. This will be particularly useful in higher education situations where there are many students, and they can be trusted to self-register their presence.
In short:
- Help teachers save time by allowing students to self-register presence.
- Students must be in the classroom to register presence through a time-limited registration code
- It is easy for the teacher to configure this
- It is be quick for students to register
- It allows for students that are late to also register (if teacher allows)
- It will not require access to specific devices or hardware for students to register their presence, just be able to login to itslearning
- The teacher can override the student's registration
When teachers have the "Attendance" modal window open, teachers get the option to open up for students to register themselves as present. For courses where attendance is being taken, teachers can choose between taking attendance themselves, or let the students register their own presence. This can be done on an event level as needed.
When an even has self-registering of absence enabled, teachers get the option to open a new tab with a code students can use for registering their own presence. The code can then be displayed for example on a projector or monitor. The code changes every 30 seconds. This is to reduce the chance for issues like a student takes a picture of the code and sends to a friend.
Students go to their calendar or any other place in itslearning showing the event, open the current event, click "Register Presence", and enters their code. They will now be set as present for the ongoing event. Teachers will see presence and absence as normal when viewing absence for their course.
Teachers can decide on an event and a course level if self-registering should be used. This can be configured pr event, and the default can be specified under the "Attendance reporting" section of course settings.
Wondering about the workflow? This final picture shows this step-by-step (Click to enlarge):
Students
View their attendance
Students can find their attendance information from the top right-hand menu (click on the image or name).
Click on Attendance record to see all the courses they are attending for which attendance is being tracked.
Clicking on a course to open the detailed report for the course
(As of March 5, 2025) Attendance report can now be filtered by dates. When filtered, the total absence is automatically recalculated for the selected time period.
Self registering presence
This is only available for events where the teacher has decided that students should register their presence. Students go to their calendar or any other place in itslearning showing the event, open the current event, click "Register Presence", and enters their code. They will now be set as present for the ongoing event. Teachers will see presence and absence as normal when viewing absence for their course.
Attendance managers
Attendance managers can access the attendance information from Admin > Attendance.
Attendance overview
The overview shows attendance in all the courses where Attendance reporting has been enabled. Archived courses are not included.
Under the Registered attendance column, an admin can see if attendance has been taken for events in a course. In this image - 6 of 29 means that of the 29 events that have been taught so far in Ancient History A, but attendance has been taken for only 6 events.
A "taught" event, is an event that is marked for attendance taking, and has already taken place.
Course details
Clicking on a course will open the overview page for that course. Attendance managers have the same rights as teachers/lecturers, and can take and change attendance, and view detailed attendance for a student. An attendance manager can also see who the teacher is for any course.
Detailed view for a student in a course
The attendance manager can check recorded attendance for any student in a course. The attendance manager has the option of changing attendance on this page, by clicking on the event.
Absence percentage
The absence percentage for a student in a course is calculated automatically. It is based on events in the past and does not take future events into account (as we cannot know if all events have been added to the calendar yet).
Absence percentage = (number of minutes absent) / (number of minutes given) %.
- Number of minutes absent is the sum of minutes from all events where the student was absent (taking partial absence into account)
- Number of minutes given is the sum of minutes from all events recorded for this student. Records marked as Not set are not included.
Partial absence
Partial absence means that a student was absent for parts of the event, for instance, 1hr in a 4hr event. In this example, the 1hr is counted as absent minutes, while the remaining time is calculated as present.
Partial absence is marked with an hourglass-icon. The number of minutes partially tracked is written below the image. Minutes are not shown if a student was absent for the entire lesson.
Date filters on attendance reports
As of March 5, 2025, all attendance reports can be filtered by dates. This will help teachers and admins to track attendance on courses that run over multiple semesters.
Give date filters are used, then
- Report tables only show events from the selected time period.
- If user enters start date, but no end date, then filter the attendance report from start date to today.
- If user enters end date, but no start date, then filter the attendance report from first event to given date.
- Total absence percentage is recalculated using only the events from the selected time period.
- Total absence minutes and total registered minutes is recalculated using only the events from the selected time period (individual student reports).
By default, reports are shown without date filtering.