Gambella University

Educational Quality Assurance and Enhancement Directorate

Welcome to the EQIMS Self-Learning Guide

EQIMS, the Educational Quality Information Management System, is the digital workspace of the Educational Quality Assurance and Enhancement Directorate (EQAED) at Gambella University. It brings together nine modules: internal quality audit, teaching & learning M&E, curriculum review, KPI tracking, laboratories (LaBMS), training programmes, the resources library, satisfaction surveys, and announcements.

This guide teaches you the system step by step, at your own pace. Every walkthrough uses real screenshots of the portal filled with demonstration data, so what you see here is exactly what you will see on screen. Green numbered markers drawn on the screenshots point to the exact button or area used in the step with the same number.

How to use this guide

1. Start with Part 0 (Getting started). Everyone should complete it. It takes about 15 minutes and covers signing in, finding your workspace, and the basics that every other lesson builds on.
2. Then open the part written for your role. Use the menu on the left, or click your role card below. You do not need to read the parts written for other roles (though you are welcome to).
3. Do the "Try it yourself" exercises. Each lesson ends with a short practice task you can do in the portal, followed by a 2–4 question self-check quiz. Answer the quiz and press Check my answers. You get instant feedback.
4. Mark each lesson complete with the button at the bottom. The progress bar at the top shows how far you have come. (Progress is kept only while this page is open.)

Choose your learning path

Lesson 0.1: What is EQIMS?

EQIMS is Gambella University's one website for all quality assurance work. Before, audit documents were collected by hand and records were kept on paper. Now, all of this work is done and recorded in one place.

The public landing page

Anyone who opens the portal address sees the landing page below. No login is needed. It shows (1) the active audit cycle, (2) the scope (45 programmes across 6 colleges and faculties), (3) the audit framework (267 indicators across the eleven document standards, DS-1 to DS-11), and (4) the list of modules, as marked on the screenshot below.

The nine modules at a glance

Lesson 0.2: Signing in for the first time

Step by step

1. Click Sign in at the top-right of the landing page (or Sign in to EQIMS → at the bottom).
2. Enter your username and initial password exactly as given to you by EQAED. Usernames are lowercase, without spaces (e.g. dakbang).
3. Press Sign in.
4. First login only: EQIMS immediately takes you to a Change your password screen and will not let you continue until you set your own password. Type the initial password in Old password, then your new password twice.
5. Press Change password. You are now signed in and land on your workspace.

Password rules

Your new password must be at least 10 characters, cannot be entirely numbers, cannot be a commonly used password, and cannot be too similar to your name or username. A good pattern is three unrelated words plus a number, e.g. riverGreen7desk.

Where you land after signing in

Lesson 0.3: Finding your way around

The screen layout

Every page after sign-in has the same skeleton, so once you know one module you know them all:

1. The green sidebar (left) lists every module your role can open, grouped under headings such as Quality and performance, Staff development, Communications, My role, and Account. The page you are on is highlighted.
2. The breadcrumb (top of the work area) shows where you are, e.g. EQIMS Home › Audit › CoSc · Computer Science. Click any part of it to go back up a level.
3. The work area (centre) is where you read, fill forms, and upload files. Status chips such as Draft or DEMO-S1-MID appear next to the item they describe: inside tables, cards and boxes in the work area (and on some module pages also at the top of the page), so look for them beside the row or card you are working on.
4. The header bar (very top) has the notification bell, your name, the Sign out button, and the round language toggle that switches the interface between English and Amharic (አማርኛ).

Your profile

Open Account → Profile in the sidebar to see your name, role, unit, and preferred language, and to reach Change password. If your name or department is wrong, tell EQAED. You cannot edit those yourself.

Lesson 0.4: Announcements & staying informed

EQAED (the quality directorate) posts deadlines, circulars, and system news under Communications → Announcements. When something new is posted, the notification bell in the header and the Announcements card on your home page show that you have unread items. The card reads "You are up to date" when there is nothing new.

1. Open Announcements from the sidebar. Notices are listed newest first.
2. Click a title to read the full notice. Opening it marks it as read for you.
3. If comments are enabled on a notice, you can write a short comment underneath, for example to ask a question. Your name is shown with your comment.

Lesson 1.1: Your department home page

When you sign in as Head of Department you land on My department. This is your home page. Open it every morning. It tells you what needs your attention, and it shows the live state of every module for your department.

Reading the home page

1. Needs your attention (appears at the top only when something is waiting): audit submissions returned by the Dean, M&E daily records awaiting your evening verification, curriculum stages returned by EQAED, or a stalled curriculum review. Each line links straight to the work.
2. Submissions lists your programme's package for each open audit cycle with its status (Draft, Submitted, or Approved) and an Open button.
3. Department modules cards show live numbers: M&E (current cycle and anything pending), Curriculum review (stages verified), Training (next open session), Resources (published documents), Course surveys (open windows), and Announcements (unread).
4. Quality Assurance Cell (right) shows your department's QAC roster: the HoD & Chair, the members, and the secretary. If the roster is wrong, inform EQAED.

Lesson 1.2: Submitting audit evidence (DS forms)

The journey of a submission

When EQAED opens an audit cycle, EQIMS creates one submission package for your programme. It moves through five statuses:

Draft → Submitted to Dean → Approved by Dean → Received by EQAED → Audited

You, the HoD, own the Draft stage: answering all 267 indicators across the 11 document standards (DS-1 to DS-11) and uploading the evidence files. Your QAC members and secretary can help fill it in. Every change is saved automatically.

Open your submission

1. From your home page, press Open next to the cycle in the Submissions table (or use Audit in the sidebar).
2. The submission overview opens. The Overall completion bar shows how much of the work is done. The orange banner shows how many indicators still need attention.
3. Each standard (DS-1 Program Governance and Management, DS-2 Program Learning Outcomes, …) is a card tagged with how many indicators are still missing. Click a card to open that DS form. It jumps straight to the first unfilled indicator.

Fill in a DS form

1. For each indicator, choose Yes, Partial, or No. This is an honest self-assessment of whether the practice is in place.
2. Add a short Note explaining your answer (one or two sentences is enough, because the evidence file is the real proof).
3. Under Evidence, the blue "What to upload" line tells you exactly which document(s) the auditors expect, for example Meeting minutes + attendance records. Some indicators expect two or more files; upload them one at a time.
4. Press Choose File, pick the file, then press + Upload. Maximum size is 10 MB per file; PDF, Word, Excel, and images are all accepted.
5. Name your file following the suggested filename shown under the upload box (e.g. CoSc_S1_1.1.2_D1_R.pdf). Use _D1_, _D2_… when an indicator needs several documents. This keeps hundreds of files findable for the auditors.
6. Everything is auto-saved as you go (see the footer note "All changes are auto-saved"). You can leave and come back any time; use Back to submission to return to the overview.

Submit to the Dean

1. When the completion bar reaches 100%, the Submit to Dean button at the bottom of the overview becomes active. Press it once you are satisfied.
2. The status changes to Submitted to Dean and the package locks for editing while the Dean reviews it.
3. If the Dean returns the package, it re-opens for editing and appears in your "Needs your attention" strip with the Dean's remarks. Fix what was asked and submit again.
4. After Dean approval, EQAED receives and audits the package. You can follow the status any time from your home page, and final audit reports appear under Account → Audit reports.

Lesson 1.3: Daily teaching M&E

Recording the day (usually the QAC secretary)

1. Open M & E → Daily monitoring (from the sidebar or the M&E card on the home page).
2. The grid lists every course scheduled today for your department. For each class: tick or untick Held, type the syllabus topic actually covered, and enter students Present / Expected.
3. If a class did not run, pick a Flag (cancelled, resource, or facility) instead of leaving it blank. A flagged class is automatically recorded as not held, with the reason.
4. Use ‹ Prev / Next › or the date box to record a missed day.

Verifying the day (you, the HoD)

1. In the evening, open the same page. Records entered during the day are waiting with status Draft. Your home page's attention strip also counts records awaiting verification.
2. Check each row against what really happened: was the class really held? Are the numbers correct? Then confirm. Verified records feed the weekly summary and the college and leadership dashboards.

Also under M&E you will find: Pulse (your department's weekly teaching pulse), Observations (classroom observation forms and their verification), Reports (compiled M&E reports with PDF export), and Actions (improvement actions you create and track).

Lesson 1.4: Curriculum review, stage by stage

Two tracks

EQIMS knows which track your programme is on. The idea is simple: decisions still happen in your committee meetings. EQIMS keeps the proof that each step really happened, and EQAED checks each stage.

Working a stage

1. Open Curriculum in the sidebar. The header cards show your review type, start date, stages verified (x / N), and status.
2. Each stage is a card that explains who acts (e.g. HoD; Department Council; CDT), what the stage means, and the expected evidence (e.g. CDT membership list; appointment minutes; terms of reference).
3. Do the work in your department, then upload the evidence: Choose File → optional caption → Upload (max 10 MB). You can attach several files per stage.
4. Optionally add department notes for the stage and press Save notes.
5. When the evidence is in, press Mark stage complete. The stage goes to EQAED for verification.
6. EQAED either verifies the stage (the "Stages verified" counter rises) or returns it with remarks. Returned stages appear in your home page's attention strip. Fix and mark complete again.

Lesson 1.5: Training programmes & certificates

1. Open Staff development → Training. The calendar lists sessions with their status. Open sessions accept registration.
2. Click a session to see details: instructor, target audience, venue, dates, and remaining seats. Press Register. Seats are limited and confirmed in order of registration, and you receive an e-mail confirmation.
3. If your plans change, open the session again and press Cancel registration to free the seat for a colleague.
4. Attend the session. EQAED ticks attendance in the system.
5. After the session is completed, open it once more to rate it (1–5) and leave feedback. You can do this once.
6. If you attended, your PDF certificate becomes available under Training → My trainings. Every certificate carries a verification code; anyone can confirm it is genuine at Training → Verify.

Lesson 1.6: The Resources library

The library at Staff development → Resources is the university's single source for quality documents: policies, templates, guidelines, reference documents, and forms, including the full set of curriculum review templates. Only EQAED can publish here, which is exactly the point: if it is in the library, it is the official current version.

1. Open Resources and browse by category, or use the search box.
2. Click a document to see its description, version, and history. Superseded versions remain linked in a chain, so you can see what changed. The download button always gives the current one.
3. Press download. The system counts downloads so EQAED knows which documents are actually used.

Lesson 1.7: Course surveys & your audit reports

Course surveys

Communications → Course surveys shows the survey windows currently open for your department's courses. Students answer anonymously. EQIMS shows results only when a group has at least five answers, so no single student can ever be identified. Use the analytics to spot courses that need attention, and encourage students to respond while a window is open. The home page card shows how many windows are live.

Your audit reports

Under Account → Audit reports you can download the final audit reports and bundles for your department from completed cycles. They are useful for departmental council meetings and improvement planning.

Lesson 2.1: Your college home page

Signing in as Dean lands you on My college. It works exactly like the department home page you saw in Lesson 1.1, but it covers every department in your college.

1. Pending approvals lists department submissions waiting for your decision. This is your most important list. One click opens the review screen (next lesson).
2. Curriculum reviews in this college shows how many programmes have initiated their review, plus stalled and overdue lists, with a button to the full college board.
3. College modules cards give live, college-wide figures: M&E records awaiting HoD verification anywhere in the college, audit evidence bridges, training, resources, course survey windows, and announcements.

Lesson 2.2: Reviewing & approving submissions

1. From Pending approvals, open the submission. The review screen shows the package standard by standard: every indicator answer, note, and evidence file. You can open any file to check it.
2. Check it the way an auditor will: are the answers honest? Does the evidence really support them? Are the files clear and correctly named?
3. If the package is sound, press Approve. It moves on to EQAED and locks; the HoD is notified.
4. If something must be fixed, press Return for correction and write clear remarks. Say which indicator and what is wrong. The package re-opens for the HoD with your remarks attached, and comes back to your queue when resubmitted.

Lesson 3.1: Audit cycles & the service gate

Audit cycles

An audit cycle is the container for one round of internal quality audit. You manage them at Audit → Cycles (your Director console).

1. Press + New cycle. Give the cycle a code (e.g. 2026-27-S1-MID), the academic year, semester, phase (mid-semester / end-semester), and the opening and closing date-times.
2. When you open the cycle, EQIMS automatically creates one submission for every active programme (45). No department has to be invited by hand. HoDs see the new submission on their home pages immediately.
3. The cycle row shows its live status, for example Open for submissions, with View and Edit actions. Editing lets you extend the closing date if leadership grants more time.
4. Closing the cycle stops further submissions; late departments' packages stay in their current status for your follow-up.

The service gate

Service gate (sidebar, under My role) is the on/off switch for the whole portal. It is useful during deployments, data migrations, or planned downtime.

1. Open access / Close access switches EQIMS on or off for all non-admin users, immediately.
2. Optionally set a scheduled window. EQIMS then opens by itself at the start and closes by itself at the end, in addition to the manual switch.
3. Write the closed-page message in English and Amharic. This is what users see while the gate is closed.
4. Press Save settings.

Lesson 3.2: Cycle progress & coordinator downloads

Watching the cycle

Leadership hub → Audit progress counts how many packages are at each step (still Draft, waiting for the Dean, approved, received, or audited) for the whole university and for each college. Use it in EQAED meetings to see quickly where the cycle is stuck.

The coordinator dashboard

Quality Coordinators (and you) have Coordinator in the sidebar. It is a read-only view built for the people who physically evaluate the evidence:

1. Pick the cycle at the top. The status overview counts submissions at each workflow step (Draft, Awaiting Dean, Returned, Approved, Under Director review, Audited, Closed).
2. Below, each college lists its departments with programme, status, and completion progress.
3. For any submission at Approved by Dean or later, the ↓ Download bundle button packages the complete evidence set for offline evaluation. Earlier statuses show "Not yet downloadable". Evidence is never handed over before the Dean has approved it.

Lesson 3.3: Verifying curriculum stages

Departments work their stage checklists (Lesson 1.4); EQAED's job is process verification. Remember the module's principle: EQAED checks that the process follows the framework. It never approves curriculum content. Approvals stay in the committee rooms and are recorded as evidence.

The console

1. Open Curriculum. As Director you land on the EQAED console. The header cards count reviews initiated (x / 45), in progress, completed, stalled, and overdue.
2. Stalled reviews lists programmes with no stage activity for 30 days. The system shows this by itself, so nobody has to remember to check. A call to that Head of Department usually solves it.
3. The programme board shows every programme in every college with its state, progress, planned start, next due date, and available track (Full track / Adoption). Programmes that have not started simply show "Not initiated", and they can join later without penalty. Delays are measured against the agreed wave plan (the schedule of who starts when, in the top menu).
4. The verification queue lists stages departments have marked complete. Open one, examine the uploaded evidence against the stage's expected evidence, then Verify it, or Return it with remarks. Returned stages reappear on the department's home page attention strip.
5. Status PDF (top right) prints the whole university's curriculum review status, ready for Senate or MoE reporting. The Framework editor lets you adjust stage wording when the final MoE framework is issued.

Lesson 3.4: Running satisfaction survey rounds

EQIMS carries seven stakeholder instruments: students, teaching staff, support & administrative staff, alumni, employers, community partners, and entrepreneurs/incubatees. A round (for example "2026-2027, Semester 2") runs all of them at once.

1. Open Stakeholder surveys → Manage and create a round for the academic year and semester, then open it.
2. The round page lists each stakeholder group with its share link and a QR poster. Print the poster and place it where that group will see it (notice boards, alumni groups, employer letters). Respondents need no login.
3. Watch responses arrive per group. Each link can be paused individually; links stay live even when the service gate is closed. Pausing a link or closing the round is how you stop collection.
4. Results unlock at five or more responses per group. This is the anonymity rule. Below five, nobody (including you) can see results, so no individual can ever be identified. After a group passes five responses, the results keep updating live as new answers arrive, until the round closes at your deadline.
5. Open Results dashboard for live analytics, and Compiled report to edit and export the round's consolidated report as PDF or Excel, ready to present to management.
6. When collection ends, press Close this round.

Lesson 3.5: The training organiser console

1. Open Training → Organiser console. Fill the New session form (title in English, and Amharic if you wish, start/end, instructor, target audience, venue, and seat capacity) and press Create as draft. Drafts are visible to organisers only.
2. When the session is ready to advertise, press Open registration in the All sessions table. Staff can now register (Lesson 1.5); the table shows live registered / capacity counts.
3. Press Close when registration should stop (or it stops by itself when the session is full, because the system gives out seats one at a time, so the session can never be overbooked).
4. On the day, open the session page and tick the attendance grid. Give one tick to each participant who actually attended.
5. After the session, mark it Completed. EQIMS issues PDF certificates to attended participants only, each with a verification code checkable at Training → Verify. Participants can now also rate the session 1–5.

Lesson 3.6: Curating the Resources library

Only the EQAED trio can publish to the library. This is exactly what makes it the university's single reliable source for quality documents (Lesson 1.6 shows the reader's side).

1. Open Resources → Curator console. Fill the upload form: title (EN/AM), category (FDRE-ETA standards, policies, templates, curriculum review, …), version, effective date, author/issuing body, description, and tags.
2. For a new version of an existing document, set Replaces (new version of) to the document it replaces. This builds the version chain readers see, and it retires the old file from the download button automatically.
3. Choose the file (PDF/Office, max 10 MB) and press Upload as draft. Drafts are invisible to readers until published, so you can check the entry calmly first.
4. In the All documents table, publish the draft. The table also shows download counts, which prove which documents are actually used, and a Retire action for documents no longer in force.

Lesson 3.7: KPI windows, verification & exports

1. Open KPI → Console. Pick the quarter and press Open window. The 23 owner units can now enter actual values for their indicators (Part 4 shows their side). Only one window is open at a time; close it when the deadline passes.
2. The unit entry status chips show each directorate's progress (e.g. 7/7 entered, 2/3, 0/1). They are green when complete and orange when partial. Use it to see which units still need a reminder.
3. Each submitted value lands in the verification queue with its indicator code, value, and owner unit. Press ✔ Verify to accept it into the scorecard, or type a return reason and press ↩ Return to send it back to the focal person.
4. Press Auto-compute the 5 EQIMS-fed KPIs. Indicators that EQIMS itself can measure (survey favourability and audit-based measures) are filled from live system data, with no manual entry.
5. Exports: the PCA report as Word or Excel in the official performance-contract format, and the leadership briefing PDF. All of them are available from the scorecard pages.

Lesson 3.8: The leadership hub

The Leadership hub is the read-only bridge between the quality system and university management. Its tiles link to live views. No numbers are typed in by hand anywhere on these pages.

1. Hub tiles cover audit progress, teaching & learning M&E, KPI scorecard, satisfaction surveys, curriculum review, LaBMS and training. Each tile shows a live headline figure and links to its full view.
2. M&E dashboard (Leadership → M&E): every department by college (classes held %, attendance, flags, observations, and student satisfaction) with college subtotals and the university headline. Trends adds the early-warning watchlist (departments in red or orange) and cycle-over-cycle strips; Compare ranks colleges.
3. Every leadership view exports: PDF briefing and Excel, ready for management meetings; a weekly e-mail digest also goes out automatically.

Lesson 4.1: Entering your quarterly KPI data

Each of the 23 owner units (directorates and executives) is responsible for its own indicators in the university's 102-indicator performance contract. As the unit's focal person, you enter one value for each indicator every quarter. That is the whole task. It takes only minutes if your records are ready.

1. Sign in and open My KPIs in the sidebar. The header shows your unit, how many indicators you own, and your progress this quarter (e.g. 7 indicators owned · 7/7 entered). The chip at the top right tells you which entry window is open (e.g. 2018 E.C. Q3 (Open for entry), where E.C. means the Ethiopian calendar). You can only enter data while EQAED has a window open.
2. Each indicator card shows its code, name, unit type (%, ratio, number), baseline, and annual target. Read the unit type before typing: a percentage of 50.04 is entered as 50.04, not 0.5.
3. Type the value for the quarter and save. The card status changes to entered. EQAED now sees it in their verification queue.
4. After EQAED review the card shows ✓ Verified, and the value is locked into the official scorecard. If EQAED returns a value instead, the card re-opens with their reason; correct it and save again.
5. If one of your indicators is EQIMS-fed (computed from surveys or audit data), you will see it filled automatically. No entry is needed from you.

Lesson 5.1: Your laboratory in LaBMS

My laboratories

1. Sign in and open My labs. You see a card for each laboratory where you hold an active role, with your role and the lab's lifecycle status (e.g. Commissioning). Click the card.

Receiving equipment (delivery verification)

Your lab's page lists every expected equipment unit from the procurement list. Each unit already has an asset tag number. As deliveries physically arrive, you confirm them one unit at a time; this builds the university's verified asset register.

1. On the lab page, find the delivered item in the Equipment table (status Expected).
2. In its Receive row, enter the asset tag as physically labelled, the serial number if the unit has one, the room, and its condition (New / other).
3. Press ✔ Receive. The unit's status changes and it is now part of your lab's verified inventory. Anything that never arrives simply stays Expected. This is a permanent, honest record for procurement follow-up.

Stock, bookings, and SOPs

1. Consumables: each consumable has a stock ledger. Record stock-in when supplies arrive and stock-out as they are used, so the balance is always current.
2. Bookings: staff ask for lab time, and the requests appear on your lab page for you to approve or decline. EQIMS automatically refuses two bookings at the same time.
3. SOPs: upload your standard operating procedures against the lab. SOPs are versioned like Resources documents, and approvals are recorded. Auditors looking at DS-7 evidence will find them here.

Lesson 6.1: Answering an anonymous survey

When Gambella University runs a satisfaction round, each stakeholder group gets its own link and QR poster. This is the one part of EQIMS made for people outside the system: no username, no password, and no app to install.

1. Scan the QR code on the poster with your phone camera (or open the shared link). The survey landing page opens in your browser.
2. Read the introduction. It explains the purpose, the confidentiality, and that participation is voluntary. Use the EN · አማርኛ toggle at the top right to switch language.
3. Start the survey. Questions come in short sections (the student survey, for example, is 11 short sections). Answer each statement on the agreement scale, then continue to the next section.
4. Submit at the end. That is all. There is nothing to sign and no way to trace an answer back to you.

Lesson 7.1: Role cheat sheets

One compact table per role: if you want to do X, go here and press this. Use Print this page to make a copy for your desk. Each table fits on a page.

🖨 Print this page

Head of Department / QAC Chairperson

College Dean

EQAED Director & Quality Coordinators

KPI focal person

Laboratory custodian

Survey respondent

Lesson 7.2: Glossary

🖨 Print this page

Lesson 7.3: Frequently asked questions

🖨 Print this page