[Announcements] New Tool: Attendance

[Steve Swinsburg]

Hi Bryan,

We have a requirement for this as well.

A couple of extra ideas:

* It would be nice if students could mark their own attendance since many students have their own laptop/mobile device that can access the site. Some classes can be rather  large (200 students) so it would be a time consuming exercise for the instructor to do it. Of course this would be on some restrictions like the class being 'open', as well as recording other information like IP address or similar, so the student couldn't just be sitting at the pub and then say they were present.

* If the instructor is marking off a whole list, rather than having to click in a cell and then type a letter, maybe just a quick 'click' onto the cell to mark them as present. Multiple clicks could toggle through the list of options perhaps. 

* The list of options should be configurable. Some courses might only need 'present' or 'absent', some might need more.

* The option to default everyone to present and then mark them as absent. It's easier marking off 2 or 3 absent students, than 47 or 48 present students (assume 50 students in a class).

* Tabulation of absent days definitely.

* Integration with profile pictures so instructors can see the students by face rather than only by name.

cheers,
Steve


On 09/02/2011, at 8:44 AM, Bryan Holladay wrote:

> Everyone,
> 
> We are putting together some specifications and designs for a new tool that will track student's attendance, partially sponsored by some of Longsight's clients. The idea is to have a simple table that lists each day the class meets where a teacher can insert in attendance records for each student (see below (or attachment) for a crude mockup).  I've heard there's been some interest in the community for a tool like this and it would be great to get the community involved. I'm hoping to get input from everyone about any ideas or features they'd like to see. Also, any collaboration with design, UI, coding, or internationalization would help a lot. I've set up a wiki page where anyone can contribute input/ideas or sign up to help: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/ATTEND/Home 
> 
> Here are some quick ideas for specifications:
> 	•	Show a listing of dates (similar to a calendar, but in a spreadsheet-like format, rather than a monthly calendar-style view, and with the students names listed in one column on the left)
> 	•	Have the ability to select only certain days of the week for viewing as the default for a particular site (for example, Mondays and Wednesdays only, if it is a M-W class)
> 	•	Enter an attendance mark for each student for each date the class meets, such as P (present), A (absent), T (tardy), E (excused), H (holiday), etc.
> 	•	Listing would be sortable by name, or specific date column
> 	•	Students displayed could be filtered by group or section
> 	•	Allow faculty to export and/or print the attendance data for offline-line record keeping if needed
> 	•	Allow students to access the tool and view ONLY their own attendance data for that class
> 
> Additionally, it would be really great if:
> 	•	Faculty had a place where they could define the start and end dates of class for that term
> 	•	There were a way to tabulate the number of absences per user and record it somewhere easily visible to faculty and students
> 	•	The instructor could choose to assign points for attendance, and this data could be (optionally) linked to the gradebook to give an overall attendance score
> 
> 
> Even if you are unable to contribute, it would be nice to know the interest level within the community for this tool, so please reply with your thoughts or add comments to the confluence page.
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> Bryan Holladay
> The Longsight Group LLC
> 
> <Screen shot 2011-02-02 at 3.00.04 PM2.png>
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