Use Case: Attendance

Many D2L Customers use the gradebook to mark attendance, especially if attendance to various events such as CPD workshops, or lessons/lectures make up part of a final grade. In terms of process, it’s as simple as pressing the ‘Grade all’ button next to each grade item/attendance activity, and then filling in scores, however there are different setup considerations based on if attendance counts towards final grade or not.

When attendance contributes to final grade

For clarity and calculation purposes, it’s best to create a category for attendance. Within that, you have some options in terms of how to display this to users.

• Make sure that learners can see the category and grade items, and make sure the category has a description that explains that attendance contributes to final grade.
• Fix the weighting or points distribution for that category.
• When creating grade items, use numeric ones with a grade scheme so learners see the scores represented as words e.g. 0= Did not attend, and 1 = Attended.
• Why use numeric items here? So they can be calculated within the categories and you can choose which lowest scores to drop, or, so you can use their scores in a formula grade item e.g. IF learners attended >=70% of sessions they pass.

When attendance doesn’t contribute to final grade

Even if attendance doesn’t contribute to final grade, it’s a great idea to use categories just to make everything clear in your gradebook. You can make sure the category doesn’t count towards final grade within it’s setup, and then beyond that, you can hide columns in your gradebook so you don’t have to see them all the time.

From here, it’s up to you if you show learners that you’re recording attendance – you can hide grade items and categories from learners if you don’t want them to see it.

Note: Doing attendance through gradebook means you can do extra things with it – one of those is make attendance contribute to final grade, although as there are release conditions for grades, you can either release intelligent agents based on attendance, or material/content.

A setup that is common is using formula grade items for attendance – essentially putting conditions around that final grade value, so a guide to creating formula grade items for complex grading needs is also available.