Audience: Franklin University faculty accessing courses in Canvas.
Disclaimer: The results and functionality of the following article only apply to the audience listed above.
Topics
- Manual Attendance vs. Attendance Automation
- Attendance Automation Window
- Instructions for Manually Updating Attendance
- Franklin University Attendance Policy
- Z-Grade Policy
- No Show Policy
- Student Course Sction Reinstatement
Manual Attendance vs. Attendance Automation
Some courses require instructors to manually enter attendance. Other courses are piloting the new attendance automation as part of the Attendance Automation Project. With attendance automation, the project aims to simplify the instructor experience by marking students absent or present based on course activity. Instructors will still carry the final say and can override the pre-filled attendance determination in Self Service. Additionally, instructors will be emailed a report each week showing attendance values for their course. They can use this report to determine if any attendance values need overwritten. For manual attendance entry, no pre-filled attendance is set and attendance needs recorded in Self Service by the instructor.
Attendance Automation Window
The window of time for attendance approval is from 4:00 pm on Tuesday to 4:00 pm on Wednesday. That means an instructor will receive the automation email at 4:00 pm each Tuesday and you will have 24-hours (ending Wednesday at 4:00 pm) to log into Self-Service and input data for any attendance values that were showing incorrectly in the automation email/table.
To better understand what automation logic is used to constitute present or absent, please reach out to your Lead Faculty.
To learn more about Automated Attendance for a course section, please click here for further instructions.
Instructions for Manually Updating Attendance
Locating Attendance Information for Canvas Courses
Instructors teaching courses sections in Canvas will use the Self-Service tool to track and grade student attendance in their class. They can either access the Self-Service tool from Canvas by clicking on the ‘Take Attendance & Submit Final Grades’ link under the Information tab or log in to the Self Service tool directly.
Access within Canvas
In Self Service, navigate to the Faculty tab.
After this, they will be on the Faculty overview page. The course sections being taught will display for the current and future terms.
Click on the section where the attendance needs to be recorded.
Attendance and Grading are the two tabs where the instructor will need to take the weekly attendance and submit final grades respectively.
Attendance as Of Date
The class dates will populate in the ‘Record attendance for the week beginning" dropdown field on the top corner of the screen.
(Note: the dates automatically advances each week so you may have to select a prior week to update the correct week's attendance)
Altering Attendance Records
After choosing a class date, attendance can be tracked for each student as a present, absent or special. The special option can be used for students who have arranged alternate attendance requirements with the instructor. This could be due to a disability, emergency needs, special course formats, or any other reason an instructor might approve.
Click on the bubble icon to provide any comments.
There is no save button on this attendance screen. Once an attendance status is picked or a comment added, the action is self-saved.
Franklin University Attendance Policy
The Franklin University attendance policy can be found in the Academic Bulletin, which is updated every year.
Z-Grade Policy
The attendance policy for Franklin University allows students to miss a certain amount of classes based on the number of credit hours the course section is worth. You can find the details of the Z-Grade policy in the Academic Bulletin. Once a student has missed more classes than is permitted, Instructor will need to give them a Z grade.
No Show Policy
A student is marked Never Attended if they have not shown up to any classes or shown any sign of participating in the course section.
For the above two options, i.e., to give a Z grade or to mark as never attended, Instructor will need to access the Grading tab. For Z grade, choose the Z grade from the Final Grade column and enter the Last Date of Attendance. And for No Show, select Never Attended check field. Save these changes by clicking the Post Grades button. Once a grade is posted, it cannot be changed, whereas the last date of attendance can still be edited. The instructor at this point will need to contact the registrar to make further changes to the grade. There is no need to post all grades at once. It can be done for one or more students at a time.
For a cross-listed course, both sections will display on the dashboard. The instructor will need to go into each section to track attendance and submit final grades.
Student Course Section Reinstatement
Students may be automatically removed from course sections due to too many absences. For questions about section reinstatement, the Incomplete Grades Process, and extended section access, please click here.
Wish to log a request with the Help Desk? Use your Franklin University username and password to login: Log A Request