Scanning for attendance

The Class Attendance Guidelines Policy discusses the importance of attendance relative to learning, but the process is slowed down because of the difficulty of taking attendance in large lecture classes.
“We have been looking for a way to make taking attendance more efficient for a long time,” said Kathy Gates, chief information officer for Ole Miss. “We considered having students check in with cell phones, but some instructors do not want cell phone usage to be part of the solution due to their potential to distract.”
University IT employees Nathan Robbins and Ron Savell found the Symbol MK500, a kiosk scanner similar to price checkers in retail stores, which is essentially a small computer with a barcode reader and a network connection.
According to the university’s Tech News Blog, taking attendance via scanner is a four-step process.
First, the students scan their student IDs by placing them face-up under the scanner so that the ID barcode is readable. The attendance scanner then reads the student ID information and sends it to SAP using the SAP Netweaver Gateway system. SAP then processes the records to update class attendance based on the location, time, class and student in near-real time. After SAP records the data, the results are made available to the instructor using the new “Manage Attendance” option within myOleMiss.
“Last fall, we worked with Dr. John Bruce on this method,” Gates said. “It was piloted in one of his classes, as well in Music 103 classes taught by Mr. Charlie Miles. Based on their experiences and positive feedback, the Provost’s office made the decision to roll this out to a larger population.”
Fifteen classes began using the scanners this semester, and more than 4,000 scans were reported on the first day  as students and professors became familiar with the system.
“This has been a very successful program, but freshmen are mostly enrolled in lower-level classes, and these tend to be the largest,” said Gates. “Taking attendance the ‘old’ way can create an administrative burden for instructors and can take away from critical face-to-face class time.”
Some students have been supportive of the new system.
“I think the scanner is a good thing so that students will come to class more and have better grades in the long run,” biology senior Brandy Williams said.
However, journalism senior Bentley Burns offered a different opinion.
“What’s to stop a student from just scanning their ID then leaving class and not attending?” he said. “I also do not think it’s right to have to keep my ID on me just to take attendance as I personally don’t use it for anything else.”
The new scanner also lessens the burden of keeping attendance for professors.
“I really like the new system,” said Robin B. Street, Meek School of Journalism and New Media lecturer. “In a large class, taking roll can be time consuming. This way is much easier. However, I don’t know how it will affect attendance.”