If you’re looking for a seamless way to track class attendance while enhancing student engagement, Poll Everywhere offers robust features specifically designed for higher education environments. We have outlined several strategies you can use with Poll Everywhere to streamline attendance tracking.
Poll Everywhere allows you to take attendance during live sessions by recording student responses. When students respond to your polls while logged into their registered accounts, their participation is automatically tracked and can be used in your gradebook for participation points. To connect this data with your class roster, Poll Everywhere supports course-based roster management. You can:
- Create and manage course rosters directly in Poll Everywhere.
- Sync attendance data with your Canvas course.
- Automatically track who is present based on poll activity and timing.
Once you have taken polls for attendance and participation, the data can be exported for your records or Canvas gradebook. The reports can include:
- Student Names.
- Timestamped poll responses.
- Performance data for graded or ungraded questions.
Export options for attendance reports include Excel, CSV, and LMS-compatible formats. For reliable attendance, information polls should be set for registered participants only and students must log in before responding. We recommend instructors create a “Check-In” question at the start or end of each session. Faculty can also create a recurring “Attendance Poll” for each class session and then group response reports by date for easy recordkeeping.
Further Resources
If you would like more information about attendance taking with Poll Everywhere, please review these short resources:
- Getting Started with Attendance Management for Instructors – Poll Everywhere
- Video: How to enable Attendance Management
- Video: How to add and delete locations
- Video: How to view attendance data
If you would like to get started with Poll Everywhere, please email academictech@uchicago.edu. If you have questions about the points raised in this article, or about any topic pertaining to teaching with technology, Academic Technology Solutions is here to help! You can email us, drop by our office hours, attend one of our workshops, or book a consultation with an instructional designer.
