Online Course Attendance

To remain in compliance with state and federal regulations, NICC is required to maintain accurate attendance records in all courses. NICC requires their online students to attend classes every week, which is defined as Tuesday, 12:00 am CST to the following Monday at 11:59 pm CST. Attendance for an online student is demonstrated by their activity in the Brightspace classroom on a minimum of two separate occasions during the online week.

Students can achieve attendance by completing the following types of activities in the Brightspace classroom: (1) submitting an academic assignment; (2) completing a quiz or an exam; or (3) participating in a discussion. These activities, which stimulate instructor-to-student and student-to-student engagement, will be used to determine the last date of attendance.

“Examples of acceptable evidence of academic attendance and attendance at an academically-related activity in a distance education program include:

• student submission of an academic assignment,

• student submission of an exam or quiz,

• documented student participation in an interactive tutorial or computer-assisted instruction,

• a posting by the student showing the student’s participation in an online study group that is assigned by the institution,

• a posting by the student in a discussion forum showing the student’s participation in an online discussion about academic matters, and

• an e-mail from the student or other documentation showing that the student initiated contact with a faculty member to ask a question about the academic subject studied in the course.” (From the Federal Student Aid Handbook)

Logging into the online classroom without active participation (as defined above) does not qualify towards official weekly attendance. Work completed outside of the Brightspace classroom is not valid for attendance. Attendance is recorded automatically in Brightspace on the day the student completes an activity. Any activity completed prior to the official start date or after the official end date of the course will not count for attendance. “In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student.” (From Federal Student Aid Handbook).