XUSE: Class Attendance S.O.S. Mobile Application for Students

Abstract

Class attendance is an integral part of education both for students and faculty members. Some schools are putting merit on attendance in their grading system and even particular on students’ timely arrival in class. This has somehow changed during pandemic when classes shifted online. While we value attendance and punctuality, we also became more empathetic with the situation of the students. Some are citing mental health issues, while others have connectivity issues among many others. With the lifting of lockdowns and the return of learning into classrooms, pre-pandemic way, attendance monitoring became more important in the presence and threat of COVID19. We don't just check attendance in class but we also monitor them before and after classes prior to joining session aside from other concerns relating to the attendance. This is to ensure the safety of everyone avoiding the spread of the virus with teachers and students exposed to public before and after class. This has led to a chaotic way of checking and monitoring class attendance for teachers, and difficulty of attendance reporting to multiple teachers for students. These concerns led to the development of Xuse that draws its name from the word “excuse” which is often used in attendance checking. Xuse is a mobile app developed using PowerApps that allows the students to alert the department of their attendance concerns in just a few clicks. The app was evaluated by users using FURPS testing with a general weighted mean of 4.57 interpreted as Excellent. In a focus group discussion, selected respondents emphasized the reasons why high rating was given to the app. This proved that Xuse has resolved the attendance reporting concerns of the students and the monitoring concerns of teachers.