NOA increases attendance among students at Innlandet Vocational School

When the requirement for 80% mandatory attendance was introduced at Innlandet Vocational School, the need arose for a simple and efficient way to handle attendance registration. The choice was NOA, a system that several of the teachers were familiar with from their own time studying at OsloMet.

- NOA is a tool that both simplifies everyday life and creates greater awareness of the importance of attendance. What first caught our interest is that students can register their attendance themselves, says John Tangen, head of the ICT department at Innlandet Vocational School.

"Instead of teachers having to spend valuable teaching time on manual registration, students can check in via their mobile phone when they arrive for class. For the school, this means less administration - and for the students, greater responsibility for their own attendance," he continues.

Previously, attendance was recorded in different systems, such as Canvas Attendance or separate Excel sheets. This made it difficult to get a comprehensive overview across subjects and classes. With NOA, the process was centralized and automated.

- But what has perhaps surprised us most is how the solution has affected student culture, says Håvard Myrbakken, Lecturer in IT Operations and Security.

- Registration in NOA simply motivated competition for attendance among students.

100% - the club

Several classes began setting their own attendance goals. Students competed to join the “100% Club,” an unofficial group for those who managed full attendance throughout the semester.

NOA creates #awareness around #attendance . Attendance has gone from being something administrative to something the students themselves take ownership of. The competitive instinct was awakened, and many motivated each other to show up for classes.

At the same time, teachers are finding that students are attending more regularly than before. Notifications from the app remind students when they are due at school, and make it easier to keep track of their own requirements and goals.

Less administration, more time for teaching

For teachers, the benefits are clear. Attendance registration takes less time, and the responsibility lies more with the students themselves. If someone forgets to register, the teacher can easily follow up and re-register via the administration system.

In addition, absence calculations are done automatically. Previously, this had to be calculated manually in Excel, which was both time-consuming and vulnerable to errors.

The school, led by Håvard Myrbakken, estimates that teachers save around five minutes at the start of each teaching session. Over time, this amounts to a significant time saving, especially for teachers with many subjects and large student groups.

NOA - a solution that users want to take with them further

An interesting aspect of the introduction of NOA is that several of the teachers first became familiar with the system as students at OsloMet. Their experiences as users made them want to use the solution themselves when they entered teaching roles.

The vocational school is now expanding the use of the system to more lines, which we at NOA greatly appreciate.