You can use Top Hat for taking attendance without linking your Canvas and Top Hat courses. Any attendance data gathered in Top Hat will have to be manually entered or manually downloaded from Top Hat and uploaded into the Canvas gradebook. To take attendance:

1. Create a Top Hat account and course if you haven’t already done so.
2. Students can join your Top Hat course by entering the Join Code displayed in your course. They only need to join once, they will be enrolled in your Top Hat course afterwards.
3. Select the blue Content button and the Take Attendance button next.
   
   
4. This will produce a four digit attendance code that students can enter. 
5. In the bottom-right corner of the window, you can see the number of students who submitted the attendance code, listed over the number of students enrolled in the course
6.  When you are happy with the attendance figure for the lecture, select the Finish button in the lower right-hand corner of the window. This will prevent students from further submitting the attendance code.
7. Or, If you want to keep attendance open throughout the lecture, select minimize and keep open in the lower-right corner of the window. 
8. Then, select the right advance arrow to launch your slide presentation.
   • This will allow students to continue submitting the attendance code until you end the attendance session. Return to the attendance session page and disable the attendance session by clicking Finish.
   • Note: attendance sessions auto-close after 4 hours.
     
9. The data collected while taking attendance with Top Hat will be stored in the gradebook where you can easily review, manage or export to an Excel spreadsheet.