This guide will demonstrate how to add attendance to the gradebook, record attendance, adjust settings, manage meetings/lectures/events and view student summaries.
For each lecture, seminar or online event, you can mark whether a student is present, late, absent, or excused. The attendance records for each student appear in a single column next to other grades.
You can use attendance as part of grade calculations just as you can for an assignment grade column.
Adding Attendance to Gradebook
There are two places within a course where you can locate the attendance feature.
- In your Blackboard course, navigate to the Gradebook.
- In ‘Markable Items’ View, click the plus sign next to an existing column and choose “Add Attendance.”
- An attendance column will now appear in the gradebook.
- Alternatively, you can access the attendance feature from the left hand column of your blackboard home page.
Recording Attendance
Once you have located the attendance feature you will be able to mark students present, late, absent or excused for each session.
- Access the Attendance tool from your course tools.
- By default, the tool opens in the Meeting view for the current day. You can mark each student’s status as Present, Late, Absent, or Excused.
- Use the column header menu to mark all students present.
- Attendance grades are posted automatically as you mark them.
Meeting View
Within the attendance feature there are different ‘views’ that allow you to mark attendance for the day to day but also an overview of each student.
- Meeting view (default) is used to mark daily attendance. You can navigate between meetings using the arrows, and view or edit each student’s attendance.
Overall View
Overall view is another ‘view’ that allows you to see another perspective on students attendance.
- Overall view provides a summary of attendance for multiple meetings and shows overall statistics. You can also mark attendance and view attendance history here.
Adjusting Settings
The attendance feature also allows you to adjust the value of attendance for that course.
- In the Attendance page, access the Settings panel to change the attendance schema, such as the percentage for Late or Excused statuses.
- Changes to the schema are reflected immediately upon saving and refreshing the page.
Managing Meetings
There is also the functionality to add in more sessions within the attendance feature.
- Hover your mouse over the edge of the ‘today’ column and you will see a purple plus icon appear. Select the plus to add another attendance column for ‘today’. This same feature works for prior date columns.
There is also the option to mark all present, mark all absent, clear marks (for that column), delete a meeting, edit a meeting as well as exempt a meeting.
Viewing Student Summaries
As well as viewing all students in a table with their attendance, you can also view individual students in a more focused view.
- Select a student’s name (on the left hand side of each row) to see a summary of their overall attendance records. This summary is read-only.
- The Overall Score view displays course summary statistics, such as the course average and attendance rates.