Help students with Qwickly

Accessibility

The Qwickly attendance tool is currently being improved for use by students and staff with accessibility requirements. To facilitate inclusive practices and help improve the overall learning experience for your students, please follow the steps and best practice recommendations below

New tabs

From Canvas, opening Qwickly attendance opens in a new browser tab. Students using a screen reader might not realise this.

Due to qwickly opening in a new browser tab, students cannot use the back button to navigate back to Canvas when they are done. Students will need to close the Qwickly tab and return to their existing Canvas tab

Do not use the back button when done. They will need to close the tab and return to their previous tab.

Timer and/or PIN

If you use a timer for taking Qwickly attendance, a screen reader will not announce how much time is left to check in.

• Regular verbal announcements are helpful, telling students that they have eg ‘Four minutes left to check in’ and ‘One minute left’. 

Use multi-modal instructions (such as in a chat and verbally) to let students know the PIN for checking in.

• Post the PIN in the chat for online sessions, and re-post if student join late to a Zoom session
• Read out the PIN to the students alongside instructions on how to complete self-check in. 
• Ensure the PIN is being shown on a shared screen or via projector 

Ask students if anybody did not check in, so you can manually mark their attendance.

Attendance comments

By default, comments on a student’s Qwickly attendance are private. They are only visible to teaching and grading staff and not to the student.

Comments can manually be changed to public. This means that particular student is able to view their Qwickly attendance comments.

It is useful to keep in mind that a student can request to see Qwickly attendance comments at any time. This means that comments should be appropriate and treated as if the student might read them.

Important!

Qwickly attendance comments are never visible to the general public or other students.

Students can access visible comments by locating an attendance record that has a comment indicator and clicking the three elipse icon. A ‘Record Details’ card should open.

Avoiding disputes

Absence emails

If you have chosen to turn on absence emails when setting up Qwickly, students will receive an automatic email if they are marked Absent.

Consider manually wording and personalising this email as an opportunity to reach out to students who may need guidance about attendance.

Time out

If you choose to use a timer for student self check-in, note that the time limit can not be extended once check-in has started. Instead, you can ask students verbally if they were able to check in.  Instructors can manually edit an attendance record in Qwickly if there are any inconsistencies.

Encourage students to check their Qwickly attendance record regularly to make sure it’s correct.

Student self check-in

There are some points to keep in mind when students self check-in to avoid disputes.

• There is no pop-up notification telling students that check in has started. Instead they rely on direct verbal or written instructions from the instructor.
• If students have already loaded the check-in page before check-in begins, there will be no notification that check-in has started. They must close the page and re-enter from Canvas using the Qwickly Attendance course menu link. It is not enough to refresh the page.

Privacy and caching

To take attendance, Qwickly captures student information via Canvas. The Qwickly Attendance tool retrieves all student information directly from Canvas, including:  

• First and last name 
• Student ID 
• Email address 

To enhance attendance capturing and reduce lag-time, Qwickly will store student data locally so that it can be accessed more efficiently the next time attendance is taken. Any student information collected when using Qwickly is stored within Australia with the vendor under contract with UTS, in line with  Qwickly’s Privacy Policy, and will be deleted after 12 months.

A student can check if their data is being cached and opt out by navigating to their Qwickly Attendance Record view.

• If there is a bar at the bottom right of the student view stating ‘Qwickly stores some user data’, then data is being cached. The student is able to opt out by clicking the message bar and selecting ‘click here to opt out’ from the pop-up message.
• If there is no message bar in the bottom right of the student view, then data is not being cached for that student.

Canvas ‘No submission’ message

Qwickly uses the Assignment feature of Canvas to mark attendance. When students log in to Canvas to view their attendance record, a message may show ‘No submission’. 

Students can be assured that this is not an error and does not necessarily reflect anything about their attendance.

Marks in Canvas can be displayed under ‘Score’ as a percentage, partial score or a negative number for absences.

To avoid confusion, encourage students to check their attendance in Qwickly attendance rather than in Canvas.

Students can see the ‘No submission’ message in Canvas under Marks, then clicking on Attendance.

Tutors

It is helpful to tell tutors about the issues listed on this page for taking attendance with Qwickly to create a consistent approach to attendance.

Tutorial names

When you take attendance, Qwickly allocates a default Session title in the form of Month Date to each attendance record e.g., Feb 25. This is based on the date the record was saved. If you have two or more tutorials on the day, multiple columns in your Qwickly Attendance Record view will have the same record title e.g. Feb 25 To differentiate classes and avoid confusion for students and teachers, ask tutors to use the optional ‘Session Title’ with a more meaningful title, eg 25/02 Tut 1 or 25/02 Lab.

Custom status

By default, UTS uses three kinds of statuses for attendance: Present, Absent or Excused.

It is possible to use a custom status, but consider how clear that might be for the student and tutor experience. A consistent, predictable system across classes may work best.

Student Support

Students can access further guidance and information on accessing and using Qwickly via the UTS website.

For support using Qwickly students can contact the UTS IT Support Center on +61 2 9514 2222