Accessing aPlus+ in Canvas (Instructors)
Last Modified on 03/14/2024 3:12 pm EDT
Wharton Computing is currently piloting aPlus+, an attendance-tracking tool that is integrated with Canvas through a third-party application. It enables teaching teams to set specific attendance sessions on a timetable in order to manage student check-ins. From an instructor standpoint, the check-ins can be administered manually using custom statuses, or you can allow students to sign in using a specific alphanumeric or QR code, within a timeframe that you specify.
This article describes aPlus+ for faculty use. Students should see the student article, linked here.
Accessing aPlus+
Once aPlus+ has been configured in your Canvas site, click on the aPlus+ Attendance tab from your course navigation sidebar.
Account Authorization for First-Time Use
If you are accessing the tool for the first time, you will be prompted to authorize access to your account.
Attendance Setup
After authorizing the app to access your account, you will see the Attendance Setup landing page. Typically, the attendance sessions will be imported from a configured external source (a .csv file containing your course sessions); however, it is possible to import from course-calendar events, assignments, or even quizzes.
For courses with a consistent meeting schedule, Import attendance sessions from your information systems will typically already be checked and is handled by Wharton Computing teams. It is still possible to sync with calendar events, assignments, and quizzes when the information systems configuration is already in place.
Additional Import Options
While Wharton Computing generally imports your course's attendance sessions based on University information, you have some additional import options:
Course Calendar Events
If you want any event on your calendar for this course to show on the aPlus+ timetable, check the box to import Canvas calendar events. However, since Wharton Computing typically configures Canvas sites using assignments, rather than populating calendar events, this feature can remain inactive:
Canvas Course Assignment Due Dates as Events
If you want your Canvas course assignments to populate in aPlus+ as attendance sessions on a timetable, with this setting turned on, any assignment that you add to the Canvas course (outside of aPlus+) will sync with the aPlus+ timetable, as long as a due date is set. Once you check that box, you will see an additional setting to count the submissions toward attendance for that day. When this box is also checked, students will be automatically marked as "attended" for that session when they submit the assignment:
Canvas Course Quiz Due Dates as Events
Similar to above, you can set quizzes (as long as they have due dates) to sync on the aPlus+ timetable. To take this a step further, if you want to create a quiz that only in-person attendees will know about for that day, you can check the box to Import Canvas quiz submissions as attendance, which will then mark them as "attended" in aPlus+:
Imported Session Weighting
Typically, each attendance session will be equally weighted, but you can change this as detailed below:
- Equal sessions (1 point): Every session is treated equally regardless of session duration.
- Hours duration (fractional): Sessions are weighted relative to their duration with no rounding.
- Hours duration (rounded up): Sessions are weighted relative to their duration, but are rounded up to the next hour. For example, a 95-minute session would have a weighting of 2.
Merge Multiple Section Calendars into One
Most faculty will decide to have timetables specific to each course section, but it is possible to merge multiple section calendars into one single calendar.
This setting should be used carefully, since it is not possible to undo without some manual clean-up of attendance.
Record Attendance as Assignment Grades
The timetable session options described above can be synced with the gradebook, so anything that is counted towards attendance -- whether a calendar event, quiz, assignment, or just a basic session that's either imported or manually added -- can be synced with the Canvas gradebook. However, please note that this can only exist as one assignment in Canvas. This one assignment will calculate as an aggregate attendance score based on the specific calculations you configure:
- Proportional - Where the proportion of sessions attended vs. sessions taught (to date), is applied against a point value for the attendance assignment.
- Rule Based - Percentage Penalty of Total Grade (not compatible with weighted assignments in gradebook) - Where the instructor defines a set of attendance rules, and once these are breached, this triggers a percentage penalty against the student's total grade.
- Rule Based - Absolute Points Penalty - Same as the above, but this can be used with weighted grading
- Raw Points - By Session Attended - The instructor can enter the number of sessions and define the points value of attendance overall, so that each session attended makes up a proportion of that attendance. Attendance is shown as a proportion of sessions attended, vs. all sessions (not just the ones that have passed).
Select Additional Instructor Users
Another common configuration is providing TA access to aPlus+. Any Canvas users who are assigned Teaching Assistant roles (or roles based on Teaching Assistant), can be added by selecting this option. Once selected, you will see the TAs for that course populate; you can select the ones you would like to include and click Apply:
Navigating aPlus+ Attendance
Once the Attendance Setup step is complete, you should find yourself on the first tab called "Students." You will also see a dropdown where you can toggle among the different course timetables. For example, if a course has multiple sections, there will likely be a different timetable for each section:
Students Tab
The Students tab is the most common choice for viewing and managing recent attendance. You have the option to show an attendance-taking timeframe of up to 2 months, and you'll notice that this really drills down to the specific session days and the status of each student for that session. 
Statuses
"Status" refers to the different states of attendance a student can have (e.g. Attended, Absent, etc). There are a number of preset statuses within the aPlus+ system that can be applied to attendance sessions. In order to alter a status and manually input the attendance in this way, you will need to click on that day's session, which will then take you to a high-level view of that particular section timetable's student attendance statuses:
You as the instructor can select the status dropdown to make changes, supply comments specific to each student or as a general session comment seen by all, and also apply one status to all students by selecting the dropdown shown in the top left of the screenshot shown below:
After you make any changes here, remember to select the blue Save button so that this is reflected on the timetable. To return to the Students tab after making any manual changes, select the timetable link in the upper left corner (in this example, this is Section 006).
Sessions
Session view allows you to manage your timetable information: 
Some options that exist for each session include:
Enter Attendance: Click directly on the timetable session to return to the same manual attendance entry screen depicted in the "Statuses" section of this article (above): 
Edit Session: Click on the dropdown arrow directly next to the timetable session in order to make any changes to the session date/time, location, duration, label (session name), and attendance weighting: 
Adding sessions
Although your sessions will typically already be populated and ready to go prior to a semester start, you do have the ability to manually add any ad hoc sessions after the fact by selecting the Add sessions link shown below:
The timetable wizard allows you to create a single session or repeating sessions.
Add Session(s) screen:
Date: The date of the session or start date of a repeating pattern. This will default to the course start date.
Time: The start time of the session. This is important if you are using scanning or codes.
Repeat: The repeating pattern if you choose to use this. You may need to come back into the wizard for more complex repeating schedules.
Location: This can be left as default in most cases, but it is editable.
Label: Optional name for the session(s) being created.
Points: Can be left as default unless you are setting up sessions that are weighted uniquely by session.
Select Validate to continue, the system will advise you how many sessions will be created. After validation, select Create Sessions and your sessions will be created.
Reports
By selecting the ‘Reports’ link in the top menu, you can immediately see attendance reports for your course. Reports can be exported to .csv or Excel by selecting the icon boxed in red at the top right of the data table:
Codes
Once your sessions are configured and populated on the timetable(s), for any upcoming sessions, you can project either a QR or alphanumerical code that students must scan or enter in the aPlus+ attendance app in order to check in for class that day. The available code options (and Button Click, which does not require the instructor to project anything) are shown below:
Button Click : Students select a submit button within an allowed time window. There is no code required.
Static Code: Students enter a session-specific alphanumeric code within an allowed time window.
Rolling Code: Students enter a rolling code that changes every few seconds while the rolling code screen is shown.
Static QR Code: Students use their device camera to scan a static QR code within an allowed time window.
Rolling QR Code: Students use their device camera to scan a rolling QR code while the rolling QR screen is shown.
Static Code or QR Code: Students enter the static code or use their device camera to scan the static QR code, within an allowed time window.
Rolling Code or QR Code: Students enter the rolling code or use their device camera to scan the static QR code while the rolling code/QR code is shown.
The most commonly used code option is the Rolling Code or QR Code. This way, students can choose one or the other if they encounter any issues with their device camera.
Once the desired code option is chosen, faculty can select the blue Start Rolling Code/QR button:
As the code rolls, faculty can project this on their classroom's screen, deciding the number of seconds the present code should remain active until it rotates:
To stop projecting, select the Stop Rolling Code/QR button in the upper right.
Canvas Sync & History
If changes are made to the timetable or anywhere else within the aPlus+ application (and also within Canvas, if, for example, grades and assignments are synced with the app), these changes can be synced to ensure everything is up to date: 
To view the sync history to see the most recent sync from Canvas and diagnose any issues with the integration, you can select the icon boxed in red below:
Questions?
Troubleshooting tip: If you are using Safari and encounter any access issues, please refer to the guide linked here regarding using Safari with Canvas learning tools. If you have trouble in Chrome, try using a different browser, like Firefox.
If you need more assistance, please contact your Wharton Computing representative for support.
For more information about reporting, please read the aPlus+ Canvas instructor guide's 
As the code rolls, faculty can project this on their classroom's screen, deciding the number of seconds the present code should remain active until it rotates:
