Track Attendance

MyFIRE has the capability to track student attendance within the platform. Attendance is tracked through registers that are created in the course. However, it is recommended that instructors first set up the desired attendance scheme before creating attendance registers to track attendance. Please refer to the Create an Attendance Scheme tutorial to learn how to create an attendance scheme. This tutorial demonstrates how to create an attendance register and track attendance in MyFIRE.



1.    Locate the desired course in MyFIRE.

2.    Select the course tools tab from the navigation bar.  




3.    A drop-down menu will appear. Select attendance




4.    Select new register.




5.    Title the attendance register the name field.




6.    Type a description if desired.




7.    Select an attendance scheme from the available options in the drop-down menu. A scheme determines the available symbols for attendance recording as well as how much of a percentage they are worth for determining a participant's score (i.e. Present “P” = 100%). 




a.    Sample schemes will be available from the Organizational Scemes and are available for use. 




b.    Instructors may also create their own scheme by following the directions in the create an attendance scheme tutorial. Any created schemes will appear under Course Schemes within the attendance scheme drop-down menu. 




8.    Next, set a percentage for the cause for concern by typing the percentage number based upon your discretion. For example, 85% is typed as 85. The cause for concern will determine how many sessions you will allow students to miss based on the number of sessions and desired attendance scheme. 

Note: If a student falls below the desired cause for concern percentage, the student should be contacted for intervention. 




9.    If desiring students to view the register and review their attendance records, select the allow users to view this attendance register checkbox. This option is selected by default and is recommended by ID&T. 




10. Choose which user type can view the attendance register by selecting either include all users in the course or include all users in the following groups/sections.  




a.    Include all users in the course - This option will allow each user in the course to view the attendance register. This is the default option. 

b.    Include all users in the following groups/sections - This option allows only a designated group of users in the course to view the register. 

Note: Groups must be created in the course first in the groups tool to utilize the include all users in the following groups option. If needed, refer to the create groups tutorial. 

i.              If Include all users in the following groups/sections is chosen, then select add groups/sections to choose the desired group of users who should view the register. 




11. Next, title each attendance session in the Session Name column and provide a description for each session under the section description column (i.e., Name: 8/27, Description: Class). Sessions are the components of an attendance register that define one or more events to which the register applies.  For example, if wanting to track attendance for a weekly seminar, create a "Weekly Seminar" register and then add sessions for each seminar (week 1, week 2, week 3, etc.).  Attendance data is tracked for each session and displayed on the register's Attendance data page.




12. To add additional sessions to the register, below the sessions table, enter the (1) number of additional sessions desired and then select (2) add sessions.




13. Once done naming and adding sessions, select save at the bottom of the page.




14. Once ready to track attendance, select the title of the desired attendance register.




15. When the register opens, locate the desired session and select the attendance title and icon in the column header.




16. When the page refreshes, to the right of each student’s name, select the desired status for each student from the attendance status drop-down menu. The selections available will be based on the attendance scheme selected in step 7 (i.e., P for Present or A for Absent).



17. Select Save.




18. Then select Close.




19. Review the students' attendace scores in the % Attendance Column. If students’ attendance records are falling below the cause for concern threshold that was selected in step 8, the % Attendance column will show an alert icon and the students’ attendace score in red. It is highly recommended to reach out to any student falling below the cause for concern threshold for intervention. 




20. If the course includes an attendance grade item, then the total percentage attendance score can be manually entered into the gradebook. Please refer to the manually enter grades tutorial. 

21. Once done reviewing the attendance, select done at the bottom of the page.