This articles consists of two sections: Qwickly Attendance and Qwickly Multi-Course Apps.
 

Section 1: Qwickly Attendance


Please be aware that, the Qwickly Attendance tool is NOT a replacement for the Federal Attendance Module.  For courses taught online, (WEB & eTech) students MUST still complete the Policy Agreements assessment within the Federal Attendance Module prior to a term’s initial attendance date to be considered as actively participating in the course. The new Qwickly Attendance tool is only for instructor convenience in taking attendance throughout the semester (with a grading option).

 

The Qwickly platform has the following three basic time-saving applications that come free, and one paid application:

  • Course Availability: It allows instructors to make all their courses available/unavailable in one easy to use location, no more having to go into each individual course to make each one available/unavailable.
  • Post Announcement: It allows instructors to post the same announcement to multiple courses at once.
  • Send Email: It allows instructors to send an email to multiple courses at once.

Qwickly Attendance has the following features:

  • Integrated with BbLearn and available in every course shell.
  • Customizable attendance statuses (beyond the default Present, Absent, and Excused).
    • You can create a Tardy status if you want.
      1. Present is worth 100% of the days points, and is 0% of an absence.
      2. Absent is worth 0% of the days points and 100% of an absence.
      3. Tardy could be worth 90% of the days points, and be considered 33% of an absent (3 tardies = 1 absence).
  • Attendance Record table that is easy to view and edit.
    • Includes Absence Statistics (aggregate number of absences for each student).
    • Ability to add your own private comments.
    • Ability to record multiple sessions per day.
    • Student Viewable.
      1. If instructors choose to make the tool available to students within the Blackboard course, students are able to see their own record, helping them stay on track of any attendance policies. They are not able to see the record of any other student.
  • Ability to allow Student Check-in.
    • Instructors can allow students to check in to class on their own devices. Checking-in allows instructors to skip manually taking attendance and gives students credit for being in class. For extra security, Qwickly Attendance can automatically generate a 4 digit pin for students to enter. Please note that this feature as the PIN could be texted to students not in class and they could check-in even though not present.
  • Grade Center Integration
    • Choose you grade center column name.
    • Choose your grading method.
      1. Totals Points – number of points that Attendance will be worth for the whole semester.
      2. Points per Session – number of points per session (class period).
    • Choose whether or not you want a grade center column for Abscences, and define the negative points per absence.
  • Ability to Send Absence Email.
    • Automatically notify students when they are marked absent.
The Qwickly Attendance tool is NOT turned on in any course by default. To use this tool, you must first make it available in the course. To do this, navigate to your course’s Control Panel, and find Tool Availability in the Customization section.

   

Scroll down to find Qwickly Attendance in the list and place a check in the Available column, then find the Submit button at the top or bottom of the list and click on it.

   

You will now find the tool in the Control Panel’s Course Tools section.

   

The tool will also now be available in the Tools section.

   

For easy access, for both students and instructors, it is a good idea to create a Tool Link in your menu.
 
  • Mouse over the plus sign at the top-left corner and click Tool Link.


     

  • Enter the name of the link in the Name field, click the drop-down menu and select Qwickly Attendance.


     

A user’s Course Role (Student or Instructor) will determine how the tool shows up.

Students will be able to track their attendance record, and if enabled in the settings, they can be allowed to do self-check-in with a designated PIN#.

  


   

Instructors will see screens where they can Take Attendance, view the Attendance Record, or change the Settings.

  

The first time you access the Qwickly Attendance tool as the instructor in a course, you will be required to do a setup. Setup choices can be changed anytime in the Settings screen.

   

   

Hover over the question marks on the Settings page to view information on the options. Also, please see this Qwickly produced YouTube video for even more information on Attendance features.

Instructors can view, filter, edit, and export the attendance records.

  
 

Section 2: Qwickly Multi-Course Apps


    

This free tool will remain regardless of the pilot for Attendance.

On the Courses tab, you will now see the Qwickly app module which has three functions.
  1. Set Course Availability

    The Course Availability app in Qwickly allows faculty to toggle course availability on or off in one location for all courses. The task of hunting down this setting inside the course is simplified, taking just seconds to change all course’s availability.

  2. Post Announcements

    The Post Announcement app in Qwickly enables faculty to post the same announcement to any of the courses they are teaching. Not only is it faster to post multiple announcements with Qwickly, it is even faster to post a single announcement.

  3. Send Email

    If faculty need to send an email to all members of their courses, the Send Email app in Qwickly allows them to do just that, right from the Blackboard Learn Courses tab. It has never been easier or faster to communicate with all your course members via email.

Students will see the module as below without any functionality.