This guide has been designed to facilitate the recording and reporting of attendance for classes at Carolina University in light of the attendance policy updates from December 2023. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Setting up attendance notifications in the LMS

The eLearning LMS has features to assist you in automatically notifying responsible parties of accrued absences. While some of these are automatically configured from the course template, they may also be adjusted on an individual course level. 

NOTE: Class sessions present on your course attendance page are driven from the database. Please contact the registrar’s office if the dates and times listed here are inaccurate. 


  1. On the Attendance page of your course context, select the “Attendance Settings” option.

  2. Select the option for “Notifications”.

  3. Expand the option for “Number” and set the following values in accordance with the policy. 

    • Send a notification after # Absent

    • Recipients: 

      • Students

  4. Expand the option for “Consecutive” and set the following values in accordance with the policy. 





Recording attendance for in-person students

eLearning has a feature that was released in 2023.1 called “Code Entry” wherein a QR Code can be scanned and/or an alphanumeric code can be entered by the student to credit attendance.  

NOTE: Class sessions present on your course attendance page are driven from the database. Please contact the registrar’s office if the dates and times listed here are inaccurate. 


  1. On the Attendance page of your course context, select the “Attendance Settings” option.

  2. Select the option for “Code Entry”.

  3. Expand the option for “Code entry method” to determine whether a static or rolling code is to be applied. NOTE: The recommended approach is for “Rolling code”; this will automatically generate a new code every 60 seconds.

  4. Expand the option for “Status Timers” to set the automated code entry for your class sessions. NOTE: In the provided example, I am allowing for attendance check-in to occur from 10 minutes before class until 20 minutes after it begins with a “Tardy” status that begins 1 minute after the session starts. 

    • Determine at what point you will allow students to begin checking in and adjust your settings accordingly for Present and Tardy.

    • Since you do not want to unnecessarily report absences for online students who may be in this course, the system will not default to a status, allowing you to record Absent and Excused as deemed appropriate.

    • For online students, this value will need to be modified manually following the deadline for the discussion forum assignment.

  5. On the Attendance main screen, select the option to “Manage sessions” 

  6. Verify that the attendance method is “Code entry”. If not, use the options to select individual sessions or to select all and “Edit”. 

  7. Using the dropdown, select the option for “Code Entry” for all sessions where you want to use this feature. 

    • Click Save.

  8. When class is scheduled to begin, return to the Attendance screen and select “Launch”. This will launch a screen wherein the QR Code and alphanumeric code will be displayed for students upon entry to class. 

  9. Following the class session, use your Course Roster Report to mark in-person students as “Absent” per the policy. 


Recording attendance for online students

Attendance for online students is dependent on the deployment of discussion forum assignments in your course. 

NOTE: In cases where an instructor may want to grade this forum, it is imperative that this information is properly reflected in the course syllabus and grade weighting table. This guide will assist you in either method. 


Method One: Standalone forum for attendance (no grading)

  1. On the Discussion Forum page of your course context, select the option to “Edit Forum”.
  2. Select the link to “Add a Category”

  3. Enter category information for “Online Attendance” and click “Save Category”.

  4. Select the link to “Add Topic”

  5. Enter the required information for each session wherein you want to record attendance. 

    1. Suggested nomenclatures: 

      1. Week 1 Attendance, Week 2 Attendance, Week 3 Attendance, etc.

      2. Day 1 Attendance, Day 2 Attendance, etc.

    2. Add’l suggested topic settings:

      1. Provide a basic description in the textbox to indicate to student users the expectation and/or direct them to the coursework page for assignment-specific information if elected.

      2. Leave activation as-is [Display Now | No End Date] given that the topic name will reflect the appropriate forum for each session

      3. Leave Access, New Content, Restrictions, & Moderation as-is 

    3. Save the topic and repeat for each session

  6. To grade attendance, return to the Discussion Forum page after the session and note which students completed the forum. 

  7. Return to the attendance page and select the option for “Present” for all students who completed the forum.



Method Two: Standalone forum for attendance (with grading)

  1. Complete Steps 1-5 as outlined in Method One.
  2. Return to the Coursework page and select the option to “Add Assignment” and select the option for “Forum” 

  3. Enter the parameters of the assignment per Step One, including the Name, Unit, Type (especially critical if using the Type method for grade weighting), Post due date (optional), Due date, Open, Grading, Category, and Topic. Ensure that the appropriate category and topic are selected to align this specific assignment with the specific category and topic you created previously. 

    • If you have multiple sections in the same course, view your Course Roster Report and select the audience for which this assignment is intended (online students). Most likely, this will contain less than the entire roster as presented on the Roster page because of the parent/child configurations in the Database.

    • Options for grading include Graded, Graded (Rubric), Credit/No Credit, and Not Graded. If points are to be given to this specific assignment, select one of the first two options. NOTE: There is no automated attendance grading based on this selection. This is for your gradebook only. 

  4. Continue to the settings in Step Two, ensuring that options to require a set # of posts and/or replies and word count are optional. 

  5. Provide details of the specific assignment in Step Three and click “Save your new assignment”. 

  6. Repeat this process for each discussion forum. 

  7. Upon completion of the assignment deadline, return to the coursework page and select the name of the assignment to review the class roster and any automated reporting of the minimum requirements. 

  8. Grade assignment as specific in Step One.

  9. Return to the attendance page to report completions as “Present” and incompletions as “Absent”.