Guide for deans, heads of department and lecturers
Start from Today, change your own name, phone or photo, build course content, run live sessions, take the class register, set and mark assignments and exams, keep a question bank and print papers from it, enter marks that save on your device until you send them, approve results, and see your payslips.
Who this guide is for
You teach, or you lead a faculty or a department.
Lecturers start on Today, with their courses. They build course content, run live sessions, take the class register, post materials, set and mark assignments and exams, and enter their students' marks.
Heads of department see the institution's Dashboard. They do what a lecturer does except take the register, for every course of their department, and they also approve and publish their department's results, give lecturers their courses, and see the staff list.
Deans see the Dashboard, the academic structure (faculties, departments, programmes and courses), the staff list and Semester Results, where they approve and publish their faculty's results. They can also set computer-based exams.
Everyone sees their own payslips. 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.
Before you start
Open your institution's portal and sign in with the email address and password your institution gave you. Select Sign In.
Lecturers arrive on Today. Deans and heads of department arrive on the Dashboard, with the institution's figures: 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. 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. On a phone, sign out from More. If registers or marks on your device are not yet saved, you are asked first (see Enter marks).
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. It is built for taking the register and entering marks on a phone, even with a weak connection.
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, select Reload on the note that says A new version is available.
Tabs. Lecturers and heads of department have Today, Courses (course content), Marks (score entry) and Live (live sessions) at the bottom of the screen. Deans have Today (the Dashboard), Results and Payslips.
More. Tap More for the whole menu, your Appearance (System, Light or Dark), your Language (English or Français) and Sign out.
Cards. On a phone the mark sheet and the register show one card per student instead of a table, and other lists show each row as a card.
Search. Tap the magnifying glass at the top to search full screen.
Change your own name, phone or photo
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.
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.
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.
Today
A lecturer's first page is Today, with today's date. It shows Your courses for the current semester, each marked Lead lecturer or Assistant lecturer, with one tap to its Register, its Marks and its Content, and a link to Live sessions below. If a register or mark sheet on your device is not yet saved, Today says so at the top.
If Today says no course is assigned to you, the registry or your head of department has not given you this semester's courses yet.
On a computer, return to Today with Home at the start of the path at the top of the page. On a phone, tap Today.
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, in any semester.
Deans reach every course of their faculty's departments.
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. The course catalogue itself stays open.
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. If you have no courses yet, the teaching pages are hidden from your menu.
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 number or a course code. On a phone, tap the magnifying glass. Results are grouped into Students, Staff and Courses, as far as your role may open them. Select one to open it.
Build course content
Heads of department and lecturers build the content students study from. For online students it is the course.
Open Content Builder under Teaching.
Choose a course and a semester. The current semester is chosen for you.
Under New module, type a title and select Add module. Inside a module, add units with New unit and Add unit.
In a unit, choose the Type of item (Video, File, Link, Reading, Assignment or Quiz), give it a Title and its web address, text or assignment, and select Add item. Links, files and videos must be web addresses starting with http:// or https://.
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. Student progress is never copied.
Open Course Content under Teaching to see a course as its students do, drafts included. On a phone, this is the Courses tab.
Run live sessions
Heads of department and lecturers schedule live classes. The class is held in your usual meeting tool: the portal holds the schedule and the link, and records who joined.
Open Live Sessions under Teaching. On a phone, tap Live.
Choose the semester and the course, and select Schedule a session.
Enter a Title, an optional Description, when it Starts and Ends (in your own time zone), and the Join link from your meeting tool, then select Schedule.
After the session, select Edit, add the Recording link, and select Save changes.
If a session is off, select Cancel session, say Why is it off?, and select Cancel the session: students see the reason. Restore brings it back.
Students registered for the course see the session on their own Live Sessions page, with a button to join it.
Hold a tutorial at a study centre
If your institution has study centres, you can hold in-person tutorials and practicals for your own courses.
Open In-person events under Teaching and select New event.
Enter a Title, the Kind, the Venue, when it Starts and Ends, and choose the Course. The course's registered students at the venue's centre are expected.
The form counts them. If more are expected than the venue seats, select Save anyway or Save and add a second session at another venue or time.
Untick Compulsory for an optional session, and set Remind students (48 hours unless you change it).
To take the register, open the event, choose the day, select Present, Late, Absent or Excused for each student, and select Save register. Print register gives a sheet on the institution's letterhead for students to sign. Cancel event, with a reason, tells the students it is off.
Invigilate an exam at a study centre
If you are named to invigilate, the venue appears on My invigilation under Exam duties once the sitting is published.
Select Open the register to see the students seated there by seat number. For a computer-based paper, the Sitting code shows from an hour before the start: read it out when the students are seated.
Mark each student Present, Late or Absent, add a note for any incident, and select Save register. You can do this from an hour before the sitting until twelve hours after it ends.
Select Attendance sheet to print a sheet for students to sign, or Door list to post outside the room.
Take the class register
For a class that meets, lecturers take attendance on the class register. Institution administrators can too.
Open Class Register under Teaching, or select Register on a course on Today.
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.
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.
To add a note, such as the reason for a lateness, type it in the student's note box. On a phone, tap Note on the student's card first. A note can be added only once the student's attendance is marked.
Select Save now in the amber bar at the top when you are done. The whole register, attendance and notes together, is sent in one go.
On a phone each student is a card with the four choices in one row.
Enter marks
Heads of department and lecturers record marks on the mark sheet.
Open Score Entry under Results, select Marks on a course on Today, or tap the Marks tab on a phone.
Choose the semester and the course. Everyone registered for the course that semester is listed, and a line says which assessment scheme the course uses.
On a student's row, enter the mark for every part of the course's assessment scheme. Each column says what its part 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 updates as you type.
Select Save now in the amber bar at the top of the sheet when you are done. Every student whose marks you changed is sent in one go.
On a phone, each student is a card. When a course has more than three parts, swipe a card sideways to see the rest; every card scrolls together.
Each row's status tells you where it stands: Not entered, Recorded, Barred, or Published — locked once the result has been published. A locked row cannot be changed.
Entries not yet saved
The register and the mark sheet keep what you enter on your device as you type. While anything is waiting:
an amber bar at the top of the sheet says how many entries are not yet saved to school records, with Save now;
each waiting row says Not yet saved to school records;
every other page shows a strip listing the sheets still waiting, with a link back to each.
When everything has been sent, 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 Score Entry, 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:
Open Assessment Scheme under Results, or select Change the scheme on the mark sheet. 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.
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.
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 assignments
Heads of department and lecturers set assignments.
Open Assignments under Teaching.
Choose the Course and the Semester.
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.
Select Create.
Use All, Open, Submitted and Closed to filter the list. To point students to an assignment from their course content, add it as an Assignment item in Content Builder.
Mark assignments
On Assignments, select Submissions on an assignment. Each student's work is listed with their name, matriculation number and when they submitted.
Enter a Mark, up to the assignment's maximum score, and any Feedback, then select Save mark. Update mark changes it later.
The student sees the mark and feedback on their own Assignments page. Once work is marked, the student can no longer replace it.
Post course materials
Heads of department and lecturers can keep a list of materials for a course on LMS Materials.
Open LMS Materials under Teaching. The page is headed Course Materials.
Choose the Course and the Semester. The current semester is chosen for you.
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.
Select Upload. Materials are listed in week order.
Students registered on the course see these materials under Course Materials in their portal, and in the student app from the course's outline. Course content (Content Builder) is still where a course's modules and required items go: materials are the extras, such as slides, readings and links, filed by week.
Set a computer-based exam
Deans, heads of department and lecturers can set papers.
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.
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.
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. For multiple choice, enter the options and choose the correct one. You can also take questions from the question bank (see Draw a paper's questions from the bank).
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. Close stops new attempts; marking carries on.
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, with the feedback No answer given., and does not wait for you.
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 results 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.
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.
Open Question Bank under Results (under More on a phone).
Under Bank, choose a course from Course banks or a department from Department banks.
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).
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.
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.
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
Open Question Bank and choose the bank.
Select Download template for a CSV file with the right columns and example rows. It opens in Excel, LibreOffice or Google Sheets.
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.
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.
Open Exams and select the paper's title.
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.
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:
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.
Tick Include the department bank to draw on it as well as the course's bank.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Score Entry page, 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.
When the paper is ready, open it and select Submit for approval. You can add a note for the approver.
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.
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.
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. Open Semester Results under Results (the Results tab on a dean's phone), choose the semester, and select Approve and then Publish on a department whose results have been computed. Each asks you to confirm. Students and their parents see results only once they are published, and the marks behind them are then locked. Withdraw takes published results back.
The registry computes the results first. If a department is still Draft, its results have not been computed.
Browse the academic structure
Deans see the Academic section:
Faculties: a card per faculty, with its code and whether a dean is assigned. View opens the faculty's page on your public website.
Departments: each 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 catalogue with each course's credit units, level, semester, type and prerequisites. Search by code or title, and filter by department, level, semester and type.
Assign lecturers to your department's courses
Heads of department give lecturers their courses.
Open Staff List under Staff and select the lecturer.
In Teaching, choose the semester. The current semester is chosen for you.
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
Open My Payslips under Payroll. On a dean's phone, tap Payslips; otherwise it is under More.
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.
Tips and common questions
A student is missing from my mark sheet. Only students registered for the course in that semester are listed.
I cannot change a score. It belongs to a published result and is locked.
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 says there is no connection and the sheet was never opened here. Open it once while online on this device; after that it works offline.
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 in the live demo.