Strengthening compliance through attendance and engagement monitoring at the University of Salford

By bringing key engagement indicators together, our platform helps staff respond earlier, reduce reliance on fragmented manual records and access the data needed to support institutional compliance.

The challenge

With more than 20,000 students, including many on international visas, degree apprenticeships and courses monitored by external bodies, the University of Salford needed a consistent way to evidence attendance and engagement across several compliance contexts.

Organised, reliable data enables the university to identify concerns early, offer timely support and maintain a clear evidence base for its compliance responsibilities.

It became increasingly clear to the university that the University’s legacy system of paper registers and spreadsheets could no longer provide the timely, consistent and accessible evidence needed for effective attendance monitoring.

An existing engagement analytics solution, was primarily geared towards monitoring engagement with its virtual learning environment, rather than attendance in person. This meant academics concerned about engagement levels had no access to data that could either validate their concerns or reassure them.

This created an information gap when it came to identifying students who were not attending or engaging, meaning they may not have received the follow-up and support they needed.

Tony Libbey, engagement product manager at the University of Salford said:

"We'd have academics coming to us, or someone responsible for professional services in a school, asking whether a student had been in attendance. In practical terms, at best we would point them towards a big collection of paper registers. It made it hard to see whether there was a problem with attendance. This was compounded because attendance issues tend to be most prominent during the start of the academic year, when resources are already stretched as students are onboarding."

The university started looking for a software solution that would provide better visibility of student attendance and engagement, support compliance requirements, and enable timely intervention where necessary.

The solution

Following a competitive tender process, the university selected our attendance monitoring solution. Designed for hybrid teaching, the platform brings together metrics and reporting that help the university evidence attendance and engagement for international student visa compliance, professional accreditation and institutional attendance policies.

We worked closely with the university team to support the transition to business as usual as it adopted the platform, which was branded internally as StEP (Student Engagement Platform).

During implementation, our data specialists helped the university identify, clean and standardise their source data.

As a result, the university is now benefiting from more reliable datasets that support not only attendance monitoring, but other downstream processes across the institution.

The results

The platform creates a more complete picture of student engagement by bringing together three key measures: attendance, engagement with the virtual learning environment and assignment submission.

A red, amber and green (RAG) rating highlights potential areas of concern at a glance. The system also provides a "days since last activity" measure, giving staff a simple and effective indicator of a student's level of engagement.

The University of Salford monitors attendance for up to 3,000 international students for visa compliance, alongside a similar number of students, including nursing trainees, whose attendance is monitored by professional, statutory and regulatory bodies. Employers also require evidence of participation for degree apprenticeships. The platform gives the university accurate, up-to-date information to support these different reporting requirements from a more consistent evidence base.

Looking ahead

The University of Salford benefits from a strong collaborative relationship with Jisc. During implementation, our consultant joined regular stand-up meetings with the university team, helping to resolve issues as they arose and supporting the transition to a more dependable attendance and engagement service.

We also provide ongoing support through a dedicated helpdesk and client manager. The university has access to online guidance containing resources, including video tutorials.

We continue to work with the University of Salford as the platform evolves. Tony Libbey, the university’s engagement product manager is a Jisc analytics customer community champion where he shares his experiences, provides feedback and helps test new features, including automated support tools.

Having successfully launched the product, the university now has a strong foundation on which to build. Future developments include adopting the platform's QR code check-ins so students can quickly confirm their attendance at teaching sessions.

"What we now have in place will help us build a full picture of attendance and engagement. We've got personal tutors who are enriched with timely data, and professional services colleagues who are supported by this tool to confidently reach out and provide support where it matters.”

The Home Office Student Sponsor Guidance states that all universities in the UK must be able to demonstrate that “systems are in place to monitor academic engagement” for visa students, as well as responsibilities for degree apprenticeships, regulated programmes or to meet internal policies.

Speak to your relationship manager about how attendance monitoring could support your requirements.

Further resources

• Contact your relationship manager
• Learn more about attendance monitoring
• Catch up with our attendance monitoring: how data-informed decisions enhance student experience event