This is a generic simple Pacific EMIS User Guide for the online application that can be used by any country adopting and building their own EMIS base on the Pacific EMIS. This user guide should be simple; only including description of how to use the system and essentially nothing else. It will change often as the User Interface (UI) changes and new features are added. Eventually it could be directly integrated into the Web UI itself.test

The Pacific EMIS is a software platform developed to collect educational data and produce national education indicators and information useful to manage the education system. It is primarily a web-based system but also makes use of external tools such as excel workbooks to complement the system. The various parts of the system will be discussed in this guide.

Since it is primarily a web-based system you can access it with any recent web browser such as Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Edge. The URL will differ by country but generally you can point your web browser to something like:

http://data.domain.edu or http://data.domain.edu/emis

The exact URL will be given to you by some people in country to support the system. You will then be presented with the following.

You can either login with your windows user account or you will be given a username and password.

Once you successfully login you will see something like follows. On the right hand side are the activated features also called modules of the EMIS but more can be added.

Many modules have common features. Dashboard is a common sub-menu item. Currently it only shows a sample image of charts but this can be filled up with any analysis you wish. The analysis included in this area should be for the particular entities as a whole (e.g. a pie chart showing distribution of schools by type, by region or managing authority).

Another common one is the sub-menu item “list” where the user can access the whole data set for this module. Here is an example of this showing the list of schools.

From the list of entities (e.g. Schools, Teachers, etc.) you can click on the ID to view the individual entity (e.g. a particular school, a particular teacher, etc.). The schools also has a link you can click to update the location of the school on a map.

The sub-menu item “chart” displays some count analysis of the entity dataset.

The sub-menu item “table” is similar to chart but in the form of a table displays some count analysis of the entity dataset.

The sub-menu item “map” includes a small Geographic Information System (GIS) component where various things can be expressed on a map.

The sub-menu item “reports” is where you can get a list of reports with all sorts of valuable information about the entities. More reports can be designed and added based on your information needs. Reports can be exported as PDF, Word Documents and Excel documents but more formats are also supported if desired.

Going back to the sub-menu item “list” another commonly found feature is under the Query Data window panel as shown below.

The part at the top “Change Columns Set” can be used to alter the columns displayed in the list of entities. For example, you may want to display a summary list of columns showing enrollment data for the latest data collection which is what is being done below. This i also configurable.

The part just below “Filter Dataset” can be used to filter the data shown in the list (e.g. only show primary schools, show a single school by filtering with an ID)

We will discuss the modules one by one in following sections.

Indicators currently shows, for each education level configured (e.g. Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary), a grid with a list of key education indicators for a particular education level (e.g. Primary). Much more indicators are supported by the system then shown and can be activated with small system upgrades.

Some countries may even want to have those data disaggregated by districts (i.e. called states, provinces, or atolls and islands depending on the country). Currently the indicators by district would be as sub-sub-menu items also shown below for the states of Federated States of Micronesia as example.

You can change the years to get those values for years when data is available. You can also observed change between two years in the third columns to the right.

You can also view an historical perspective by clicking on the historical tab. This will show you trends over time for all the data you have.

Once you have explored a little the School's sub-menu items (i.e. dashboard, list, chart, table, map) you can chose a school from the list of schools and click on the school ID link to enter that school. You will see something like the following with a number of tabs for that particular schools. The welcome tab is a simple dashboard, again contains only a small sample of components but will be expanded based on your needs.

Managing basic information for the school is done in the School Info tab. You can click on edit as shown below to edit any of the fields.

If the form is ready to be saved with your new information it will shown in green as shown below.

If for some reason the data is not valid (e.g. missing the school name or some other required data) then it will be in red and will not allow saving.

The next tab is Survey which is actually an aggregate version of your annual census (i.e. the Data Collection Workbook). You can view them there online but this feature is still immature. The way to managed your data is better done directly in the excel workbook.

The Inspectorate tab will be replaced by more specific school inspection (i.e. school accreditation, quarterly reports). The principal comment tab will either be replace or made editable based on needs of country.

The reports tab contains a list of reports with available exports as PDF, Word and Excel. But this time the reports are for the particular school for which you are viewing. An example, of this is a School Card report.

Some reports will prompt you for extra parameters as shown below. Some parameters are automatically filled using the EMIS context data (in this case the school ID is automatically added because the system is inside a particular school and it knows that). The year must be entered by the user in this case as reports can be often generate for this year or any year in the past for which there is data.

Clicking on “Run Report” above will generated the report dynamically and make the document available for download.

You can click on the downloaded report to view it in the browser.

The exams data are most often managed in an external system. However, we aim to import the data in the EMIS for further analysis and the ability to correlate information with other modules such as comparing student performance with teacher qualifications for example. The screenshot where exam data can be uploaded looks like below though the exams module still requires some changes. Some data was already loaded so you can get a preview of reports coming to the EMIS in the “reports” sub-menu item.

aka Annual Census, Annual Survey

The workbook main objective is to improve the quality of data collected at the state level and transport that data to NDOE (students & enrolments, staff, schools and WASH data). It is updated by each SDOE and sent to NDOE twice a year (a) in September/October as an enrolment update and (b) in June/July as both for the outcomes of the year (graduations, drop outs, transfers etc). States can use this workbook in a number of ways:

States can use the workbook as their own EMIS (Chuuk and Kosrae). They can keep the student and teacher data up-to-date in response to events, and send copies of the data to NDOE at the required times. States can also share the workbook data with common reporting tools (Chuuk are using MS Access) in order to generate their own analysis. States will also have access to FedEMIS which will hold a good deal of reporting at national, state and school level.

States that run their own EMIS (i.e Pohnpei state use PEDMS and Yap are implementing YAP WEB) need to coordinate data between their own systems and the workbook twice a year. Each case will be different depending on how the state gathers and stores its data. This requires some level of skill in data manipulation, import/export and cut/paste. NDOE can assist/advise if requested.

The workbook will also provide two other functions to improve admin (as at 31 August 2017 these functions are planned but are not ready or tested):

a facility to Rollover into a new year, setting up enrolments based on each individual

an ability for a master workbook to import one or more secondary workbooks. This allows states with large student numbers to share the work among more than 1 staff member, creating copies of the workbook, and then importing those secondary copies into the master. Schools that are trained in use of a secondary workbook (by SDOE) can also complete a workbook and forward it to SDOE, where SDOE can import that school workbook into the master.