F.A.Q.
(This page is a work in progress)
This is an Activity Module, so RTFM :)
Again, this is an Activity Module. So you may add an instance of Attendance Register to your course the same way you add any other activity (like Forum, Quiz, Attendance...)
No, it couldn't. Attendance Register uses Moodle Logs for evaluating online sessions. Using Logs it is not possible to reliably evaluate how long a User worked in a specific activity.
Before thinking about errors, consider that:
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An Attendance Register instance, by default, only tracks activity in the same Course, not at site level. (see Tracked Courses)
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It tracks only activity of Students of the same course: Users with Student role in the Course the module instance is. (see Tracked Users)
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Online Session are detected with a delay, after a time of User's inactivity Online-Session-delay
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Online Session are calculated by Cron. No online Session will show before the next Cron run, regardless of the time elapsed since the last activity of the User.
I've just installed the Module and created a new instance in a Course already in use (i.e. with previous Student's activity), but no online Session appear
No. I've to wait the first Cron run for Online Sessions to be calculated.
Optionally, you may force recalculation (but forced recalculation could be removed in future versions, as it is misleading for many users).
Why the online recorded time by a "Category" mode Register doesn't match the sum of the time recorded by all "Course" mode Register instances I put in all Courses of the Category? (a.k.a. "Why you should never sum total time recorded by Register instance in related Courses")
You have to understand the way the online time is estimated. First, there is no way to calculate the exact time spent by a User on every resource. Moodle just records User's interaction (i.e. clicks one some button or link...) in its Log (to be correct, some activities like Quizzes and some SCORMs record enter and exit time, but this is not a general rule) Attendance Register try to guess online Sessions based on Moodle's Log Entries.
The Attendance register consider the User as "online" between two consecutive interaction (i.e. Log Entries), if the time between them is less than the configured Session Timeout (of the Register instance). It doesn't really know what the User did between those 2 events (he may be meticulously reading a slideshow, doing coffee break, browsing the web or just an unrelated content of the same Moodle site):
The Register's Mode setting determines the Log Entries it considers for calculating. In "Course mode" a Register evaluate only Log Entries related to the Course the Register is in.
Now imagine this scenario: You have 2 Course, "A" and "B", in a Category "X" You put a "course mode" Register in each Course. Both with same Session Timeout setting (say 10 mins). A User logs in and works for 1 hours, going back an forth between courses A and B; never stopping more than 10 mins in one of them. Each Register works independently on recorded Log Entries of the Course they are in. As Log Entries in Course A are not spaced more than 10 mins, Register in Course A will record an online Session of about 1 hour. The same for Register in Course B, and the two sessions will mostly overlap.
If you sum the total time recorded by the 2 Register you are going to say that the user spend about 2 hours online, but this is not true. Now put another Register instance, either in Course A or B, and set as "Category mode" (same Session Timeout). The Category-mode register will estimate for the same User about 1 hour of online time: this is the correct data.
My course contains very long slide files, taking 1 or 2 hours for reading. Students complain that AttendanceRegister doesn't track the time they actually spend watching slides.
This is due to the way AttendanceRegister measure time spent online. It is based on user's actions recorded by Moodle, on the server, in Log.
When a user open a file (pdf, ppt...etc) the browser calls Moodle just once, for opening file. After that Moodle has no way to know if the user is still reading the slides or has gone for lunch. Moodle just knows when he/she comes back for viewing another course page or file.
AttendanceRegister guesses online Session comparing time between consecutive recorded user's actions (Log entries) and the Session Timeout. If longer than Session Timeout passes between opening a file and viewing the next Moodle page, AttendanceRegister consider the user "has gone for lunch" some time (one-half the Session Timeout, to be more exact) after the the last contact, i.e. opening the file.
You may set a long Session Timeout (currently max 60 mins), but this will cause to overestimate shorter sessions. One-half Session Timeout is always added as a "statistical bonus", after the last user's contact of every Session. 60 minutes means adding 30 mins to every session, regardless the user spent one hour or half a minute online.
There is no easy solution.
The only advice is to split very long slide files into smaller chunks, requiring no more than 20-30 minutes. This will help student's attention span too ;)
I've installed AttendanceRegister. I can see it in Site Administration > Plugins > Activity modules > Manages activities, but I can't find any config page
AttendanceRegister has no global configuration.
It is an Activity module, configured per-instance.
After installing, add an instance to the course you want to monitor and configure it.