Adding Attendance Sessions
Once you have added the Attendance activity to your course, you must now set up attendance sessions. You can add one session or multiple sessions at once if you will be taking attendance on a regular schedule.
- In Moodle, go to the course where you have added an Attendance activity and click on the activity card.
- Inside the activity, click Add session.
- Here you can add and edit your sessions. Select a date for the session and the window during which it will be available. Include a description to give students more information about the session.
NOTE: You can set the same settings for multiple groups if the sessions are to be held on the same corresponding dates. If groups are present in your course, they will be available to select in the Type dropdown menu.
To create multiple attendance sessions, check the box to Repeat the session above as follows. Check the Repeat on box(es) for the days the sessions should appear. For example, For Tuesday and Thursday classes, you would check both the Tuesday and the Thursday boxes. To create an attendance session every week, set the weekly repeater to repeat every one (1) week.
You can also allow students to record their own attendance, which means that they can manually mark themselves present. To make sure only enrolled students respond to the activity, you can set a password for the session, require them to scan a QR code live, or both:
If you choose to include a password, you will need to share it with your students before they attempt to record attendance. The password requirement will be indicated by the key icon in the instructor view:
When students click into the activity to record their attendance, they will see a link to submit the attendance status:
If the QR code is required, students must scan the code using their phone cameras to record attendance. For more security, you can rotate the code so that it changes every 13 seconds, preventing students from sharing the code. If you select Rotate QR code, the password will also rotate automatically. For more information, see the GROK article Activities & Resources: Taking Attendance.
NOTE: If you allow students to record their own attendance AND you create multiple sessions, the students will be able to mark each session at once. However, if the instructor goes into the session and changes the attendance, it will lock the session for the students. Alternatively, the instructor could create individual sessions and after class, go through and mark anyone who was absent so that they cannot do it at a later date.
- When done, click Add to save your settings.
Editing and Deleting Attendance Sessions
To edit or delete an attendance session, click on the icons in the Actions column. The gear icon brings you to the session settings, and the trash can icon will allow you to delete the session.
Update the settings as needed and click Save changes.
More Resources
For more information on Adding Multiple Attendance Sessions, read the following documentation from Moodle Docs. Note that the documentation does not show the SNAP Theme, but the functionality of the settings is the same. All links will open in a new window.