Track Attendance

Owned by
Christine Sandella
Last updated: Feb 05, 2024
4 min read

The Attendance (Roll Call) tool is an external app used for taking attendance in Canvas courses. The Attendance tool can be enabled for all courses in Canvas, including online or face-to-face courses.

Setting Up Attendance in a Course

In order to use the Attendance tool, you must first add it to your course navigation.  

  1. Click Settings in the course navigation.  

  2. At the top of your settings page, click the Navigation tab. 

  3. Drag and drop Attendance from the disabled menu to the enabled navigation menu.  

  4. Click Save.

    Canvas's Setting page, with a numbered red box around Settings on the left-side navigation menu. A numbered red box around the Navigation tab at the top of the page. And, a numbered red box with an up arrow around the Attendance option on the disabled tools list.

View Attendance

With the Attendance tool, instructors can keep track of course attendance by taking roll electronically. Your roster will automatically populate in this tool, allowing you to:

  • Choose to view the tool in a list or grid format.

    Canvas's Roll Call interface with a red box around the list and class options.

     

  • Customize the placement of each student in the seating chart by dragging and dropping student names onto the seating chart layout grid.

     

When you take attendance using Roll Call, Canvas automatically adds Attendance as an assignment. The default point value for attendance is 100 points. To avoid Attendance calculation errors, never delete, rename, or unpublish the Attendance assignment.

Note: Although students cannot view the actual attendance tool, they can still view the attendance assignment in the Assignments page. This assignment cannot be hidden from students. However, you can keep them from getting grade notifications by changing the assignment to Manual Grading Policy in the Gradebook.

Track Attendance

The attendance status set for each student is associated with a percentage value. Statuses include present and on time, not present, late, and unmarked (excused absence).

Graded Attendance

The Attendance tool also creates an assignment in the Gradebook and calculates attendance as a percentage of a student's grade.

If you do not want Attendance to factor into the final grade:

  1. Navigate to Assignments from the course navigation menu.

  2. Click the Roll Call Attendance assignment.

  3. Click Edit Assignment Settings on the right-hand side.

  4. Choose Do not count this assignment toward the final grade.

  5. Click Save.

If you do want Attendance to factor into the final grade:

View Gradebook Scores

The Attendance Gradebook column will update every time you take roll call in the Attendance tool. In the Gradebook Attendance column, by default Canvas displays the assignment based on percentage of the point value. For instance, if the point value is 100, and roll call has been taken twice, a student with one present value (100%) and one lateness value (calculated at 80%) will have a score of 90 points, or 90%.

Lateness Value

By default, the value of being late is 80% of the present value. So if a student is late, the student will receive 80% for the day instead of the full 100%. The late value can be adjusted in Roll Call settings.

Export Attendance Reports

At both the account and course levels, the Attendance tool allows users to create attendance reports. Within the Roll call interface, the gear icon located in the upper right corner allows you to manage roll call settings and generate attendance reports based on the parameters you input. Once generated, you may choose to print your attendance reports.

Additional Resources