The Attendance (Roll Call) tool is an external app (LTI) used for taking attendance in Canvas courses. The Attendance tool can be used for online or face-to-face courses.

The Attendance tool always appears as a visible Course Navigation link, but it cannot be viewed by students, so hiding the link in Course Settings is not necessary. If instructors do not want to use the Attendance tool in their courses, no action is required. However, if you do use the Attendance tool, students can view their attendance report through the Roll Call Attendance submission details page. Please go to this tutorial for more information on the Attendance feature.

Here are some helpful overview tutorials for getting Started with Attendance (Roll Call) in Canvas

• How do I use the Roll Call Attendance tool in a course?

• How do I edit the Roll Call Attendance assignment?

• How do I take roll call using the Attendance tool?

• How do I run Roll Call Attendance reports in a course?

The Attendance tool will only send grades to the item named “Roll Call Attendance”. If an item by this name does not exist, Canvas will create a new assignment and gradebook column named “Roll Call Attendance”. If you accidentally renamed the “Roll Call Attendance” column, to correct the problem:

1. Mute both assignments, the original renamed item and the new “Roll Call Attendance” item.

2. Delete the original assignment, leaving only the item named “Roll Call Attendance”. The scores for this item may be inaccurate at this time; however, it will be updated to include all previous attendance scores once a new score is recorded via the Attendance tool.

3. Take attendance via the Attendance tool at your next class. All scores will be updated based on the new point value.

4. Unmute the assignment so your students can see their attendance scores.

If you change the point value after you take attendance for the first time, attendance grades will continue to reflect the original point value. To correct this problem:

1. Mute the gradebook item for the assignment named “Roll Call Attendance”.

2. Change the points of the “Roll Call Attendance” assignment to the desired point value. Grades will not reflect the new point value until you take attendance as described in the next step.

3. Take attendance via the Attendance tool at your next class. All scores will be updated based on the new point value.

4. Unmute the new assignment so your students can see their attendance scores.

If you wish to use the attendance tool but don’t want to affect students’ grades, it’s better to explicitly make the “Roll Call Attendance” assignment ungraded than to change the point value to zero. If you set the point value to zero, the assignment will still appear in the gradebook, but if you make it ungraded, it will not. To make the assignment ungraded:

1. In the Assignments tool, click Roll Call Attendance.

2. In the top right, click Edit.

3. Check the box next to Do not count this assignment towards the final grade.

4. Click Save.