Moodle Quick Bite: Taking Attendance with Moodle

December 2014

Moodle offers an easy and time efficient way to keep track of student attendance. If you include attendance in students’ final grades, Moodle will automatically calculate the attendance score. Steps and best practices are as follows:

Set Up Attendance in Moodle

  1. Select Turn Editing On.
  2. Select the Add an Activities and Resource link.
  3. Select the Attendance activity.
  4. Select Add.
  5. Select to change the grade option, if desired.
  6. If you do not want to grade attendance in the grade, select “no grade.”
  7. If you have separate groups in your course whose attendances are tracked differently, ensure the groups have been set up and properly assigned in Moodle. Create and assign groups to attendance modules as desired.
  8. Select Save and Display.
  9. Click the Add tab to add sessions.
  10. Select the box to create multiple sessions.
  11. Select the Start date of the class, Duration of each session, End date of the class, Days on which the class meets, and the Frequency.
    example: If you meet every week, the frequency is 1. If you meet every other week, the frequency is two, and so on.
  12. Click Add session.

Variables: P: Present; L: Late; E: Excused Absence; A: Unexcused Absence

Take Attendance in Moodle

  1. To take attendance, click the Attendance link from the course homepage.
  2. In the sessions view, click the green button next to the day you wish to take attendance.
  3. Adjust the description name for dates representing special campus events, other out of class events, guest speakers, etc. by selecting the wheel icon from the actions column and typing a description in the box provided.
  4. Select Update.

Manage Overall Attendance Variables and Scores

  1. While in the attendance module you have created for the course, select the Settings tab.
  2. Adjust the acronym description or grade for all variables.

Best Practices for Using the Attendance Module in Moodle

  • Take attendance at the beginning of class.
  • Turn on “show attendance” to students so they can help manage their attendance and keep a record of their attendance history.
  • Edit names of class days that the class did not meet, attended an event outside of class, had a guest speaker, etc.