Blackboard Attendance

Blackboard Attendance (Movie: 01:23)

Blackboard now has its own Attendance tool. With this Attendance Tool instructor can take attendance for regular class meets and any event that needs take attendance. With activation of Attendance in the course by the instructor, an Attendance is added to the Grade Center column as an assessment column. Instructor can treat Attendance as a regular assessment with access to all the options. The following questions and answers provides useful information to help the instructors understand Attendance tool.

Where should I get started using Attendance and Where do I access Attendance? (click to see the answer)

Attendance is located under Course Tools in the Control Panel. To use this tool, instructor must set it up.

To get started. In your Blackboard Course: on the left side of the screen below the course menu

Open the Control Panel >> open Course Tools >> Click Attendance, this will open Attendance in course main view area.

Click Add Attendance to start mark attendance or set up meets

What attendance marks are available? (click to see the answer)

At this point, there are only three options for marking attendance: Presence, late, absent. By default, Blackboard calculates attendance according these three options on presets: Presence gets full points (100 pts. or 100% ); Absent gets 0 points (0 pt or 0%) , Late will be marked an half of full points by default (50 pts or 50%).

How do I take attendance? (click to see the answer)

Once you start adding Attendance, Attendance automatically start with Today for you to mark attendance. Click word "Mark" to bring up the marking options, select a mark option, the points will be automatically entered for the day.

Can I set up the class meets for the entire semester? (click to see the answer)

Yes. Instructor can set all class meets in advance for the entire semester. Follow the steps below:

  1. In Attendance page, at the upper right corner, click the Overall button to show the overall view.

  2. Move the mouse over the border between the date box, when a purple plus "+" icon shows up, click on the "+" to add a day. The new day always says Today.

  3. Click on Today to bring up options menu. Select Edit Meeting to open the calendar.

  4. Click to select a date, a new class meet is added.

Note: When you set up all meets, the order will not be refreshed right away until you to re-open Attendance by clicking on Attendance under the Course Tools.

Can I export the attendance to outside Blackboard course? (click to see the answer)

Yes. Instructor can export attendance records as an Excel spreadsheet.

Click on the Export icon at the upper right corner of inside the Attendance view. An Excel file is automatically downloaded and saved in he default downloads folder on your computer.

In the Excel Spreadsheet, instructor will see the attendance marks each day of the class meets for every student. The mark is Presence, Late or Absent.

Where do my students see their attendance records? (click to see the answer)

Students will see their attendance records through My Grades. Attendance is automatically calculated by Blackboard displayed in their grades.

Click on "Attendance" to open the actual attendance mark for each class meet.

How can I modify an existing attendance mark?

To modify an existing attendance mark

  1. Open Attendance from Course Tools in the Control Panel, and select Overall at the upper right corner of the attendance grid

  2. Click on the current mark to bring up the attendance mark options, and then select a desired attendance mark. The Attendance grade will be automatically updated.

Can I remove an existing attendance mark? (click to see the answer )

Yes. You can. To remove an existing Attendance mark,

  1. Open Attendance, Select Meeting at the upper right of the attendance grid,

  2. Click the left or right arrow to display the date you want to remove the existing attendance mark.

  3. Locate the student (scrolling up & down as needed), and then click the current attendance mark once. Now, the current is grade removed and all marks are present.




Can I print a daily attendance off Attendance in the Web browser? (click to see the answer )

Sorry. You cannot print a full attendance sheet in Blackboard. However, instructor can download (export) the attendance records in Excel format. The spreadsheet contains all class meeting dates created so far. One class meeting per column. The dates are list across the top row, the roster is listed in the first column from the top to the bottom sorted by last name in ascending order.