Attendance and engagement
Monitoring engagement is recognised as an important element in supporting both student retention and performance.
Regular and appropriate attendance and engagement is a University requirement, as stipulated in the Curricular Ordinances and Regulations. Many schools have effective methods in place for monitoring unauthorised absence and all schools are supported in monitoring students' engagement in an auditable way.
Taught students
The Programme Support Functional Management Team has developed a new template Standard Operating Procedure for Attendance Monitoring (SOPAM) for the 2020-21 session. Detailed guidance information for staff (including engagement monitoring background, reporting, pathways, and escalation points for no and low engagement) can be accessed via this new template. Note: The template will be shared at Faculty-level by your local Programme Support Functional Manager in the first instance. For taught students, failure to attend and/or absence without permission can result in serious consequences for the student through the Unsatisfactory Work, Attendance and Engagement Procedure (UWAEP). Further guidance for staff (including templates and forms) can be accessed through the Student Cases Team (SCT) OneDrive.
Register Guidance for Academic/Teaching Staff
Online Teaching Sessions
Academic staff are not required to take attendance for their on-line teaching sessions for the purposes of attendance/engagement monitoring, but they may want to access the data to analyse student behaviour on their specific modules. Teaching staff can access guidance on how to take an online class register for their online teaching, by visiting the Digital Practice Virtual Classrooms webpage.
Face-to-Face Teaching Sessions
It is important that teaching staff take an electronic register of their face-to-face on-campus teaching sessions, as this information will be used for the following: Track and Trace purposes.
For Engagement Monitoring of students who attend hybrid online and face-to-face teaching. SES teams will access this information as part of the weekly reporting they will be using for student interventions.
For guidance on inputting a register into Faculty Services for a small face-to-face teaching session on-campus where a verbal roll call is required, please use the ‘How-to Input a F2F Register into Faculty Services - Quick Guide’.
For larger teaching sessions where a verbal roll call is not feasible, we recommend you utilise Top Hat software for you to obtain an electronic attendance register (guidance is available on the Digital Practice webpage, Minerva support pages and in the IT Knowledge Base). For further guidance, please speak to your Faculty Digital Education Academic Lead or Programme Support Functional Manager.
International students
The University responds to the requirements of the Home Office's points-based system, which means it is required to report international students who fail to fully register when expected or are absent for a prolonged period without authorisation.
Research students (Doctoral College)
The attendance of all research students should be monitored at certain agreed stages in the research degree candidature, with absences being recorded. The monitored attendance sessions should include all formal (in-person or remote) supervisory meetings as well as other appropriate events. More information is available the PGR Progress and Monitoring webpage.
More information
For more detail about any area of student attendance / engagement, please consult the relevant policies above.