Attendance to online uni lectures

Could anyone give me an idea of how attendance to lectures work, especially now it’s online.

I’m starting first year next week and i think my course is all online until january. So will attendance still be recorded due to the lectures being held live or will it not matter at all when we watch the lectures. Also is there still an advantage to watching live, will you be able to ask questions etc, or do people never really ask questions in lectures anyway.

The only reason i’m asking is that i want to play at least a bit of sports and one of the societies i was mainly interested in likely has training either when i have a lecture/right after a lecture. Or do some sports not mind if u show up say 20 min late due to coming from a lecture.

Or am i best just not even entertaining the idea of joining a society if it has training during/straight after one of my lectures.

i want to know about attendence to online lectures too. mine are on zoom and i've heard tht some uni's are doing a thing where if you webcam isn't on during the lecture then your attendance isn't recorded as being present as they r not sure if u r there or not as they can't see u

It's not really any different to real life lectures - except easier!

Unless you are doing some healthcare courses, attendance is not usually monitored at University anyway. If you have a clash of activities, you are an adult, you are expected to weigh up the pro's and cons of which you attend. The advantage of online is that you can see the whole thing at a later date (assuming it is recorded) which you could never do with face-to-face.

Sports do tend to get a bit ticked off is people are perpetually late, but these are the new decisions you have to make.

i want to know about attendence to online lectures too. mine are on zoom and i've heard tht some uni's are doing a thing where if you webcam isn't on during the lecture then your attendance isn't recorded as being present as they r not sure if u r there or not as they can't see u

Ask them. It's all quite new so I imagine most will not be monitoring attendance at all. No harm in asking.

My uni is monitoring attendance online.

Okay thankyou. Do you know if they just take it at the beginning of the lecture so then you could maybe leave it halfway through or will they know if you have left and get annoyed.


I was just thinking if they actually did care about attendance but then in reality it doesn’t affect your learning to just watch it back later i could always leave like halfway through the lecture to make it to the society in time.

They dont record our online sessions because they are workshops. Essentially we get put into breakout rooms so we can discuss and talk to one another, so its impossible for them to record it which means you have to turn up. Our lectures are just recorded and put online for us to watch anytime. Im sure you will have workshops too, do you definitely know if your online sessions are lectures? It doesn't really make sense for a lecture to be on zoom because its essentially 2 hours of watching someone talk with no interaction, hence the workshops on zoom and lectures just recorded for us.

This is the thing i was assuming that lectures would just be uploaded so we could watch whenever bc that makes the most sense you know. But then on our timetables they’re scheduled at a specific time and they say ‘online - live’ so we’re all under the impression that they’re gonna be streaming them live. This is the thing i don’t see why anyone should have an issue with us just watching them back whenever we want but then someone said it might be best to watch live so we can ask questions. But by the sounds of it no one ever asks questions in uni lectures anyway.

I don’t really know if i have any workshops/seminars as i’m doing an engineering degree, so on my timetable i just have mostly lectures. And then a couple hours later in the week that are titled as practicals but again still online so i have no clue what they will be like. So i’m not sure if we even usually have seminars anyway, obviously we’re meant to have labs but they’re not going ahead.

The only workshop style thing that i think we might be having is meetings with our tutors but that’s not on my timetable yet so idk. So unless something changes then i don’t really have any actual discussion sessions.

Could anyone give me an idea of how attendance to lectures work, especially now it’s online.

I’m starting first year next week and i think my course is all online until january. So will attendance still be recorded due to the lectures being held live or will it not matter at all when we watch the lectures. Also is there still an advantage to watching live, will you be able to ask questions etc, or do people never really ask questions in lectures anyway.

The only reason i’m asking is that i want to play at least a bit of sports and one of the societies i was mainly interested in likely has training either when i have a lecture/right after a lecture. Or do some sports not mind if u show up say 20 min late due to coming from a lecture.

Or am i best just not even entertaining the idea of joining a society if it has training during/straight after one of my lectures.

Most uni lectures, especially as you are an engineering student, will be with 100+ students in the lecture theater. Its basically 2 hours of someone talking you through lecture slides, so very rarely will anyone be asking questions at all. Its just about listening + note-taking.

Most courses have workshops, if not all. Workshops are essentially the bridge between your lectures and practical's. Its 2 hours of you interacting with your tutors/coursemates and completing work together. This is most likely what your online sessions will consist of as most lecturers/tutors don't have 2 hours to waste delivering a lecture that will be recorded and posted anyway with no interaction between students. You will join a zoom call and your module leader will ask people questions/send you into breakrooms to discuss. There's usually about 100 people on these calls for me, split off into rooms of 10ish. This will most likely be the case with your course as universities are under pressure to maintain the 'social' and 'groupwork' aspect of study

I'm not sure how your uni operates, but that's how mine does and it seems like the most logical way. Since you are a first year, you will quickly learn how things work. I must admit, its a big step forward from 6th form.

For the online lectures, they are usually prerecorded with a voice recording over the top, at least that’s what it was like when the uni shut with lockdown. Therefore they can fit around your schedule, but obviously the work has to be completed for the seminars. The seminars are in person in most universities, which you will have to attend. If they are online seminars, you will have to attend also, but this would be from home.

Sophie - Official Student Rep

I’m hoping that’s what it will be i’m a bit unsure with having lectures timetabled in and labelled as ‘live’. And idek if i have any seminars, i’m pretty sure i don’t have any on my timetable, not yet at least, but i’ll have to see if it changes. I think they would end up being online even so as my specific school at least said ‘most’ teaching online which is looking like means all.

This is the thing i really can’t work it out tbh. From the look of my timetable it seems as though lectures are live as it says ‘lec / online - live’ but then i agree with you it doesn’t really make sense to actually have them live. But then i guess they may feel as though they can’t use past years recordings due to still charging full fees and so if they’re recording it then they may as well have everyone on there watching live, or the option to do so.

And i don’t have any workshops that are timetabled in right now i don’t think. I just have a couple of hours later in the week which i think are practicals, timetabled as ‘prc/ online - live’ and then one hour which is think is an examples class or something. My timetable could always change and more could be added, i do have a few less hours than expected (15 most weeks when i think was told around 20 on open day) but i’m not sure if this is because we can’t have actual labs or what.

Yeah i’m sure everything will start to make sense once i actually get there and get started, everything’s just a bit confusing rn aha😅 Don’t know what to expect at all.

If they're live, this means they're probably going to be over zoom or whatever other software. Attendance would be compulsory for this and they aren't worth missing. However, if you want to play sport, your university may have a scheduled time free where there are no lectures and you can participate in societies, for example we get Wednesday afternoons off every week so its guaranteed no overlap on that day. However, you may have more additional sessions, but this could be in the evening. You should have a while until you have to commit to societies, so it is probably best to wait for your timetable.

Sophie - Official Student Rep

In my experience, how things are labelled on timetables aren't always accurate. Last year (pre-covid) I had some seminars labelled as lectures. So I'd say it's possible that some of your online lectures are actually discussion-based and not just a lecturer talking.

Different unis have different policies about attendance, even in normal times. You'll probably be told in your first lectures about how attendance is going to be monitored, so possibly wait until then before you decide about sports and things.