Staff Guide: Attendance tool

Introduction

The MMS Attendance tool is used to track student attendance. Students can be marked:

  • Absent
  • Absent at point of recording
  • Absent (approved)
  • Present
  • Session cancelled

The attendance data is passed to SITS (the main student records system) for UKVI purposes and used for track-and-trace.

Attendance tools default to the Tutorial group type, however an attendance tool can be created for each group type created in a module, such as ‘Seminar’ group and ‘Lab’ group types. For guidance on groups and group types see the MMS Groups section on the MMS Guides page: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/mms-guides/staff-guides/modules/mmsgroups/#d.en.325199

This guide will cover:

1. Creating an attendance tool

An attendance tool can be created for each group type, to create an attendance tool:

  1. Access the module by clicking the Module title on the Modules page in MMS, or in the My Modules portlet on the Academic Activities workspace in MySaint (see Figure 1).
  2. From the module overview scroll down to the Tools section.
  3. From the Additional tools section select the check box next to the Attendance tracking option (see Figure 2).
  4. Select the Create Tools button to create a new Attendance tracking tool (see Figure 2).
  5. Locate the new tool in the tool table (see Figure 3).
  6. Change the tool name in the Name column if required (see Figure 3).
  7. Select the group type from the Group Type column (see Figure 3).
  8. Save the settings by selecting the Update Tools button (see Figure 3).

  • A mock-up of two views of the Module, one in MMS and one in MySaint. The link to the module overview is indicated by an arrow in each image.
    Figure 1: Links to the Module overview as seen in MySaint (left) and MMS (right).

  • A mocked up screenshot of the Tools section in MMS with arrows indicating the Attendance tool and the Create Tools button.
    Example Attitional tools section indicating how to create an Attendance tracking tool.

  • A screenshot of the Tools table on the module overview with arrows indicating where to change the name of the tool, where to select the group type, and how to save the configuration.
    The tool Name and Group type can be changed on the Module overview.

2. Accessing the attendance tool

The Attendance tool can be renamed on the Module Overview page, and can be associated with a different group type, however in this guide the examples will assume a tool named Tutorial Attendance.

To access the Attendance tool:

  1. Select the Attendance Tool either via the My Courses tab in MySaint https://mysaint.st-andrews.ac.uk/  or via the links from the Modules page in MMS.

3. Configuring the attendance tool

Once an attendance tool is created, it needs to be set up with sessions. A ‘session’ is a time period or event for tracking attendance. These sessions should be flexible to include all students.

For example, during the first week, all students might need to attend a tutorial called ‘Tutorial 1’. They may attend it at different times or days, but we only want one ‘Tutorial 1’ session for attendance records.

3.1 Bulk creating sessions

The fastest way to configure the attendance tool is using the Bulk session creation method.

To bulk configure the attendance tool:

  1. Access the attendance tool.
  2. Select the Session Configuration link from the navigation panel on the left.
  3. Scroll down to the Bulk Session Creation section.
  4. Select or uncheck the tick boxes as appropriate.
  5. Select the Add Sessions button – the new sessions will appear in the Sessions section.

By default, a weekly session is selected for each week of teaching. To create a session representing a single day, uncheck the tick box for the weekly session and select the checkbox associated with the required day.

3.2 Creating individual sessions

To create individual sessions:

  1. Access the attendance tool via the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. Select the Session Configuration link from the navigation panel on the left.
  3. Scroll to the bottom of the Sessions section.
  4. In the last row of the table, enter the Sessions name in the Week? text box.
  5. In the Start Date column select the start date by selecting the calendar icon and selecting the date.
  6. In the End Date column select the end date by selecting the calendar icon and selecting the date.
  7. Select the Add Session button.

3.3 Editing a session

To edit a session:

  1. Access the attendance tool via the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. Select the Session Configuration link from the navigation panel on the left.
  3. Locate the row corresponding to the session you want to edit.
    • To adjust the session label, select the text box in the Session label column, and alter the text as needed.
    • To adjust the start date, select the calendar icon in the Start date column, and select a new date.
    • To adjust the end date, select the calendar icon in the End date column, and select a new date.
  4. Scroll down to  near the end of the table.
  5. Select the Update Sessions button to save.

3.4 Deleting a session

To delete a session:

  1. Access the attendance tool via the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. Select the Session Configuration link from the navigation panel on the left.
  3. Locate the row corresponding to the session you want to delete.
  4. Select the checkbox in the Delete? column.
  5. Scroll down to near the end of the table.
  6. Select the Delete Selected Sessions button.

4. Marking attendance

There are two mechanisms for marking attendance, it can be done individually by student, or for all students on a session. It is possible to combine both modes, for example mark all attendance as present and then cycling through attendance states for students who were absent.

4.1 Marking attendance by student

Marking attendance is easy in MMS. To mark attendance:

  1. Open the attendance tool from the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. In the Attendance overview table, find the column for the session.
  3. Find the cell that matches the session column and the student row.
  4. Select the cell to mark Present. Continue clicking to select other attendance options (refer to the key in the top right).
  5. Select Save Attendance to save.

4.2 Bulk marking attendance

To mark all students with the same attendance state:

  1. Open the attendance tool from the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. In the Attendance overview table, find the column for the session.
  3. Scroll down to the last row.
  4. Select the icon associated with the required attendance state.
  5. Select Save Attendance to save.

5. Viewing attendance

Student attendance can be viewed on the Attendance overview for the tool, and on the Tutorial Absence Records dashboard at the unit level. The unit level dashboard can be used to view the attendance for a whole module.

5.1 Viewing attendance per attendance tool

To view the number of unapproved absences per attendance tool:

  1. Open the attendance tool from the links on the Modules page or the My modules portlet in MySaint.
  2. Scroll to the left of the attendance table.
  3. The number of unapproved absences is listed in the Unapproved Absences column.

5.2 Unit level attendance dashboard

The unit level attendance dashboard can be used to view all attendance records for a single module, groups of modules or across the whole unit.

To view the unit level attendance dashboard:

  1. Log into MMS.
  2. Select the school from the drop down list on the Modules page.
  3. Select the View School button.
  4. Locate the Assessment section.
  5. Select the Tutorial Absence Records link.
  6. Use the Module selection field to retrieve the results for the required modules:
    • To see the records for one module enter the module code e.g. AB1001
    • To see the records for all modules enter .*
    • To see the records for a group of modules, use the module selection syntax listed.
  7. Select the Get Results button.

For each module the number of approved and unapproved absences will be listed for each student. The last three columns list the total Approved Absences for the student, total unapproved absences and a link to the Detailed Record page for the student.

To sort the table, select any column heading to sort on that column. Select the column heading again to sort in the reverse order.

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