How do I record student attendance of teaching sessions in Moodle?

The Attendance activity in Moodle is designed for capturing – and reporting on – student attendance.

Create activity

1. Using the standard Add an activity or resource link within your course, select the Attendance activity and click OK.
2. Give your activity a Name and Description (to explain what the purpose of this activity is).
3. Click on Save and display.

Add session(s)

1. Set the Date, Time and Description for your session.
2. If this is a recurring session, you should:

• Choose to Repeat the session (1); 
• Select the day of the week (2) for when you wish to add additional sessions; 
• Specify for how many weeks (3) until a specific date (4).

There is also a setting which allows students to record their own attendance (5).

Record attendance

From the Sessions screen, click on the Take attendance icon next to the session for which you wish to record attendance.

Record same attendance status for all students

1. Select All in the ‘Set status for’ drop-down list (1), select the appropriate status* (2) then click on Save attendance (3).

*The current statuses are defined as P (Present), L (Late), E (Excused) and A (Absent). It is possible to define different statuses for your attendance reporting.

Record attendance status for individual students

1. Select the attendance status* for each student by clicking on the appropriate radio button (highlighted below) next to their name:

2. Should you wish to record a comment relating to a specific student’s attendance status, there is a text-entry field under the Remarks column for each student.
3. Click on Save attendance to confirm the set statuses.

*The current statuses are defined as P (Present), L (Late), E (Excused) and A (Absent). It is possible to define different statuses for your attendance reporting.