Guide for administrators and the registry

Who this guide is for

You run the institution or one of its campuses, or you work in the registry.

• Institution administrators see every part of the console: students, the academic structure, registration, teaching (course content, live sessions, the class register, materials and assignments), results and exams, hostels, the library, finance, payroll, staff, the website and the settings, including online learning.

• Campus administrators see the Admin section's students and admissions (not matriculation), the academic structure, registration, teaching, results and exams, hostels, the library, finance, staff and the website.

• Registrars see students, admissions and matriculation, course registration, the barring list, and the Results section: semester results, CGPA, classification and transcripts.

On a computer, the menu on the left shows only the sections your role can use. On a phone, the same menu is under More at the bottom of the screen. If a section below is missing, it belongs to another role.

Getting started after registration

If your institution registered on the Akadesk website and the registration was approved, you are its owner. Nothing has to be set up by hand before you sign in: your first sign-in creates your institution.

1. Open the email that says your registration was approved, and choose your password with the link in it.

2. Open your institution's web address, the one in the approval email, and go to the sign-in page. Select Sign in with Akadesk, then sign in with the email address you registered with and the password you chose.

3. The first time, your institution is created from your registration. You arrive on the Dashboard as its institution administrator.

If the page says We're setting up your institution. Please try again in a minute., wait a minute and sign in again. Nothing is lost and nothing is created twice.

What is set up for you

• Your institution, with the name and web address from your registration.

• Your own account, as institution administrator.

• A main campus in the country and city you registered with. Fees are charged in that country's currency.

• The current academic session, from October to August, with its two semesters. The semester in progress is the current one and is open for course registration.

• Every role the portal has, ready to give to your staff.

• Online learning, switched on.

Next steps

1. Faculties, departments and programmes. The console shows your academic structure but does not create it yet. Send yours to the Akadesk team through the website, and they set it up.

2. Staff. Add your staff yourself from the Staff List, as described in Add a member of staff.

3. Heads and deans. Tell the Akadesk team who heads each department and who is dean of each faculty: approving and publishing results depends on it, and so does what a head or a dean can reach.

4. Courses. Once programmes and staff exist, give lecturers their courses for the current semester, as described in Give lecturers their courses.

5. Semesters. Check the dates of the current session and its semesters. If they do not match your calendar, contact the Akadesk team through the website to change them.

6. Fees. Add your bursar with the Bursar role. They set fee structures and invoice students, as described in the Guide for the bursar.

Before you start

A new institution is registered on the registration page, and the platform team reviews and approves it before the institution is set up. The person who registered is then emailed a link to choose a password; anybody else is added by an administrator and emailed a link of their own. Once you have a password:

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.

If your institution sent you a link to set your password, open it, enter a New Password and Confirm Password, then select Set Password. If you have forgotten your password, select Contact your institution under the sign-in form.

To sign out on a computer, open the menu with your name or picture at the top right and select Sign out. The same menu shows the email address and role you are signed in with. On a phone, sign out from More.

Use it on your phone

The portal works in your phone's browser: open your institution's web address and sign in as on a computer.

• Install it. The first time, the portal offers Install app so it opens from your home screen like any other app. On an iPhone, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen. Select Not now to skip it. When a newer version is ready, a note says A new version is available. Select Reload to use it.

• Tabs. The bar at the bottom holds your most-used pages. Institution administrators have Today (the Dashboard), Students, Fees and Results. Registrars have Today, Students, Registration and Results. Campus administrators have Today, Fees, Results and Payslips.

• More. Tap More for the whole menu, your Appearance (System, Light or Dark), your Language (English or Français) and Sign out.

• Lists as cards. Lists that are tables on a computer, such as Students, show each row as a card on a phone. Tap a card to open it.

• Search. Tap the magnifying glass at the top to search full screen.

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.

Find anything with search

On a computer, select Search at the top of the page, or press Ctrl K, and type at least two letters of a name, a matric or staff number, or a course code. On a phone, tap the magnifying glass. Results are grouped into Students, Staff, Courses and Invoices, as far as your role may open them. Select one to open it.

Read the dashboard

The Dashboard gives the institution's figures at a glance:

• Active Students, Academic Staff, Registration Rate and Outstanding Fees.

• Hostel Occupancy and the number of At-Risk Students.

• Two charts: Enrolment by Level and CGPA Distribution.

• The At-Risk Students (CGPA below 1.5) table, lowest CGPA first.

At an institution that grades on LMD there is no CGPA: the CGPA chart and the at-risk table give way to a note pointing to LMD results (see Grade on GPA or LMD).

On a computer, institution administrators and registrars open it from Dashboard under Admin; anyone can return to it with Home at the start of the path at the top of the page. On a phone it is the Today tab.

Add a member of staff

Institution and campus administrators, and human resources, can add staff. An institution administrator can give any role at once. A campus administrator can give the campus administrator, librarian and hostel officer roles at once, and adds staff only to departments on their own campus.

1. Open Staff List under Staff and select Add staff.

2. Enter their First name, Last name, Email (the address they sign in with) and Staff number.

3. Choose their Role: what they can do in the portal. A role you cannot give yourself is listed with (needs approval); say why they need it under Why they need this role. Choose their Department, or leave it on None for office staff, and their Academic rank.

4. Select Add. They are emailed a link to set their password. If it does not arrive, give them the link shown on the page: it works once. Select Done.

With a role that needs approval, the person is added straight away but with no role, and cannot sign in until somebody who can give that role approves it. They are emailed the link then. Nobody can create an account more powerful than their own.

The Staff List shows each member of staff's number, name, rank, specialisation, role and status. Search by name or number, filter by rank, and select a row to open their profile.

Approve the roles human resources asks for

Human resources adds every member of staff, but the only role it can give itself is HR officer. When it adds a lecturer, a head of department, a bursar or anyone else, the role waits for an administrator who can give it.

1. You are emailed when a role is waiting for you, and a count shows next to Staff List in the menu (under More on a phone).

2. Open Staff List under Staff and select Role requests. Each request shows the person, the Role asked for, who asked and when, and the reason they gave.

3. To give the role, select Approve, add a note if you like, and select Approve again. The role works at once, and the person is emailed a link to set their password. If it does not arrive, give them the link shown on the page: it works once.

4. To refuse it, select Reject, add a note if you like, and select Reject again. The person keeps their staff record, but has no role and cannot sign in. Their profile says the role was not approved, and human resources can select Ask for a role there to ask again.

You can decide a request only for a role you could give yourself, never one you asked for yourself, and, as a campus administrator, only for staff on your own campus. Decided recently shows the last requests, who decided them and when.

Find a student

Institution and campus administrators and registrars see Students under Admin. Anyone can also find a student with the search at the top of the page.

1. Open Students under Admin. The count at the top is every student the list matches. Each row shows the student's photo (or their initials when there is none), name, matric number, programme, department, level, intake year and status. On a phone, each student is a card with their photo.

2. Type in the search box to find a student by name (either order), matric number, entrance exam registration number, email or phone, or by the phone or email of a parent or guardian on their record.

3. Narrow the list with the filters: Faculty, Department, Programme, Level, Status, Gender, Mode of entry, Study mode and Intake year. On a phone, tap Filters; the button shows how many are on, and Show … students closes the sheet. Clear filters turns them all off. Sort by orders the list by name, matric number, level, intake year or date admitted, and the arrow button next to it reverses the order. Status includes No matric number yet, for the students still to be matriculated.

4. The list shows 25 students at a time; use Previous and Next. The search, filters, sort and page are part of the page's address, so you can bookmark a list or send it to a colleague, and Back from a student's record returns to the same list.

5. Select a row to open that student's record.

6. The record opens with the student's photo, name, matric number, level, programme, department, faculty and status. The Profile tab shows their identity (names, gender, date of birth, nationality, state of origin), contact details, where they study (including study mode and courses to retake) and their admission and enrolment (mode of entry, intake year, entrance exam details, and the dates they were admitted, matriculated and graduated). Depending on your role, Results and Academic show their GPA and CGPA by semester, Fees and invoices and Fees their invoices, Attendance opens the barring list, and Library shows their loans. Select Back to Students to return to the list.

A lecturer's list holds only the students on their own courses this semester.

A student's photo

Institution and campus administrators and registrars can add a photo to a student's record.

1. Open the student's record and select Upload photo (or Replace photo).

2. Choose a JPEG, PNG or WebP image of 3 MB or less. Any other kind of file, SVG included, is refused.

3. To take a photo off, select Remove photo, then Remove.

The photo is private. It is shown only to staff who may read the student's record, through a link that expires after a few minutes, and never on the public website.

Record a student's parents and guardians

Anyone who can read the student list sees a student's Guardians tab. Institution and campus administrators and registrars can change it.

1. Open the student's record and select Guardians.

2. Select Add a guardian. Choose A new person and enter their Full name, Email and Phone, or choose Someone already on file and find them by name, email or phone. Use this for a brother or sister, so one parent is one person with one login.

3. Choose the Relationship to the student. Tick Primary contact for the first person to call. Untick May see results, courses and attendance or May see and pay fees to hold that part back: for a sponsor who pays but does not read results, for example. Select Add.

4. To give them a parent login, select Create a parent login, check the Sign-in email, and select Create login. They are emailed a link to set their password. If it does not arrive, give them the link shown on the page: it works once and is not shown again. A guardian who already has a parent login for another student is linked to it instead, and nothing new is sent.

Each guardian shows whether they have a login: No login, Invitation sent (they have not set their password yet) or Can sign in. Edit changes their details and what they may see; a change to their name, email or phone shows on every student they are guardian of. Remove takes them off this student's record, and their parent login stops showing this student at once.

An email address that already signs in a member of staff or a student cannot be used for a parent login.

Review admissions

Open Admissions under Admin to see admitted students with their matric number, name, admission year, mode of entry and status. Type in Search applicants… to find someone by name or matric number.

Matriculate new students

1. Open Matriculation under Admin. It lists the students who have been admitted and not yet matriculated.

2. Select Matriculate on a student's row.

3. Enter their Matric Number and select Assign.

Approve students' profile changes

Students can ask to change the name, phone number and photo on their own profile. Nothing changes until somebody who manages student records approves it: by default an institution administrator, a campus administrator or the registrar. When a student sends a request, everyone who can approve it is sent a notification and an email; selecting the notification opens the list.

1. Open Profile changes under Admin (under More on a phone).

2. Each request shows the student's name, when they asked, and what they have Now beside what they Asked for: their name, phone number or photo. A request that changes the name or photo says Also updates the student's record.

3. Select Approve to change their profile straight away. Or select Reject, type a Reason (optional, shown to the student), and select Reject request. A rejected request leaves their profile and their record as they were, and a photo they sent is deleted.

Approving changes the student's record as well: the name on the student list and on their record is the one they asked for, and a new photo replaces their register photo (a removed photo takes it off). The phone number changes on their profile only; their guardians' numbers are not touched. You cannot approve your own request.

A student can have only one request waiting: if they send changes again, the new ones replace it. They can also withdraw it before you decide. Approvals and rejections are recorded in the audit log.

Look after the academic structure

Institution and campus administrators see the Academic section:

• Faculties: a card for each faculty, with its code and whether a dean is assigned. View opens the faculty's page on your public website.

• Departments: every department with its code, name, faculty and head of department (Not assigned where there is none). Filter by faculty.

• Programmes: each programme's code, name, degree, duration and status. Filter by department.

• Courses: the course catalogue with credit units, level, semester, type and prerequisites. Search by code or title, and filter by department, level, semester and type.

Give lecturers their courses

A lecturer can build content, run live sessions, take the register, set and mark exams and assignments, and enter marks only for the courses they are assigned for the current semester. Heads of department reach every course of their department, and deans every course of their faculty.

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. A course can have more than one lecturer.

Select the bin next to a course to take the lecturer off it. Institution administrators can assign any course; a head of department can assign the courses of their own department. Assign each semester's courses before it starts: last semester's assignments do not carry over.

Register courses for a student

Institution and campus administrators and registrars can register a student's courses, including after registration has closed for students.

1. Open Course Registration under Registration. On a registrar's phone, it is the Registration tab.

2. Find the student: type part of their matric number or name, and choose them from the list.

3. Choose the Semester. The current semester is chosen for you.

4. The form lists the courses offered to the student's programme and level that semester. Core courses are always included, and courses the student failed and has not yet passed are listed under Courses to retake and included too. Tick the electives to add.

5. The credit total must be within the minimum and maximum shown. Select Register courses, then Register courses again to confirm.

Courses the student already holds are marked Registered. If a registration is refused, the reason is shown, such as a total below the minimum or a prerequisite not yet passed.

Build course content

Institution and campus administrators can build a course's content, as can heads of department and lecturers. It is what online students study from, and the same outline serves online and on-campus students of a course.

1. Open Content Builder under Teaching.

2. Choose a course and a semester. The current semester is chosen for you.

3. Under New module, type a title and select Add module. Inside a module, add units with New unit and Add unit, then add items to a unit: choose the Type (Video, File, Link, Reading, Assignment or Quiz), give a Title and the address, text or assignment, and select Add item. Links, files and videos must be web addresses starting with http:// or https://.

4. Modules and units start as Draft. Select Publish when they are ready, or Unpublish to take them back. Students never see drafts.

To reuse last semester's content, use Copy from a previous semester: choose the earlier semester and select Copy into this semester. Release dates move to the new term, and student progress is never copied. If the semester already has content for the course, the copy is refused rather than duplicated.

Open Course Content under Teaching to see a course as its students do, drafts included.

Schedule live sessions

Institution and campus administrators schedule the live classes for a course, as do heads of department and lecturers. The class is held in whatever meeting tool your institution already uses: the portal holds the schedule and the link, and records who joined.

1. Open Live Sessions under Teaching.

2. Choose the semester and the course.

3. Select Schedule a session. Enter a Title, an optional Description, when it Starts and Ends (in your own time zone), and the Join link. Links must start with http:// or https://.

4. Select Schedule.

Each session is marked Upcoming, Live now, Finished or Cancelled. Use Edit to change one, and add the Recording link after the session, then select Save changes.

To call a session off, select Cancel session, say Why is it off?, and select Cancel the session. Students see the reason. Restore brings it back. The bin removes a session altogether, with the record of who joined, so cancelling is usually better.

Review the barring list

Institution and campus administrators and registrars review the barring list.

1. Open Barring List under Registration and choose the semester.

2. Each evaluated registration shows the student, the course, their attendance and their status: Cleared, Barred or Bar lifted.

3. To lift a bar, select Override, give the Reason, and select Apply override.

Campus students are measured on lectures attended. Online students are measured on engagement: the average of the course content they completed, the TMAs they handed in and the sessions they attended (live sessions joined, and days of the course's compulsory in-person events), counting only what was due by the time evaluation ran. Measured on shows which, and an online student's three parts. Both are barred below 75%, and a bar is lifted the same way. Run evaluation on a course again to bring its figures up to date; students see their own standing under My attendance at any time.

Exam Timetable lists every exam set under Exams that has an opening time, day by day, with the times it opens and closes, its length and whether it is a draft, published or closed. Upcoming shows what is still ahead and All shows past exams too. Exams with no opening time yet are listed apart under No date set. Exams carry no hall or invigilator, so the timetable shows none.

Set a computer-based exam

Institution and campus administrators, 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, and choose what it Counts as: Exam score, or Continuous assessment and Which part of the course's scheme.

2. Under How it is sat, choose Online (CBT) or On paper (printed). For a paper sat online, set Attempts allowed (1 unless you change it, and at most 10), and 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. Under Add a question, type the Question, choose its Type (multiple choice, true or false, short answer or essay) and its Marks, and select Add question.

4. Open the paper and select Submit for approval. Once it is approved, select Publish on Exams. Registered students can then sit it. A published paper's questions cannot be changed, but How it is sat on its page can, for scripts opened from then on. Close stops new attempts; marking carries on.

5. Select Marking to mark the written answers: enter the Marks and any Feedback (optional) for each answer and select Save mark. A written answer left blank is given 0.

6. Once every script is marked and nobody is still writing, select Release scores on the Marking page. Only then do the paper's scores go to the results sheet, and students see their result.

Answers are saved as each student writes, and a script whose time runs out is handed in for the student with what was saved. Scripts, on the Marking page, shows where every registered student is on the paper, and Sitting log shows how each sitting went. The guide for deans, heads of department and lecturers has the details.

Question bank, printed papers and paper approval

Question Bank under Results holds the questions lecturers write once and reuse, in a bank for each course and one for each department. Administrators reach every bank. Questions are written there or imported from a CSV file, and drawn onto a paper from the paper's own page, one by one or by a blueprint.

Any paper can be printed on the institution's letterhead, with its marking scheme as a separate PDF. A paper set On paper (printed) is never published online; its marks are entered as for any other mark.

Every paper is approved before it is used, by the head of the course's department and then, if you require it, by an external examiner:

1. Open Paper approvals. At the top, under Who approves, switch on Require an external examiner after the head of department if your institution wants one. It applies to papers submitted from then on.

2. 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.

3. As institution administrator you can also approve or send back a paper waiting for its head of department, for example in a department with no head. A paper waiting for an external examiner is theirs alone.

Until a paper is approved it cannot be published, and its printed copies carry a DRAFT stamp. The guide for deans, heads of department and lecturers has the steps for the bank, printing and approval, and the guide for external examiners has theirs.

Compute, approve and publish results

A department's results for a semester go through three steps. Institution and campus administrators and registrars compute, approve and publish them; heads of department and deans approve and publish them.

1. Open Semester Results under Results and choose the semester. On a phone, it is the Results tab. Each department shows its status — Draft, Computed, Approved or Published — with how many marks have been entered and how many results are computed and published. Use All statuses to show one status only.

2. Select Compute to work out grades, GPAs and CGPAs from the marks entered, and confirm. Select Recompute after marks change; approved results then go back to Computed.

3. Select Approve to sign the results off, and confirm.

4. Select Publish, and confirm. Students and their parents see results only once they are published, and the marks behind them are locked.

To take published results back, select Withdraw: students no longer see them, the marks are unlocked, and the results stay approved.

Classify degrees

Classification under Results is for those who compute results.

1. Open Classification under Results.

2. Choose the final-year Level.

3. Each student with a computed CGPA is listed with their programme, CGPA, the grading scale it was computed on, and their classification. The class comes from your institution's ladder for that scale and uses your institution's name for it (see Set the degree classes).

A student with no computed CGPA yet does not appear in the list.

Set the degree classes

A student's degree class comes from their CGPA and their programme's scale. Each scale has its own ladder: the CGPA each class starts at, and the class's name. Until you change them, the ladders are the standard ones:

Institution administrators and registrars can change them. The Degree classes panel is below the list on the Classification page, and on the Institution page under Settings. Everyone else sees the panel without the buttons.

1. Select Edit beside the scale you want to change.

2. For each class, set the CGPA it starts at and its name in English and in French. Untick a class your institution does not award. Each class must start lower than the one above it, at two decimal places at most. Fail is everything below the lowest class, and you can rename it too. Start from the defaults fills in the standard ladder.

3. Select Save degree classes. If any student's class would change, a message says how many students move and from which class to which, and nothing is saved yet. Select Save and reclassify to go ahead, or Cancel.

To go back to the standard ladder, select Reset to defaults beside the scale. The same message tells you whose class changes first.

A class is worked out from the student's CGPA each time it is shown. A saved change therefore reaches transcripts, the Classification list, the Dashboard chart and certificate checks straight away, including for results already published. Certificates already issued keep the class printed on them. Every change is recorded in the audit log, with the ladder before and after and how many students it moved.

Look up a student's CGPA

Open CGPA under Results and find the student by matric number or name. You see their GPA and CGPA for each computed semester, published or not.

Grade on GPA or LMD

Your institution grades in one of two ways, and you choose which:

• GPA / CGPA, the default: grades and grade points on each programme's scale, a semester GPA, a cumulative CGPA and degree classes. Everything above works this way.

• LMD (Licence–Master–Doctorat): every course is marked out of 20, courses are grouped into teaching units that carry credits, a year is passed on the credits earned, and results carry a mention.

Institution administrators and registrars choose the mode. Open Grading under Results; the Grading mode line on the Institution page shows the mode in use and links there.

Switch to LMD

1. Under Grading mode, choose LMD (Licence–Master–Doctorat).

2. If results are already on file, choose the Academic session LMD starts from. Only a session after the last one with results can be chosen. Results before it stay on GPA with their grades, GPA and CGPA, and students can still see them; nothing already given is read again as LMD.

3. Select Save grading. A message says how many results stay on GPA. Select Save and apply to go ahead.

Once LMD results exist, the institution cannot go back to GPA, because that would read LMD marks as GPA grades. Until then you can switch back.

Set the LMD rules

The rules can be prepared before you switch. Under LMD rules and Mentions:

• Compensation within a teaching unit: a course below 10 is made up by the others when the unit's average is 10 or more.

• Compensation between teaching units: when a semester's average is 10 or more, every unit of the semester is validated.

• Eliminatory mark: a course below this mark (for example 5) blocks both kinds of compensation for its unit.

• What a resit replaces: the examination (continuous assessment is kept) or the whole mark; and whether the resit mark replaces the first one or the better of the two counts.

• Credits to validate a year (60 by default, 30 a semester), and Conditional progression with its minimum (45 by default): a student with fewer credits than a full year but at least the minimum moves up and takes the missing units again.

• Mentions: the average each mention starts at and its name in English and French. The defaults are Passable from 10, Assez bien from 12, Bien from 14, Très bien from 16 and Excellent from 18. Untick one you do not award.

Select Save grading. If the change would give any student a different decision, unit result or mention, a message says how many, and nothing is saved until you select Save and apply. Every change is recorded in the audit log.

Build the teaching units

Open Teaching units under Academic. Choose the Programme and, if you like, the Year of study.

1. Select New teaching unit. Enter its Code, Title, Year of study, Semester of the year (1 or 2), Credits and Order, then select Save unit.

2. Select Elements on the unit and tick the courses it is made of. Enter a Coef. for a course to weight it in the unit's average; leave it empty and the course's credit units weight it. Select Save elements.

A course belongs to one unit at a time; ticking it for another unit moves it. A course in no unit counts as a unit of its own. Deleting a unit keeps its courses and their marks.

How LMD results are worked out

Lecturers enter marks on the Score Entry exactly as before; each course's mark out of 20 is its total out of 100 divided by 5. Compute, approve and publish results as above. Then, for each student:

• A unit's average is its courses' marks weighted by their coefficients. A unit is Validated when every course is 10 or more, Compensated by its own average or by the semester's, as your rules allow, or Not validated.

• A unit's credits, once earned, are kept for good. A course of 10 or more in a unit not validated is kept too and is not taken again.

• A year is Year validated at the year's credits, Conditional progression at the minimum, and Repeat the year below it. A year whose semesters do not all have results is In progress.

Run the resit session

Students may resit the courses below 10 in the units they did not validate in the normal session.

1. Open Resit session under Results, and choose the semester and the course. Only the students who may resit can be given a mark; tick off Only students who may resit to see everyone.

2. Enter each resit mark out of 20 and select Save resit marks. Mark now shows the course's mark with the resit counted, by your rule.

3. Under Publish resit results, select Publish beside the department, and confirm. Students and parents then see their results worked out again, compensation included. The marks are locked until you select Withdraw.

Follow LMD results

Open LMD results under Results. Choose the Academic session and, if you like, the Year of study to see how many years were validated, passed conditionally or must be repeated, the mentions, the spread of averages, how each teaching unit went and how many students took a resit. Find a student below to see their transcript of marks and select Print for a copy.

A transcript request opened under Transcripts shows the transcript of marks too. A degree certificate issued to an LMD student records the mention they hold, and the public certificate check shows it.

Process transcript requests

Open Transcripts under Results. The page is headed Transcript Requests, and lists requests oldest first with the student, purpose, number of copies and delivery type. Choose Pending, Processing, Ready, Delivered or All to filter them.

Move a request on one step at a time with Start processing, Mark ready and Mark delivered. Select View to see the transcript itself.

Hostels, payroll, fees and the library

• Hostels: the Hostel section is described in the HR and hostel guide.

• Payroll: institution administrators see Salaries and Payroll Runs under Payroll, and can both build and approve a run. Both pages are described in the HR and hostel guide and the bursar's guide. Every member of staff sees their own My Payslips.

• Fees: institution administrators see Fees, Payment History and Fee Structures under Finance, and can do everything the bursar does there. Campus administrators can read them, raise invoices and generate a cohort's invoices, but cannot change a fee structure, record a payment or void an invoice. All of it is described in the bursar's guide.

• Library: the Library section is described in the library guide.

• Class register, materials and assignments: described in the guide for deans, heads of department and lecturers.

Update the public website

Institution and campus administrators see the Website section. Everything saves straight to the public site.

1. Open Manage site. The page is headed Website. Work through the tabs:

   • Appearance: the institution name, logo, tagline, brand colour, the Default mode for new visitors (light or dark), contact details and the About section. Select Save appearance.

   • Home page slides: add slides with Add slide, give each a heading and optional subtext, image and button, reorder them, then select Save slides.

   • News & events: publish a news item or an event. Each has its own Publish button.

2. Select View site to open the public website.

Open Pages to see the site's pages with their status. To start a page, select + New Page, enter its Page Title (its Slug, the page's address, is filled in from the title), and select Create and edit. Select the edit icon on a page to change its title, content and status, then select Save. A page's slug is fixed once it is made.

A page whose status is Published appears on the public website at its slug: a page with the slug library is at /library on your institution's address. Four slugs have a place of their own: about is added to the About page, admissions becomes the admissions guide, and privacy and terms are the pages the site's footer links to. A draft is never shown.

Set the institution's name, logo and colour

Institution administrators see the Settings section. Settings in the menu with your name at the top right leads here too.

1. Open Institution under Settings.

2. Under Identity, change the Institution name, the Logo URL and the Primary colour. The Preview shows roughly how it will look in the portal header.

3. Select Save.

The Grading panel lists the CGPA scale each of your programmes runs on, with how many programmes use each. The scale belongs to each programme's own record, not to this page. Everything about a student's results follows their own programme's scale: grade points, semester GPA, CGPA and degree class. On a 5.0 programme an A is worth 5 points down to an E (40–44) worth 1; on a 4.0 programme an A is worth 4 down to a D (45–49) worth 1, and a mark below 45 is an F. Its Classification line points to the Degree classes panel further down the page (see Set the degree classes).

Run online learning

1. Open Online Learning under Settings. Each change here saves as soon as you make it.

2. Switch Enable online learning on to allow online and hybrid programmes and online students to be created. Turning it off does not change students already enrolled.

3. Choose the In-person requirement: None for fully remote study, Study centre network, or Campus residency.

4. Under Front doors, you can give your online arm its own address and name while it serves the same students and records: enter the Online domain and an optional Display name (optional), then select Add online domain. Leave the display name blank to use the main site's name and logo. Use Make primary or Remove on a domain in the list.

Run study centres

Online students belong to a study centre: where they go for tutorials and to sit their exams. Under Campus residency, the campus is the one centre. Open Study centres under Study centres.

The top of the page shows the In-person model, the Online students with no centre (select See them in the student register for the list), and the Requests to move waiting.

Add a centre and its venues

1. Select Add a centre. Enter its Code (short, printed on exam slips, such as LAG-IK), Name, Region, Address, Phone and Email.

2. Enter the Capacity, the number of students it takes, or leave it empty for No limit. Select Save.

3. Open the centre, select Venues, then Add a venue. Give its Name, Kind, Seats and Computers (what a computer-based exam can use), then save.

4. A room no longer used is not deleted: select Take out of use. To close a whole centre, select Edit centre and set Status to Closed; its students stay until you move them.

Name the coordinators

Give a person the Study centre coordinator role on the Staff page first. Then open the centre, select Coordinators, tick them and select Save coordinators. A coordinator sees the centres, and the students of the centres they are named for.

Place students in a centre

1. Open the centre, select Students, then Add students. The search shows students with no centre; tick Search all students to move somebody from another centre.

2. Tick the students, give a Reason (optional) and select Add to centre.

3. If this takes the centre over its capacity, you are told by how many and asked for a Reason for going over capacity. The reason is kept with each move.

To place many students at once, select Import from a spreadsheet on the Study centres page. Paste the Sheet, or upload a CSV file, with two columns: the student's matric number or email, and the centre's code. Select Check the sheet: each row says Will move, Already there, No such student, No such centre, Centre is closed or Student is in the sheet twice. Fix any problem rows, then select Apply. Nothing changes until every row is good.

New students who applied online are placed in the centre they chose on the Apply page when you enrol them.

Decide requests to move

Students ask to move from My study centre. Open Centre requests under Study centres: the oldest request is first, with where the student is, where they want to go, whether that centre Has room, and their reason.

• Select Approve to move them. If the centre is full, give a reason for going over capacity.

• Select Decline and write a Note to the student: they are told it.

The student gets a notification and an email either way. Every placement, request and decision is kept on the centre's History tab.

Hold in-person events

Tutorials, practicals, orientation days and residency weeks are held at a venue. Open In-person events under Study centres.

1. Select New event. Enter a Title, the Kind, an optional Description, the Venue, and when it Starts and Ends (a residency week can run over several days).

2. Under For, choose A course's students, A programme's students (with a Level if you like) or Everyone at the centre. It is always among the students of the venue's centre; under campus residency, every current student.

3. Untick Compulsory for an optional event: students are asked whether they are coming, and the event shows the head count.

4. Remind students is how many hours before the start they are sent a notification and an email: 48 unless you change it, 0 for none.

5. The form counts the students as you go. If more are expected than the venue seats, select Save anyway if the room can take them, or Save and add a second session to set up another venue or time with the same details.

To call an event off, open it, select Cancel event and give a Reason. Students who were expected are told, and the event stays on their list marked cancelled.

Coordinators can hold events at their own centres, and lecturers for their own courses.

Take an event's register

1. Open the event. Its days are along the top; today is chosen while the event is running. A day still to come cannot be marked.

2. Select Present, Late, Absent or Excused for each student, and type a Note if you need one. Mark everyone unmarked as present (or as absent) marks the rest at once.

3. Select Save register in the bar at the bottom. Discard drops the changes you have not saved.

To take the register on paper, select Print register: it prints on the institution's letterhead with a column for each student to sign. Enter the marks afterwards in the same way. A student marked No longer expected moved centre or left the course after they were marked; their mark is kept.

Select a student's name to see their In-person attendance across every event.

Attendance report

Select Attendance report on the In-person events page. Choose the dates and a centre. By event lists each event's present, late, absent and excused marks over its days so far; By centre adds them up per centre with an Attendance rate. Select Download CSV for either. In-person attendance does not bar anybody yet.

Run exam sittings at the centres

Papers sat at the study centres are set up on Exam sittings under Study centres. Times are in West Africa Time (WAT).

1. This semester's papers lists each paper with its Candidates (students registered on the course who are not barred), how many are Seated, and its Sittings. Select Add sitting beside a paper, or New sitting at the top.

2. Choose when it Starts and the Centres it runs at. Leave Ends empty to end when the paper's time is up. A paper can have several sittings, for example one per centre or a morning and an afternoon.

3. Open the sitting and select Allocate seats. Each student is seated at a venue of their own centre in matric-number order, the venue with the most seats first (computers, for a computer-based paper). Students with no centre, at a centre that is not sitting the paper, or with no room left are listed under students without a seat; select Place to seat one by hand. Allocating again seats only those still without a seat.

4. Under each venue, select Edit beside Invigilators to name who invigilates it.

5. Select Publish. If a student is seated at two papers at once, or a venue holds more than its places, the page lists them first; fix them or select Publish anyway. Each student is then told by notification and email and can print their exam slip.

After publishing, Move or Unseat a student and they are told. A student whose centre changes is re-seated at their new centre automatically. Clear seats works only before publishing, and a sitting whose register has been taken cannot be deleted.

A Computer-based paper with published sittings opens only for a student seated at one, from 30 minutes before their sitting starts until it ends, and only with the six-digit Sitting code shown on the sitting. The invigilator reads it out. After ten wrong tries a student is locked out; select New code to issue a fresh one, which lets them try again.

Select Attendance sheet or Door list beside a venue, or Summary PDF for the sitting, to print them on the letterhead. Open a venue's Register to mark each student Present, Late or Absent with a note.

Open Manage short courses under Short courses. The top of the page totals every course: people enrolled, studying, completed and awaiting payment, the Completion rate, the money Collected in each currency, and the certificates issued.

1. Open a course. Its Report shows the same numbers for that course and everybody on it: their status, when they enrolled, their progress, what they paid and their certificate.

2. Select Export enrolments (CSV) for a spreadsheet of name, email, status, dates, progress, amount paid and certificate number.

3. A certificate is issued automatically when a learner completes every required item. Select Download beside it to print it on the institution's letterhead.

4. To withdraw a certificate issued in error, select Revoke, give a Reason and confirm. Anybody who checks its number on the website is told it was revoked, and the learner can no longer download it. Reinstate, again with a reason, makes the same number valid again.

The completion rate counts the people who completed out of those who could start the course (studying or completed); people who have not paid yet are left out. Money collected counts confirmed payments only, never a part payment or a refund due.

Use your own domain

Open Custom Domain under Settings to serve the portal on a domain your institution owns. Enter the domain and select Add domain, add the TXT record the page shows to your domain's DNS, then select Check DNS. Remove takes the domain away again.

Set the assessment scheme

The assessment scheme is what a course's mark is made of: its parts, what each is out of, and which one is the exam. The parts add up to 100. The mark sheets show one column for each part, and a mark over its part's maximum is refused.

1. Open Assessment Scheme under Settings. Institution default shows the scheme every course uses unless it has its own. Until you set one, it is the standard CA 30 + Exam 70.

2. Select Change the default. Name each part, give it a maximum, and tick Exam for the examination. Reorder the parts with the arrows and add more with Add a part. Select Save default once the total reads 100. Go back to the standard CA 30 + Exam 70 undoes it.

3. To give one course its own scheme, choose it under A course's own scheme and select Give this course its own scheme, set its parts, and select Save for this course. The course's lead lecturer and its head of department can do this too. Use the institution's default undoes it.

Keep the academic calendar

1. Open Academic Calendar under Settings and select Add event.

2. Enter a Title, choose a Type (such as Resumption, Registration Deadline, Exam Start or Holiday), and set the Start date and, for more than one day, the End date.

3. Tick Show publicly to show it on the public academic calendar as well as to staff, then select Add event.

Use the edit and delete icons on an event to change or remove it.

Tips and common questions

• Where are the at-risk students? On the Dashboard, in the at-risk table.

• Why is the barring list empty? Barring has not been evaluated for that semester yet. The page says so.

• Why is a student missing from the classification list? Only students with a computed CGPA appear.

• Why did a student's class change when their results did not? Somebody changed the degree classes for their scale. The audit log records who, when, and how many students moved.

• Why can I not publish a department's results? Results are published after they are approved, and approved after they are computed.

• Why does a student say they cannot see their results? Only published results are shown to students.

• Why does a lecturer say their teaching pages are missing? They have no course assigned for the current semester. Assign one on their staff record's Teaching section.

• The page says I am offline. Registers and marks you enter are kept on this device until you select Save now once you are back online. Anything else needs a connection.

Getting help

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