Using Census Rosters

Accessing the Census Roster

Census rosters are the way Self Service collects Never Attended reporting.  Census dates are established by the Office of the Registrar, in coordination with Financial Aid, to provide faculty an opportunity to report students who have never attended the course section.  Faculty will receive email communication letting them know it is time to report students for having never attended, and will be directed to the Census Roster in Self Service.

Faculty will select those students who have never attended.  Only students reported as having never attended will be dropped from the section.  When finished, faculty will click the Certify button at the top right, even if all students have attended and there is no one to report.  This tells the Office of the Registrar that everyone who has been reported on the roster represents the entirety of students that need to be reported.  If faculty need to change their reporting after certifying their roster, or after the reporting period has closed, they can contact the Senior Assistant Registrar for Registration & Curriculum Management, Sam Sullivan, at ssullivan@coastal.edu.

Distance Learning Classes

An absence in a distance learning course is operationally defined as a missed online submission deadline—such as a quiz, assignment, or discussion post. Distance learning courses must require an initial online submission within the session drop/add period. Students who do not submit should be reported as having never attended the course. Preliminary assignments should be due before the Absence Reporting window closes.

In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity, such as by contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact with a faculty member to ask a course-related question.

Examples of acceptable evidence of academic attendance and attendance at an academically-related activity in a distance education program include:

• Student submission of an academic assignment,
• Student submission of an exam,
• Documented student participation in an interactive tutorial or computer-assisted instruction,
• A posting by the student showing the student’s participation in an online study group that is assigned by the institution,
• A posting by the student in a discussion forum showing the student’s participation in an online discussion about academic matters, and
• An email from the student or other documentation showing that the student initiated contact with a faculty member to ask a question about the academic subject studied in the course.