Skip to main content

Brightspace Support

Brightspace Support

How to Track Attendance in Brightspace

Instructors may want to track student attendance throughout a semester. For this reason, there is an Attendance tool in Brightspace. Note that this tool does not allow students to enter their own attendance status – attendance data must be entered manually by an Instructor or TA. 

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use the Attendance tool in Brightspace:

 

Created Fall 2023

Create an New Attendance Scheme

Note: if you want to use the default System Scheme of present/absent, you can skip ahead to the Create an Attendance Register.

  1. Enter your course and go to Course Admin -> Attendance
  2. Click on the Attendance Schemes tab
  3. To create a custom scheme, click Attendance Schemes and New Scheme.
  1. Add symbols and names for each status (e.g. – A for Absent, P for Present, T for Tardy, etc). You have the option to assign percentages if you want Brightspace to calculate an attendance percentage for each student, but this field is not required.

     
  1. Click Save, then Close.

 

Create an Attendance Register

An Attendance Register allows you track attendance for different sessions in your course. For example: you could create multiple registers for different things (lectures, labs, etc.).

  1. Click New Register

     
  2. Give your Register a name (e.g. – Fall 2023 attendance)
  3. Choose an attendance scheme (either the system scheme or one you created)
  4. Enter a “cause for concern” percentage if you’d like to see an alert for anyone whose attendance rate is at risk
  5. Indicate whether you would like this Attendance Register to be visible to student

     
  6. Scroll down to add and name your sessions. Typically this would be the date each class meets. Add a description if needed. If you need more than 3 sessions, fill out all required information, add the number of additional sessions needed, then click Add Sessions.

     
  7. Click Save, then Close.

 

Entering Attendance

    1. Click on a Register name to enter data

       
    2. Click the icon next to a session name (usually a date) to enter student attendance for that session.
       
    3. Select the appropriate Attendance Status for each student (P = Present, A = Absent, etc.)
       
    4. Once you have all attendance entered for that session, click Save and then Close.

 

    1.