I am wondering if anyone has ever heard of using barcode scanning with an LMS? The notion is that internal class attendees would swipe their company passcards to record their presence in a classroom, and the barcode system would interface with the LMS to record attendance in a specific class. This process would be in lieu of using sign-in sheets to manually record attendance.

Is this just a crazy idea, or has someone tried this before (or both)? Any feedback or case studies would be welcome. Thank you!

Ian,
Actually this is available from several vendors. Here at Raytheon we have created software to accomplish this and you can also check out gradepoint Enterprise Learning.
The application is called Gradepoint ClassroomConnect