Changes to Attendance

Come the fall semester, attendance will take a sharp turn in a new direction. A faculty announcement on Saturday, Jan. 23 announced some classes on campus will run a pilot test for Qwickly, a Blackboard app for calculating attendance. This app gives faculty members multiple ways to chart attendance, including a pin for students to manually enter onto Blackboard and automatic recording via student support services. The data from Qwickly is currently overseen by the Director of Student Success, Amy Janzen, but Janzen predicts that Student Life and Freshman Experience will also receive some of the data.

The testing period for Qwickly will continue through the spring and summer semesters. If it works well, it will be mandatory for all classes in the fall. As of now, 35 faculty members are testing Qwickly in their classrooms.

“A variety of faculty members are using it,” Janzen said. “We have representation in every department and all different course levels.”

Trey Orndorff, the program chair for behavior and social science, said Qwickly has already helped him with one of his general education classes. His previous attendance method of using QR codes had multiple issues.

“When students came into class, you’d scan with your phone on your camera, and then you’d sign in,” Orndorff said. “But it was a little quirky and cumbersome, and it didn’t integrate directly to Blackboard. So, students would do that, and then our student workers would have to manually go through.”

Orndorff and Alden Bass, assistant professor of Bible, have been supporters of Qwickly from the start, as their general education classes have upward of 100 students. Old methods of attendance, such as sign-in sheets, struggled to record consistent and accurate attendance. Roll call and manually signing in are also not feasible in large classes, unless students enter their attendance on a sign-in sheet themselves, which is no longer an option for health reasons.

Smaller classes, however, have had no such issues with attendance. Since each class’ attendance policy is up to the professor, some teachers have used other technology, such as Socrative or iBeacons, to combat student absences in chapel or in class. There are benefits to using Qwickly, such letting professors enter if a student has missed class due to reasons directly related to COVID-19, but a wide-scale change in attendance will take some getting used to.

Orndorff said another benefit of Qwickly includes helping faculty members communicate with each other to catch students who may be struggling.

“They can see in real time,” Orndorff said. “When they come in, I sign them in using the pin, and then she can immediately see, ‘Oh, look, here’s someone who’s missed four times in a row.’ She doesn’t have to wait for me to contact her.”

The first time a student misses class, an automated message from the professor notifies them of their absence. If they miss more classes, Janzen can reach out and determine if the student needs help. She and her team have been overseeing Qwickly and its training; she hopes this method can help students with their academic success, including grades and graduation.

“Attendance is important to being a successful college student, and so if a student is going to class, they’re more likely to get better grades and graduate or progress towards graduation, so that’s why Student Success is involved…to help students just be more successful and help them be accountable to going to class.”

Qwickly’s goal remains to ease faculty and student worries about attendance. It costs nothing to the student, unlike previous versions of iClicker, and it relates to attendance directly to Blackboard, which eliminates the need for professors to enter attendance separately. Qwickly also has tightened a loophole for grading attendance; students must be in the room for it to count, eliminating the potential for them to skip and let their friends enter for them. 

However, one student, sophomore Rachel Morris, reported the new attendance system was not as accurate as it needed to be.

“I understand wanting to know if people come, but just today in one of my classes, almost half the class forgot to check in, which negates the system,” Morris said.

Students may be on the fence, but on the faculty side, Orndorff said the system has been working.

“It has certainly helped faculty be more cognizant of who’s missing,” Orndorff said. “I don’t think we’ve been using it enough to be improving —– although I hope it will, I’m a social scientist —– but I don’t have enough data for causation yet.”

Only time will tell if all classes at Oklahoma Christian will use Qwickly in the fall. For now, professors can still use their own systems of attendance.