How to set up your institution, step by step

Ten steps, in the order that works, from your first sign-in to students registering courses.

For administrators · about 6 minute read · updated 31 October 2026

Everything you need is in your own admin, and the dashboard shows which steps are done. This guide explains each step and why it comes in this order.

Before you start

Register your institution from the Higher Education home page. Your portal address looks like yourcollege.studypat.com.
Have your list of faculties or schools, departments, programmes, and course codes with their credit units to hand. Excel is fine.
Decide your grading scale. If you use a standard one, nothing to prepare; if not, have your grade bands and degree classes written down.

The ten steps

1. Check your grading scale

Open Grading & GPA. Your institution starts on the scale its type normally uses. Confirm the grade bands and points, the pass mark, the minimum and maximum units a student may register, probation limits, degree classes, and how a repeated course counts. Do this before any scores exist, because changing grades later re-grades saved scores.

2. Add faculties

For example Faculty of Science. Polytechnics and colleges can use this for their schools or colleges.

3. Add departments

Each department sits under a faculty. Courses and lecturers belong to a department.

4. Add programmes

The degree or diploma a student enrols for, with the award (B.Sc, ND, NCE and so on) and its length in years. Four years gives levels 100 to 400.

5. Add courses

A code, a title and credit units, entered once for the whole institution. Use Paste a list to add hundreds at once: one course per line as code, title, units.

6. Set each programme's curriculum

Open a programme and press Courses. Pick the level and semester and whether the courses are compulsory or elective. The unit total for each semester is shown against your limits.

7. Add lecturers

Each lecturer is emailed a link to choose a password.

8. Add students

Add them one at a time or paste a whole intake with matric numbers. Send login links so students can choose their own passwords.

9. Say who teaches what

For the current semester, assign a lecturer to each course on offer.

10. Open course registration

On the Course registration page, press Open registration. Students can now register.

Students show as Not activated until you pay for them on the Billing page (₦10,000 per student per semester), and cannot register courses until they are activated.

Each new semester

Make the new semester current under Sessions & semesters.
Check who teaches what again, because assignments are per semester.
Open registration, approve registrations, and close registration at your deadline.

Frequently asked questions

Yes. Faculties, departments, programmes, courses and curriculum can all be edited. A course that is part of a programme cannot be deleted until it is removed from it, and a department with programmes or courses cannot be deleted.

No. Add the courses for the levels and semesters you are running now and add more later.

Choose the programme and level, then paste one student per line (matric number, full name, optional email and phone) under Paste an intake.