How do I set up attendance grading?

The Attendance tool allows instructors to set up flexible and simple grading for students' attendance. You can enter an overall grade for students, and you can choose whether to allow students to view their grade in the Attendance tool. You can also send the Attendance grades to the Gradebook tool.

Enabling Manual Grading

To grade attendance manually:

1. Navigate to the Attendance tool in your Sakai course site.

2. Click on the Grading tab.

3. Enter the number of points possible (the maximum number of points a student with perfect attendance would receive for the entire semester).

4. Choose whether students will be allowed to see their grades in the Attendance tool.

5. If you have the Gradebook tool installed, choose whether you want to send students' attendance grades to the Gradebook. 

6. Leave the grading mode set to Manually grade students' attendance in the 'Attendance By Student' tab.

7. Click on Save Settings.

Enabling Automatic Grading

To enable automatic grading with rules:

1. Navigate to the Attendance tool in your Sakai course site.

2. Click on the Grading tab.

3. Enter the number of points possible (the maximum number of points a student with perfect attendance would receive for the entire semester).

4. Choose whether students will be allowed to see their grades in the Attendance tool.

5. If you have the Gradebook tool installed, choose whether you want to send students' attendance grades to the Gradebook.

6. Change the grading mode to Define rules to automatically grade attendance.

7. Choose whether you would like students to start with a total number of points and lose points as they miss class, or whether you would like to start with zero points and earn points as they attend class.

8. Click on Save Settings.

Adding Grading Rules

1. Select an attendance status from the Status drop-down.

2. Enter the numerical range for which the rule takes effect. The range is inclusive, meaning that it includes values in the From and Through boxes.

3. Enter the number of Points (positive or negative), that will be added to or subtracted from a student's grade, if the rule applies to the student.

4. Click on Add Rule.

5. To add another rule, additional rules, repeat the steps above.

For example, setting "Status" to "Absent", "From" to "5", "Through" to "10", and "Points" to "-10" results in the rule: "Student receives -10 points for being Absent 5 through 10 times."

Note: A negative point value entered in a grading rule will not cause the score recorded for Attendance in Gradebook to be negative. For example, if a point value of -10 for a grading rule applies for a particular student, but the Total Points Possible for Attendance is set to 5, the resulting student score will be 0 instead of -5 (assuming no other applicable grading rules).

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Need support? Contact sakai@plu.edu or call 253-535-7525.