How to see the total number of student absences (Canvas Attendance Tool)

Owned by Maria Shimel, created
Sept 24, 2021
2 min read

Attendance Key Elements:

  • Attendance is default set to 100 points and displaying as a Percentage to students.

  • The Attendance Total will update every time you take attendance.

  • You can change the Assignment Settings for the Attendance Tool.

    • Course Layout Menu → Assignments → Click on the title of the “Roll Call” Assignment → Edit

Instructor View - Look at Absences for One Student:

  • Go to the Canvas Course Site you wish to work in.

  • Select Attendance from the Course Layout Menu.

  • The Roll Call screen may take a moment to load, please wait a few minutes.

  • Once you see the student’s names, select More next to a student to view an overview of their attendance.

 

In the screenshot example below we see the student was Present 5 out of 7 times.  5/7= 71%


Instructor View - All students at one time:

This video walks through the steps of:

Within Excel you can sort the data in various ways, the video below specifically walks through how to organize the students by Name to view the overall “Present” and “Absents” for all students in one place.

 

Student View from Grades (with 100 points; displayed as a percent):

Changing How Attendance Displays to Students:

Some Instructors have shown interest in displaying different number to their students in the Roll Call area instead of a score.

Example:

An instructor would like students to know how many “Present”s they have when they look at their Grades area in Canvas. Facts:

  • The course is 16 weeks total

  • minus 1 week Spring/Thanksgiving Vacation

  • minus 1 week Finals.

  • This means the instructor expects the students to be Present 28 times.

In this example, the instructor changed the Assignment settings to be out of 28 Points and to display as Points to the students. (note - you can also choose the “Do not Count this assignment towards the final grade if you want)

 

  • Scroll to the bottom of the screen.  Select Save.

  • The scoring will update AFTER Attendance is taken the next time.

Relevant Information

Have a suggestion?

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