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Tracking Student Attendance: Blackboard vs Starfish
Posted December 14, 2022
Tracking student attendance in college-level courses can be a topic of debate. Some courses require participation and class or activity attendance within the evaluation methods of the course and some do not. Regardless, tracking student attendance can help you as an educator to see patterns in student behavior, both individually and as a class. Attendance is also a factor in student retention. We have two methods of attendance tracking available at SIUE: Blackboard's Attendance Tool and Starfish Attendance.
Blackboard Attendance
The Blackboard Attendance tool, once enabled, integrates into the Blackboard Grade center. It may be calculated into a student’s grade, and the faculty can determine what counts for points by setting up the schema. The Blackboard Attendance Tool, once enabled in a course, automatically populates a column in the grade center. It can be deleted, but only if there is no attendance data recorded for any meetings. It will travel with any exported course files unless you remember to deselect it from that point on. ITS-IDLT does not recommend using this tool without consulting with an Instructional Designer to ensure it is the appropriate choice to meet the objectives of the course and it is set up properly.
Use the following KB Articles to review the Blackboard Attendance Tool: Access and Enter Attendance, View Attendance in the Grade Center, Export Attendance Data
Starfish Attendance
Starfish Attendance may be the better choice in many cases. Student images are included in the starfish attendance roster view and the system is set up to automate a notification (or flag) to the Student Success Center if a student reaches 3 absences for a course. This integrates with the university’s efforts to improve student retention. This system still allows faculty to track attendance while lowering the risk of unintentionally affecting a student’s grade based on attendance data or carrying old attendance data forward with course export files.
For Starfish support regarding tools and features faculty can use to track and interact with students, please contact the Student Success Center.
Use the following KB article for setting up and entering attendance: Starfish – Taking Attendance.
