Syncing attendance report with Canvas Gradebook

With the LTI Attendance Report feature for Canvas, instructors can sync the Zoom Meeting Attendance Report with their Canvas Gradebook. This allows instructors to quickly generate attendance grades based on the meeting attendance report. 

This article covers:

• Important considerations before using this feature
• How to set up the tool in Canvas
• How to configure the Attendance Report feature in a course
  • Configuring the Attendance Report
  • Attendance Reporting configuration example
• How to review the Attendance Gradebook report
• How to view the score in Canvas
  • Viewing scores as an instructor
  • Viewing scores as a student

Prerequisites for syncing attendance report with Gradebook 

• Education, Business, or Enterprise Plan
• Account owner or admin privileges
• LTI Pro 1.3 configured with Canvas

Important considerations before using this feature

This feature only supports logged-in Zoom Users or users that have joined the meeting via external authentication. These users must be using the same email address that they are using on Canvas since LTI Pro uses the email address to identify the student on Canvas so they can be appropriately mapped to the grading tool.

In addition, there are other important considerations for using the feature: 

• This feature does not support the ‘One meeting, multiple courses’ Import/disassociate meeting features. Zoom plans to support this in the future. 
• This feature does not support meetings started by an alternative host unless the host also joins the meeting.
• This feature does not support meetings that utilize personal meeting IDs.
• This feature does not support Join Before Host.
• This feature only supports meetings created by instructors.
• The report will not be generated if the host is the only participant in the meeting.
• If the meeting duration is less than 5 minutes, LTI Pro will not generate a report.
• This feature currently doesn’t support the Accessed Domain feature in the LTI configuration. This means if instructors set up the Attendance Report setting in domain A, they will not see the setting in domain B (Assuming the LTI Admin turns on Accessed Domain with domain A and domain B for the LMS in the LTI configuration).
• This feature only includes meetings that are running within the expected time range they were scheduled for. If the meeting starts too early or too late, there will not be a generated attendance report. Due to this, the meeting must be started within the expected time frame for when it was scheduled (no more than 10 minutes before the scheduled start time, and no more than 10 minutes after the scheduled end time).
• It is recommended to not change the scheduled start time of the meeting after the report has been generated, as this can impact the data being synced to the Gradebook.

How to set up the tool in Canvas

Before configuring the LTI service to sync the attendance report with the Canvas Gradebook, the following services need to be enabled in Canvas:

1. As an admin, log in to Canvas.
2. Click Admin, then click Developer Key.
3. Select LTI Pro, then click Edit.
4. Click on the LTI Advantage Service and enable the following settings:
   • Can create and view assignment data in the gradebook associated with the tool.
   • Can view assignment data in the gradebook associated with the tool. 
   • Can view submission data for assignments associated with the tool.
   • Can create and update submission results for assignments associated with the tool. 
   • Can retrieve user data associated with the context the tool is installed in.

How to configure the Attendance Report feature in a course

This feature needs to be set up for each course, which means if instructors want to sync the attendance reports with grade books from all of their classes, they have to configure it for each course individually. Once instructors launch the LTI Pro 1.3 tool, instructors should see the Attendance Report setting in the dropdown option on the LTI tool home page.

Configuring the Attendance Report

Once the setting is enabled, instructors will be able to see the configuration for the tool. The following fields can be filled out by the instructor:

• Total points: The maximum amount of points a student can get for their attendance. This field is required.
• Late deduction: The amount of percentage points deducted from the attendance score after a specific amount of minutes have passed after the start of the class.
• Percentage of Time Spent in Class: Instructors can set multiple ranges for how many points a student will receive, based on the percentage of time they were in attendance for the class.

Note: The field values are initially pre-populated with example values, a value must be entered in each field or the page will generate an error when trying to save the configuration.

Attendance Reporting configuration example

Based on the example configuration above: 

• If Student A stayed for 65% of the class and was not late to the class, Student A would receive 75% of the total points possible, which would be 75 points on the attendance report.
• If Student B stayed for 90% of the class but was late to the class, Student B would receive 90% of the total points possible, which would be 90 points on the attendance report.
• If Student C stayed for 30% of the class and was late to the class, Student C would receive 0% of the total points possible, which would be 0 points on the attendance report.
• If Student D doesn’t show up for the class at all, Student D would receive 0% of the total points possible, which would be 0 points for the attendance report.

How to review the Attendance Gradebook report

To view the Attendance Gradebook report as an instructor: 

1. Log into Canvas as an instructor and launch the LTI Pro tool.
2. Click the Previous Meeting tab.
   Note: If your meeting is not displayed, you will need to wait till the meeting populates.
3. Next to the desired meeting, click Report and then click the Attendance Grade Report tab.
   The Attendance Report will be displayed including the following fields:
   • Name: Name of the student.
   • Email: Email address of the student that is listed in Canvas.
   • Join Time: The time the student joined the meeting.
   • Leave Time: The time when the student left the meeting.
   • Duration (Minutes): The amount of time, in minutes, the student joined the meeting.
   • Suggested Grade: The suggested grade is based on the settings set when configuring the Attendance Report for the course.
   • Final Grade: By default, this is the same value as the Suggested Grade, but can be modified at the instructor's discretion.
4. Once the grading is complete, click Submit Grade.
5. When prompted with a confirmation, click Submit Grade to save the attendance scores to the Gradebook.
   Note: If the Attendance Report has been modified after the report has been generated but not before it has been submitted, it will get regenerated based on the new report configuration.

Once the attendance grades have been submitted, the grades will be available in the Canvas Gradebook. The Attendance Report will then be set to a read-only state within the LTI Pro tool and will be available for 180 days.

How to view the score in Canvas

Viewing scores as an instructor

If the instructor needs to review the attendance report within the Gradebook, the report will be listed as an assignment, with the naming convention AttendanceReport-YYYY-MM-DD, where the date format is the scheduled start time of the meeting. For example, if the start time for the meeting was December 3, 2022, the report will be named AttendanceReport-2022-12-03. Instructors can modify the scores here after the grade has been submitted from the LTI Pro tool. To access the assignment:

1. Log into Canvas as an instructor.
2. Open the desired course.
3. Navigate to Assignments.
4. Find the attendance report, and click it to view the report.
5. Launch SpeedGrader.
   The student's grade will be displayed, as well as their total attendance time in minutes next to the Total Participant time.

Viewing scores as a student

1. Log into Canvas as a student.
2. Open the desired course.
3. Navigate to Assignments.
4. Click on the assignment AttendanceReport-YYYY-MM-DD.
   The student will see their attendance score.