Here's how to set up an assignment that factors course attendance into your students' final grades...

Create an attendance assignment group

1. Go to Assignments and click Add an assignment group.
2. Give it a name and an appropriate weight.
3. Generally, you'll want to leave the extra credit and drop lowest options empty.

Create an attendance assignment

1. In Assignments, click Add an assignment.
2. Enter the appropriate details; in the example above, we gave the assignment 30 points to match the course's 30 meeting times in the term.
3. Select your Attendance assignment group.
4. For Type, select Attendance. This tells Populi to tie the assignment's grade to course attendance.

Take attendance

As the term progresses, take attendance as normal. As you do, Populi will automatically calculate the assignment's grade, which in turn feeds into the Final Grade.

A few notes:

As you take attendance, Populi calculates an attendance percentage. This percentage is then converted to a percent grade for the assignment; in turn, the percent grade is converted to assignment points.

Your school may count a certain number of tardies as equal to one absence—for example, four tardies may equal one absence. This can be set up at the global level or the course level by an Academic Admin.

The percentage is calculated based on the number of meeting times for which you've taken attendance—notthe total number of meeting times! Say you have thirty meeting times but have taken attendance for only ten...

• A student marked absent twice gets 80%
• Assuming that four tardies equals one absence, a student with three tardies gets 92.5% (assuming that four tardies = one absence...)

If your school fails students for non-attendance, you may notice students with a sufficient number of absences or tardies receiving a Failure for Non-attendance grade (often shortened to FN). Check with a school administrator about any such policy.