Guide for deans, heads of department and lecturers

Who this guide is for

You teach, or you lead a faculty or a department. What you see depends on your role:

The menu shows only the pages your role can use. On a computer it is down the left of the screen; on a phone it is under More in the bar along the bottom.

Before you start

1. Open your institution's portal and sign in with the email address and password your institution gave you. Select Sign In.

2. You arrive on the Dashboard. A lecturer's Dashboard is their Today page, described below. Deans and heads of department see the institution's figures there: students, staff, registration, hostel occupancy and the at-risk students.

If your institution sent you a link to set your password, open it, enter a New Password and Confirm Password, then select Set Password.

To sign out on a computer, open the menu with your initials at the top right and select Sign out. On a phone, open More and select Sign out at the bottom. If you have registers or marks not yet saved to the school records, you are asked first (see Working offline).

Use it on your phone

The portal works in your phone's browser, with the same account and pages as on a computer. The register and the mark sheet are laid out for a phone.

1. Open your institution's portal address in your phone's browser and sign in.

2. The first time, the portal may offer to install itself: Install app puts it on your home screen, where it opens like any other app. Not now closes the offer. On an iPhone the offer says to tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.

3. The bar along the bottom holds your tabs, then More:

   • Lecturers: Today, Courses, Register and Marks.

   • Heads of department: Today, Courses, Marks and Students.

   • Deans: Today, Courses, Students and Payslips.

4. More opens the whole menu, grouped as on a computer, with Appearance (System, Light or Dark), Language (English or Français) and Sign out below it.

5. The top bar shows your institution's name, the search button and your initials.

A dot on Register or Marks means entries on this device are not yet saved to the school records. Lists that are tables on a computer are one card per row on a phone.

If you teach nothing this semester, Register and Marks are left out, as are the teaching pages in the menu.

Change your own name, phone or photo

1. On a computer, open the menu with your initials (or your photo) at the top right and select My profile. On a phone, open More and select your name at the top.

2. Change your First name, Last name or Phone number, and select Save changes. The name and phone number on your staff account change with it, so colleagues and the staff list see the same name.

3. To add a photo, select Add a photo (or Change photo) and choose a JPEG, PNG or WebP image of up to 3 MB. Remove photo takes it off. If there is no photo button, photo uploads are not set up for your institution.

Your new name and photo show at the top of the page and in More straight away.

Your email address and password are how you sign in, so they are not changed on this page; Email and password says where to change them. If you sign in through the suite, Change password opens the suite's sign-in page, where you set a new one. If you sign in to this portal directly, ask your institution's administrator for a new sign-in link. To change the email address you sign in with, ask your institution's administrator.

Your Today page

Lecturers start here. On a computer it is the Dashboard; on a phone, the Today tab.

1. At the top, anything you entered that is not yet saved to the school records is listed first, in amber. Select a sheet to open it and save it.

2. Your lectures today lists your lectures on the timetable for today, in time order. Select Register on one to take its register for today.

3. Your courses lists the courses you are assigned this semester, marked Lead where you are the lead lecturer, each with Register and Marks.

If it says No course is assigned to you this semester, ask your head of department to assign your courses.

Your courses

What you can teach, mark and enter scores for depends on which courses are yours:

• Lecturers work on the courses they are assigned for the current semester, as lead lecturer or assistant. Your institution's administrators, or your head of department, assign them on the Teaching section of your staff record.

• Heads of department work on every course of the department they head.

• Deans reach every course of their faculty's departments, to set and mark exams and approve results.

The course lists on the teaching pages offer only your courses. Another course's exams, materials, assignments and marks are not shown to you, and a link to one says it cannot be found. A lecturer also sees only the students registered on their courses this semester, under Students. The course catalogue itself stays open to everyone.

Under Students, each row has the student's photo, or their initials when there is none. Search by name, matric number, email or phone, and narrow the list with the filters (on a phone, Filters): level, programme, department, status, gender, mode of entry, study mode or intake year. Select a student to open their record: photo, identity, where they study, their admission and enrolment, their guardians and, as your role allows, their results. Photos are added by the registry, not by lecturers.

When a new semester starts, a lecturer's courses from the last one drop away until the new semester's are assigned.

Browse the courses

1. Open Courses (the Courses tab on a phone). The catalogue shows each course's code, title, credit units, level, semester, type and prerequisites.

2. It opens on Courses I teach. Choose All courses to see the whole catalogue.

3. Search by code or title, or narrow the list by level, semester and type, and by department if your role reads departments.

4. Each course you teach has Register and Marks buttons, to go straight to its register or mark sheet.

Heads of department can add a course with New course. Deans also see Faculties, Departments and Programmes, and heads of department see Departments:

• Faculties: a card per faculty, with its code and dean. View opens the faculty's page on your public website.

• Departments: each department with its code, faculty and head. A head of department can select Edit to rename it.

• Programmes: each programme's code, name, department, degree, duration and the credits needed to graduate. Filter by department.

Find anything with search

1. On a computer, select Search at the top of the page, or press Ctrl K. On a phone, tap the magnifying glass in the top bar: the search opens full screen.

2. Type at least two letters of a name, a matric or staff number, or a course code.

3. Results are grouped under Students, Staff and Courses, as far as your role may open them. A lecturer finds only the students on their own courses. Select a result to open it.

Take the class register

Lecturers take the register for the courses they teach.

1. Open Class Register under Registration, the Register tab on a phone, or Register beside a lecture on your Today page.

2. Choose the semester, the Course and the Lecture date. Today is chosen for you. Everyone registered on the course is listed, with anything already recorded for that date.

3. Select Present, Late, Absent or Excused for each student. Mark all present marks everyone at once, and you can then change the few who were not. The count at the top says how many are marked.

4. To add a note, such as the reason for a lateness, type it in the student's note box. On a phone, select Note on the student's card first. A note can be added only once the student's attendance is marked. Emptying a note and saving removes it.

5. Select Save now in the amber bar at the top when you are done. The whole register, attendance and notes together, is saved in one go.

On a phone each student is a card, with the four choices as one row of buttons under their name.

Enter marks

Lecturers and heads of department enter marks.

1. Open Mark Sheet under Results, the Marks tab on a phone, or Marks beside a course on your Today page.

2. Choose the semester and the Course. Everyone registered on the course is listed, with any marks already entered.

3. Enter each student's mark for every part of the course's assessment scheme. Each part says what it is out of, such as Test /20 and Exam /60. A mark over its part's maximum is marked in red with the part named, and is not saved until it is corrected; the Total is out of 100.

4. Select Save now in the amber bar at the top when you are done. Every student whose marks you changed is saved in one go.

On a phone each student is a card: their matric number, name and running total, then one box for each part. Swipe the row of boxes sideways to reach the later parts; the exam is last.

Marks are locked once the department's results are published, and the row shows Published. Ask the registry to withdraw the results if a mark has to change. A computer-based exam's scores reach the mark sheet only when the paper is released from its Marking page (see Set a computer-based exam).

Working offline

The register and the mark sheet keep your work on the device you are using.

• Everything you enter is kept on this device the moment you enter it, even with no connection, and stays there if you reload the page, close the app or sign out. Nothing reaches the school records until you select Save now.

• While anything is waiting, an amber bar at the top of the sheet says how many entries are not yet saved to school records, and each waiting row says Not yet saved to school records. Every other page lists the sheets still waiting. When everything has been saved the bar says All saved to school records.

• If you select Save now with no connection, you are told your entries are safe on this device: select Save now again once you are back online.

• A row the school refuses keeps your entry and says why. If someone changed a row in the school records after you started on it, the row says so and is not saved until you choose Keep mine or Use the school records.

• Signing out while entries are waiting asks first: Stay and save, Sign out, keep them on this device, or Discard them and sign out.

If your institution grades on LMD

Some institutions grade on LMD (Licence–Master–Doctorat): each course is marked out of 20 and grouped with others into a teaching unit that carries credits. You enter marks the same way.

• On the Mark Sheet, the /20 column shows each student's mark out of 20: the total out of 100 divided by 5. On a phone it is beside the total.

• Students who did not validate a teaching unit may resit its courses below 10. Open Resit session under Results, choose the semester and your course, enter each resit mark out of 20 and select Save resit marks. Only the students who may resit can be given a mark, and a mark cannot change once the department's resit results are published.

• Heads of department publish their department's resit results from the same page, under Publish resit results, and can Withdraw them.

Set how a course is assessed

A course's mark is made of parts — for example CA 1 out of 10, CA 2 out of 10, a Test out of 20 and the Exam out of 60. The parts always add up to 100. A course uses the institution's default until it is given its own.

The course's lead lecturer and the head of its department can change it:

1. Open Assessment Scheme under Settings. Choose the course. You see where its scheme comes from — its own, the institution's default, or the standard CA 30 + Exam 70 — and its parts.

2. Select Give this course its own scheme (or Change). Name each part, give it a maximum, and tick Exam for the examination. Use the arrows to reorder the parts and Add a part for another. The total shows against 100, and Save for this course waits until the parts add up.

3. To go back to the institution's default, select Use the institution's default.

Marks already entered stay with their part when you rename or move it. If you lower a part's maximum below a mark already entered, the mark sheet shows that mark to be corrected. An assistant lecturer sees the scheme but cannot change it.

Set a computer-based exam

Deans, heads of department and lecturers can set papers.

1. Open Exams under Results and select New exam. Give it a Title, Duration (minutes), Course and Semester. Under Counts as, choose Exam score or Continuous assessment; for a continuous assessment, choose Which part of the course's scheme it fills. Add Instructions to candidates if you want to.

2. Under How it is sat, choose Online (CBT), sat on a computer once published, or On paper (printed), printed and sat in the hall (see Print a paper and its marking scheme). For a paper sat online, set Attempts allowed: how many times each student may sit the paper. It is 1 unless you change it, and at most 10. Tick Give each student the questions in an order of their own, and Give each student each question's choices in an order of their own, if you want them. Select Create draft.

3. Select the paper's title to open it, and add its questions: multiple choice, true or false, short answer or essay, with the marks for each. Select Add question for each one, or take them from the question bank (see Draw a paper's questions from the bank).

4. Submit the paper for approval (see Approve papers before they are used). Once it is approved, select Publish on Exams. Registered students can then sit it. A published paper's questions cannot be changed. Select Close to stop anyone else starting it.

5. Select Marking to mark the written answers: give the Marks and, if you want, Feedback (optional), and select Save mark. A written answer left blank is given 0, with the feedback No answer given., and does not wait for you.

6. When every script is marked and nobody is still writing, select Release scores under Results sheet on the Marking page, and confirm. Each student's marked score is written into the course's results, scaled to what the paper counts for. Until you release, nothing from the paper is on the mark sheet and students do not see their result. If you mark a script again afterwards, select Release scores again.

How it is sat stays on the paper's page after publishing: change it and select Save. A change applies to scripts opened from then on; a student already writing keeps the order they were given.

Each student has the paper's duration from when they start, but no later than its closing time. Their answers are saved as they write, so a student who reloads, changes device or loses the connection carries on from what was saved. When their time runs out, the script is handed in for them with what was saved; a script with nothing saved scores 0.

Scripts, on the Marking page, lists every student registered for the course and where each is on the paper: Writing, Handed in, Marked or Not sat, with the attempt number. A script handed in for the student is marked Handed in when time ran out. Select Sitting log to see each step with its time: Opened the paper, Reopened the paper, Saved answers with how many questions were answered, and Handed in or Handed in when time ran out.

Post course materials

Heads of department and lecturers post materials for their courses.

1. Open LMS Materials under Staff. The page is headed Course Materials.

2. Choose the Course and the Semester. The current semester is chosen for you.

3. Select Upload Material. Enter a Title and Week, choose a Type (PDF, Video, Link or Note), and add a Description, a File URL or an External URL as needed.

4. Select Upload. Materials are listed in week order.

Set assignments

Heads of department and lecturers set assignments.

1. Open Assignments under Staff.

2. Choose the Course and the Semester.

3. Select Create Assignment. Enter a Title, choose a Type (Essay, Report, Code Submission or File Upload), and set the Max score and Due date. Add Instructions if you want to.

4. Select Create.

Use All, Open, Submitted and Closed to filter the list.

See your course content

Heads of department and lecturers can see the structured content prepared for a course.

1. Open Course Content under Registration.

2. Choose the course and the semester.

3. The course's modules are listed with their units and items. Optional items are marked Optional. Select an item to open it.

The content is built by your institution's administrators in the content builder.

Place lectures on the timetable

Heads of department plan their department's lectures.

1. Open Lecture Timetable under Registration.

2. Choose the Semester, and a Level if you want to see one level only.

3. Select Add a lecture. Choose the Course, and optionally the Lecturer (optional) and Hall (optional). Set the Day, Starts and Ends.

4. Select Add to the timetable. A lecture that would double-book a hall, a lecturer or a level is refused when you save it.

Use Edit on a lecture to change it. To add a hall, select Halls on the same page (it says Manage), enter the Hall name, and select Add hall.

Keep a question bank

The question bank holds questions you write once and put on papers semester after semester. A question sits in one bank:

• a course's bank, shared by everyone who teaches the course and kept from one semester to the next;

• or a department's bank, which any course of the department can draw on.

A lecturer reaches the banks of the courses they teach this semester and of their departments. A head of department reaches their department's bank and the banks of its courses. The institution's exams office reaches every bank.

1. Open Question Bank under Results (under More on a phone).

2. Under Bank, choose a course from Course banks or a department from Department banks.

3. Select New question. Write the Question and choose its Type: Multiple choice, True or false, Short answer (marked by hand) or Essay (marked by hand).

4. Set its Difficulty (Easy, Medium or Hard), its Marks (halves are allowed) and its Topic or learning outcome, so it can be found again. The topics already used are offered as you type.

5. For multiple choice, fill in the options and choose the correct one (Add option adds more). For true or false, choose the Correct answer. For a short answer or an essay, write the Model answer / marking guide: what a full-marks answer contains. It is printed on the marking scheme and never shown to students.

6. Select Add to bank.

Each question shows who wrote it and how many papers it has been used on.

Narrow the list with Search, Topic or learning outcome, Type and Difficulty, or tick Only questions I wrote.

Edit and Archive are offered to the question's writer, and to whoever runs the bank: the course's lead lecturer or its head of department, for a course's bank; the head of department or the dean, for a department's. An archived question stays on any paper it is already on, but cannot be added to a new one. Tick Archived only to see them, and select Restore to bring one back.

Import and export bank questions

1. Open Question Bank and choose the bank.

2. Select Download template for a CSV file with the right columns and example rows. It opens in Excel, LibreOffice or Google Sheets.

3. Fill in one question per row: its topic, type (mcq, true_false, short_answer or essay), difficulty, marks, the question, up to six options (option_a to option_f), the answer (the option's letter, A to F, for multiple choice; true or false for true or false) and the model answer. Save it as CSV.

4. Select Import CSV and choose the file. Every row is checked first: if any row cannot be read, nothing is imported, and the page lists each row to fix with the reason. Fix them and import the file again.

Export CSV downloads the bank's questions in the same columns, so a bank exported from one course imports into another unchanged.

Draw a paper's questions from the bank

A paper's questions can come from its course's bank and its department's bank, as well as being typed in. This is on the paper's own page while it is a draft.

1. Open Exams and select the paper's title.

2. Under Add from the bank, find questions with Search, Topic or learning outcome, Type and Difficulty. A question already on the paper says Already on this paper.

3. Tick the questions you want and select Add with the number selected, for example Add 5 selected. Clear selection unticks them.

Each question added is a copy, marked From the bank on the paper. Changing the question in the bank later does not change a paper already set or sat.

To let the bank choose, use Pick by blueprint:

1. For each section, give How many questions, and if you like the Type, the Topics (comma-separated) and the Difficulty. Add section adds another, up to 10 sections. Each section asks for 1 to 100 questions, and no more than 200 in all.

2. Tick Include the department bank to draw on it as well as the course's bank.

3. Select Propose questions. The bank proposes a set, ticked below with their marks in all. If a section cannot be filled, the page says how many the bank has.

4. Review the ticked questions, untick or tick any you like, then select Add with the number selected.

Print a paper and its marking scheme

Any paper can be printed on the institution's letterhead: a paper sat in the hall, or the backup for one sat online.

1. To set a paper that is sat on paper only, select On paper (printed) under How it is sat when you create it on Exams. It is built like any other paper, from the bank or typed in, but it is never published or sat online, so it has no attempts or shuffling. It is marked Printed paper on Exams.

2. Open the paper and select Print question paper for the candidates' copy, which carries no answers, or Print marking scheme for the markers, with the correct options, the true or false answers and the model answers.

3. Until the paper is approved, both carry a DRAFT stamp (see Approve papers before they are used). A printed paper is approved the same way as one sat online.

Enter the marks of a paper sat in the hall on the Mark Sheet, as for any other mark.

Approve papers before they are used

Every CA and exam paper is approved before students sit it. The paper's own page shows where it is under Approval: Not submitted, Waiting for head of department, Waiting for external examiner, Approved or Sent back, with the history of who did what, to which version, and when.

1. When the paper is ready, open it and select Submit for approval. You can add a note for the approver.

2. The head of the course's department opens Paper approvals, selects the paper, reads it with its answers (or prints the paper and the marking scheme), and selects Approve or Send back. Sending it back needs a comment saying what to change.

3. If your institution requires an external examiner, the paper goes to the examiner named for the department after the head approves it, and they approve it or send it back the same way.

4. A paper that was sent back shows the comment at the top. Make the changes and select Submit again.

Once it is Approved, the paper can be published, or printed without the DRAFT stamp. Until then, printed copies carry the stamp. Adding or removing a question after approval sends the paper back to the head of department.

Heads of department, and the institution administrator, name each department's external examiners: on Departments, select External examiners on the department's row and add an account that holds the External examiner role. The institution administrator decides, at the top of Paper approvals, whether papers need an external examiner after the head of department.

Approve and publish results

Deans and heads of department approve and publish their departments' results: a head of department the department they head, a dean the departments of their faculty. Your institution's administrators name who heads what.

1. Open Semester Results under Results and choose the semester.

2. Once the registry has computed a department's results, select Approve, and confirm.

3. Select Publish, and confirm. Students and their parents see results only once they are published, and the marks are then locked.

Another department's results are refused. Withdraw takes published results back.

Assign lecturers to your department's courses

Heads of department give lecturers their courses.

1. Open Staff List under Staff and select the lecturer.

2. In Teaching, choose the semester. The current semester is chosen for you.

3. Choose the course and whether they are the Lead lecturer or an Assistant, then select Assign.

Only your department's courses are offered. Select the bin next to a course to take the lecturer off it.

See the staff list

Deans and heads of department can open Staff List under Staff. It shows each member of staff's number, name, academic rank, specialisation, role and status. Search by name or number, filter by rank, and select a row to open a profile with research interests and publications.

See your payslips

1. Open My Payslips under Finance (on a phone, in More, or the Payslips tab for a dean).

2. Each month you have been paid shows your net pay. Select Breakdown to see the basic pay, each allowance and deduction, and the gross and net.

Language and appearance

• Language: on a computer, select EN or FR at the top of the page. On a phone, open More and choose English or Français. Not every page is translated yet, so some text stays in English.

• Appearance: the portal follows your device's light or dark setting. On a computer, the sun or moon button at the top switches it. On a phone, open More and choose System, Light or Dark.

Tips and common questions

• A page my colleague has is missing from my menu. The menu depends on your role. See the table at the top of this guide.

• A course I teach is missing from my list. You have not been assigned it for this semester. Ask your head of department or the administrators to add it on your staff record's Teaching section.

• The register or mark sheet says there is no connection. Your entries are safe on this device. Select Save now again when you are back online.

• I cannot find my payslip for this month. A payslip appears once payroll has been run for that month.

Getting help

For help with the portal, contact your institution's administrators. The portal has no support chat or ticket desk of its own.

Try it yourself on the demonstration institution.