Can you set rules for Roll Call attendance to drop lowest grades?

[cochrank]

I want to use Roll Call for the first time but want to be able to drop a certain number of "lowest grades" to allow a reasonable number of absences without penalty.  I understand I will need to make an Attendance Assignment Group and put the Roll Call assignment in that group.  Is it possible then to set a rule for the Attendance Assignment Group to drop a certain number of lowest grades even when using Roll Call for the assignments in this group? 

[Steven_S · Accepted solution]

The roll call assignment is a single assignment showing each student's attendance average.  You could set the assignment group containing that assignment to drop the lowest score, and if the roll call average was the lowest score, it will drop the entire attendance score.  That does not sound like your goal. 

The easiest way to drop missed days from the attendance average, is to mark them as excused, rather than absent.  You can also add badges to track excuses that are really unexcused dropped absences.  The attendance program is not the most effective way to track how many attendance badges each student has earned, however.  You will need to track somewhere else how many dropped absences each student has taken advantage of so far.

[lglen2]

"The easiest way to drop missed days from the attendance average, is to mark them as excused, rather than absent. "

Ok, so how do you do that? I take it I have to manually go in to find an absence and then mark it as excused, but I can't find an "excused" button in Attendance...

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"The attendance program is not the most effective way to track how many attendance badges each student has earned..."

You're not kidding! I've avoided using Attendance in the past; I used it this term because I had to, but I will find another way going forward. Like so much of Canvas, it's a great idea that just doesn't work.

[Stef_retired]

@cochrank  We hope you'll check out the new Canvas Attendance feature in New Analytics.