Trigger
Post-COVID absenteeism rise
COVID forces universities to care about attendance. New solutions emerge and early excitement builds.
Tracking attendance is one of the highest-leverage things an institution can do for upholding standards, professionalism, and bettering student outcomes. But most systems make you choose between reliability and automation. Acadly is the first that doesn't.
From remote check-ins to shared devices, traditional attendance methods make it easy for students to be marked present without ever entering the classroom.
GPS-based systems take a phone's or laptop’s word for where it is. But these devices, it turns out, can be persuaded to say almost anything. It is trivial to broadcast a “spoofed” location and check-in from anywhere a dorm room, another city, anywhere at all.
Rotating QR codes refresh every few seconds to prevent screenshots being shared. But they cannot beat a FaceTime or video call with someone outside. Codes are scanned in real time.
Clickers and RFID cards authenticate the device, not the person holding it. The cards and clickers get passed along.
Standing just outside the classroom door or the parking lot to catch a GPS signal. Impersonation on a sign-in sheet. Texting a check-in code to someone else. Signing into an app as someone else.
Acadly verifies physical presence without GPS, without codes, and without any action from the instructor. Every session runs automatically, every record reflects what actually happened in the room, and every irregularity gets flagged before the class is over.
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Students need to be physically inside the room. Hallway and parking lot check-ins get flagged automatically.
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When a check-in doesn't match expected patterns, Acadly notices and flags it for the instructor to review.
When two devices appear in the same spot, the instructor is alerted. No accusation just a flag to review.
Acadly doesn't use location data. There's nothing to fake.
No codes, no screens, no window to exploit. Nothing to point a camera at.
The mesh network that really works. The only PowerPoint add-in built for attendance. The first system to flag fraud in real time, during class. And the first to verify without surveillance that students on Zoom were actually there.
Acadly pioneered the use of mesh networking for classroom attendance verification. No GPS, no QR codes, no hardware to purchase or maintain. The network works silently and automatically, impervious to the workarounds that make other approaches unreliable.
When COVID moved classes online, Acadly built a way for instructors to gauge active attention levels. The instructor launches checks whenever they want. Students get a prompt on screen: are you here? No surveillance, just a simple software roll call.
Acadly is the only attendance system with a native Microsoft PowerPoint add-in. One click from the slide starts attendance without leaving the presentation and switching context. Works on Mac and PC, and syncs to the gradebook when the session ends.
Acadly is the only classroom attendance system that detects suspicious patterns during class and alerts the instructor about possibly fraudulent check-ins before the session ends. Not after. Not in a report the next day. During class, while there is still time to act.
Most institutions buying attendance technology today are somewhere between the peak and the trough. The ones getting real value have moved past both.
Every institution deserves an attendance system that delivers on all five. Most settle for fewer.
Acadly makes it significantly harder to game in the first place, and for anything that slips through, suspicious patterns are flagged to the instructor during class, before the session ends.
Zero actions from the instructor. One tap from the student. Configure once and every subsequent session runs automatically. GPS and QR require active check-ins every class.
Acadly does not track or store anyone's GPS location during or after class. Presence is verified through device signals within the classroom.
Runs entirely on devices your students and instructors already carry. No RFID cards, no clickers, no scanners. Scale from one classroom to fifty overnight.
The only attendance system with a native Microsoft PowerPoint add-in. Instructors launch attendance directly from their slides without leaving the presentation. Works on Mac and PC.
30 minutes back every lecture. Attendance records that are trustworthy. Faculty who don't push back. Here's what universities say.
Acadly fits into your technology stack - and life - like it was always there. Learn how we make integrations work for you rather than the other way around.
Run a structured, limited pilot with your own faculty and courses, fully supported by Acadly's team. Instructor onboarding, training webinars, LMS integration .
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