Attendance
Attendance Verification
In the second week of the Fall and Spring term, the Office of the Registrar contacts class instructors to request that they verify which students listed on their class roster(s) are attending, stopped attending, never attended, or are attending but not listed on the roster (unless attending for removal of a prior Incomplete grade). As part of the university policy on unofficial withdrawals, faculty are required to report student attendance or non-attendance in their classes at least once each term.
For courses in which attendance is not taken, indicators of course participation (completed assignments, online discussions, etc.) can be used to infer an attendance value.
This audit is conducted to comply with federal student aid requirements, alert students and advisors of enrollment discrepancies, and ensure rosters are accurate for final grade entry at the end of the term.
Attendance verification is conducted through the Student Engagement Roster and the Administrative Withdrawal Roster. The SER provides faculty with a unified tool containing the elements needed to determine and report issues related to students' academic progress, behavior, trends and corrective actions. The Student Engagement Roster is accessible for the duration of the semester. The Administrative Withdrawal Roster is provides an avenue by which faculty teaching undergraduate courses may request to administratively withdrawal students who fail to meet attendance expectations outlined at the start of a semester. See the Administrative Withdrawal Policy for more details.
Unofficial Withdrawal
IU Indianapolis must identify students who fail to attend or cease to attend classes without officially withdrawing and facilitate required calculations determining the amount of Title IV federal funds to be returned to the US Department of Education as a result of such unofficial withdrawals.
At the end of each semester/session when final grades have been recorded, federal aid recipients will be identified whose grades for the term are all FN (failed, non-attendance), FNN (failed, never attended) or a combination of FN, FNN, NC, NR, NY and W grades and evaluate each to determine whether the student should have been considered to have unofficially withdrawn.
Last Date of Attendance/Enrollment Audits
The last date of attendance for W grades is generally the withdrawal date. When an FN grade is recorded, the instructor must supply the last date of attendance. For online courses, the student’s last date of participation in an academically-related activity must be documented. For all federal aid recipients, the university must document that the student began attendance in each course.
Faculty are to participate in the Registrar’s enrollment audit. This allows the registrar to maintain accurate enrollment records while complying with federal financial aid requirements. Enrollment audits are completed through the Student Engagement Rosters which are part of FLAGS (Fostering, Learning, Achievement and Student Success) system and the Administrative Withdrawal Roster.
Return of Title IV Funds
Once the last date of attendance is established, the amount and type of funds to be returned to the federal aid programs will be calculated in accordance with federal regulations.
Indiana University Unofficial Withdrawal policy was adopted in 1999 and was updated in 2009, 2016, and 2019. On April 21, 2023, nonsubstantive revisions to the policy contact and office names were made and the policy was renumbered from USSS-10 to VPSS-10.
