Attendance reporting is federally required for the purpose of monitoring attendance and ensuring the accurate payment of federal funds by the Office of Financial Aid, Scholarships, and Veterans Education Benefits. Additionally, state programs such as the Tennessee Lottery scholarship also require attendance grade reporting. Tennessee Tech University reports attendance at grading by using the grades of FN and FA.
Failure to follow the procedure for FN and FA grades may result in a federal or state audit finding and financial penalties for the University for overpayment of funds.
After a student has officially registered for classes at Tennessee Tech, the student is considered to be actively enrolled in the class unless the student officially drops the class, officially withdraws from the University, or is otherwise removed from the class by administrative authority. All financial obligations are retained when the student discontinues class attendance without officially dropping or withdrawing from the University.
Faculty are encouraged to review attendance daily within their course(s) to ensure federal compliance and also support student success measures.
If you have a student who has never attended class:
- You must assign an FN Grade,
- The FN grade should be reported within the first 14 days of class.
- An FN grade entry requires a last date of attendance. The last date of attendance should be reported as the first day of class.
If you have a student who has attended, but then completely stops attending class:
- You must assign an FA grade.
- The FA grade is the grade to be assigned, as of the date at which the faculty member determines the student stopped attending class and is no longer participating in the course or receiving instruction.
- The FA grade should be reported within 14 days of the last known date of attendance.
- Should the student start attending the course again, after a period of non-attendance, the FA grade may be removed.
Note: If a grade of FN or FA is changed after submission, an email from the professor confirming active participation in the class may be required. A grade change to F or W does not indicate participation in the course and will not allow reinstatement of financial aid.
An F grade is not an attendance grade and should be given when a student has failed
but continued to attend class through the end of the term.
Note: A student who stopped attending class, or never attended class, cannot earn an F grade.
- Methods to Track Class Attendance
To review attendance using TechExpress or TechConnect, please click the appropriate button below. Note: Attendance reported in the TechExpress campus portal will rollover into TechConnect Student Success Platform.
Method 1
Within TechExpress Campus Portal (express.tntech.edu), you can now view you class roster and also submit class attendance and issue alerts using the Visual Class Roster widget. Click here to access directions on using the Class Roster widget in your TechExpress Portal.
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- If you need to make changes to entries submitted via the TechExpress Class Roster widget, you may do so by selecting the course and date of attendance you wish to change and then mark the student as Present, Absent, Tardy, or Excused. This information will also update the student's attendance record along with percent attended within TechExpress and TechConnect.
Method 2
Within TechExpress Campus Portal (express.tntech.edu), you can now view you class roster and also submit class attendance using a QR Code. Click here to access directions on using a QR code widget in your TechExpress Portal.
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- If you need to make changes to entries submitted via the TechExpress QR code check-in option, you may do so by selecting the course and date of attendance you wish to change and then mark the student as Present, Absent, Tardy, or Excused. This information will also update the student's attendance record along with percent attended within TechExpress and TechConnect.
Method 3
Click the following link for instructions on recording your course attendance in TechConnect Student Success Platform - Directions to Login & Record Attendance in TechConnect (Student Success Platform).
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- Course Modality and Attendance Tracking
Below is a table outlining recommended approaches to tracking attendance and reporting student progress based on course modality.
Class Type Course Content Delivery Recommended Strategy How To Guide Traditional Classroom on-campus instruction input class attendance using one of the three methods shared above for each course meeting students are expected to attend Directions to Login & Record Attendance in TechExpress (smaller courses)
Directions On Issuing a Student Alert in TechExpress (larger courses)Hybrid (both web online and traditional classroom) any combination of on-campus and online/live stream class meetings input class attendance using one of the methods above for each course meeting that students are expected to attend and utilize student alerts for the online component content Directions to Login & Record Attendance in TechExpress
Directions On Issuing a Student AlertOnline (Web or Live Stream) all course content is online utilize TechConnect alerts to report student academic concerns, including incomplete assignments, missed quizzes and exams, or overall lack of satisfactory progress Directions On Issuing a Student Alert - Submitting Last Date of Attendance
The U.S. Department of Education requires (34 CFR 668.22) the Office of Financial Aid to determine if a student who receives financial aid and fails to earn a passing grade in a course has actually attended and/or completed the course, or if they withdrew from a course without providing the university official notification. In addition, for students who officially withdraw we are required to document that they also began attending the course(s) from which they withdrew in order to determine the type and amount of financial aid they may be eligible to retain. Since a student could be a financial aid applicant at any point during the academic year, we must collect this information for all students, so that financial aid eligibility can be accurately determined.
Click the link below for information about entering the Last Date of Attendance (LDA) through Eagle Online.