AI Challenge Portal

Institution guide

Run the accounts your teachers and students sign in with.

Use the administration portal to manage institution users, roles, and sign-in access. This guide covers those screens in the order you use them.

How to use this guide

Follow the workflows in order

This guide is divided into numbered workflows. Each workflow is a task made of numbered steps, and workflows appear in the order you first need them.

Workflow 1

Signing in

  1. Open the administration portal

    Open the administration address from your institution. It sends you directly to the sign in form.

  2. Enter your work email address

    Enter the address your institution issued you.

  3. Enter your password

    Enter your password on the next screen. Use Forgot password? if needed; the portal cannot reset it.

    The sign in form asking for a password, with the account's email address above the password box and a Forgot password link beneath it. The address and the password are blurred.
    The password screen. The email address and the password box are deliberately blurred in this picture; on your screen they show normally.

  4. Wait for the portal to load

    The portal comes back by itself and the dashboard appears. Nothing needs to be clicked in between.

The first time only: the privacy policy and terms

Read the privacy policy and terms of use, tick both boxes, and choose Agree. You are asked again when either document changes.

Workflow 2

Reading your navigation panel

  1. Find the two halves of your role

    The panel lists teaching tools, then Institution administration with Institutions and Institution users. About links to the legal documents.

    The administration portal dashboard with the navigation panel docked open on the left, showing the teaching tools at the top, an Institution administration group beneath them containing Institutions and Institution users, and a Legal group at the bottom. The page itself shows eight counting tiles and two summary panels.
    The dashboard as it appears after signing in. The Institution administration group is what your administrative capacity adds; your email address is shown at the top right.

  2. Know why a group is there

    Teaching tools appear for teaching or administration. Institution administration appears when you administer at least one institution.

  3. Read the counting tiles

    Tiles count templates, assignments, sessions, open safeguards, completion, rosters, users, and institutions. Each opens its list; the lower panels show safeguards and recent sessions.

  4. Use the menu button

    Select the menu button (three horizontal lines, top left) to open or close the navigation panel.

  5. Find the template library in Teaching tools

    Teaching tools also lists Templates, which includes the platform's library of ready-made challenges, filed by Subject with an age rating where one applies. As an institution admin you can clone a library template into your own the same way a teacher does. See the teacher guide's library section for cloning, Subject tags, and age ratings.

Workflow 3

Your institution and its members

  1. Open Institutions

    Institutions lists only institutions you administer. Rows show name and domain; search narrows the list.

    The administered institutions list, showing one institution with its name as a link and its domain.
    The institutions you administer. Most administrators see exactly one row here.

  2. Open the institution details page

    Select the institution's name link. Institution admins can open /institutions/{id} to edit Name and Domain and manage members; Save applies changes. The page also shows the institution's cap on how many student turns a teacher may allow per assignment; you can see the current value here, but only a platform administrator can change it.

    The institution page, showing Name and Domain fields, a Max student turns ceiling field, and Save and Cancel beneath them, above a Members card containing an add-a-member row and a grid of existing members with their roles. The member email addresses are blurred.
    The institution page. The membership grid is the lower half; the email addresses beside each member's name are blurred in this picture.

  3. Read the membership grid

    Rows represent capacities, so one person can appear as both Teacher and InstitutionAdmin.

  4. Grant someone a capacity

    In Add a member, choose a role, find the person, and choose Add. Membership changes apply immediately.

  5. Expect administrator access to arrive at the next sign-in

    New InstitutionAdmin access appears after the recipient signs in again.

  6. Change or withdraw a capacity

    Change the role control or choose the bin to remove that capacity. The account and other institution memberships remain. Removing a Teacher capacity also takes that person's rosters in this institution out of their reach - the classes, their students, and assigning to them - until a teacher who still teaches here is assigned to them.

Workflow 4

The people in your institution

  1. Open Institution users

    Institution users lists people in the selected institution. The Institution box selects the institution when you administer more than one.

    The institution users list with a search term typed into its search box, showing rows for the matching people with name, email, role, membership, status and sign-in columns. The email addresses are blurred.
    The institution users list, narrowed by its search box. The email addresses in the second column are blurred in this picture.

  2. Read the columns

    Membership lists the person's capacities. Status is Active or Inactive. Sign-in is Connected or Needs attention.

  3. Narrow a long list

    Search by name or address. Use Show inactive to include deactivated people.

  4. Know what Needs attention means

    The portal has a record for this person, but no sign-in is connected in the Authentication module yet.

  5. Repair a sign-in that says Needs attention

    Connect to Authentication module creates the person's sign-in account and shows a temporary password. If the address already has an account there, it links it instead and shows no password. Resync roles re-applies the roles the person's memberships say they should hold.

You do not have to pre-create every student. A teacher's roster carries its own class join code, and a student who signs up with that code - or opens the teacher's join link - gets a Student account on that roster without an administrator creating it first. Code-less self sign-up is a separate switch, and it is off in the beta.

Workflow 5

Adding a user

  1. Choose New user

    New user opens a form for the selected institution. Check the Institution box first.

  2. Fill in the form

    Display Name and Email are required. Email cannot change later; Role is Teacher or Student; Locale defaults to en-US; Date of Birth is optional.

    The new institution user form with Display Name, Email, Role, Locale and Date of Birth filled in, and Save and Cancel beneath. The email address is blurred.
    The create form, filled in and ready to save. The address is blurred in this picture; type the person's real address here.

  3. Save, and copy the temporary password

    Saving creates the portal record, the sign-in account in the Authentication module, and role permissions, then shows a one-time password. Copy it before closing; it cannot be shown again.

    The Temporary sign-in credentials dialog, headed by a warning that the password is not stored and cannot be shown again, above a read-only email box and a read-only temporary password box, with an I copied it button beneath. Both the address and the password are blurred.
    The one-time password reveal. Both the address and the password are blurred in this picture; on your screen the password is readable exactly once.

  4. Hand it over safely, and only once

    Send the address and password only to that person. They must choose a new password at first sign-in.

  5. Read the dialog when it warns you

    If the Authentication module side only partly succeeds, the dialog says so. Use Connect to Authentication module or Resync roles from the row menu instead of creating a duplicate.

Workflow 6

Editing a user, withdrawing access, and erasing data

  1. Open a person's page

    Select the name link to edit Display Name, Locale, and Date of Birth. Email is fixed, and Primary Role is read-only.

    The institution user page for an existing person, with the email and primary role shown as read-only fields and the display name, locale and date of birth still editable.
    An existing user's page. The grayed fields are the ones fixed at creation.

  2. Use the Actions column

    The name is the link to Edit; there is no separate edit icon. Deactivate or Reactivate changes sign-in status; Remove from institution removes this membership. The vertical-dots menu offers Connect to Authentication module and Resync roles. Change roles on the institution page, not this list.

  3. Confirm the removal

    Confirming removes this institution membership and keeps other memberships intact.

    The Remove Institution Membership confirmation dialog, naming the person and stating that other institution memberships remain intact, with Cancel and Remove buttons.
    The removal confirmation. Deactivation asks in the same way, and says what it will do instead.

  4. Deactivate an account when access should stop

    Deactivation turns off the person's sign-in in the Authentication module, then disables local access, while keeping memberships and history. Reactivate turns sign-in back on and resyncs roles.

  5. Erase personal data on a deletion request

    When a student, parent, or teacher asks your institution to delete their data, choose the Erase personal data icon in the person's Actions column. The dialog explains what is removed: the sign-in, the name, email, date of birth, conversation text, feedback, and notes are replaced with placeholders, while scores, counts, and the records other people rely on stay in anonymous form. Tick I understand this account cannot be recovered, then choose Erase personal data; the button stays disabled until the box is ticked. Erasing is permanent, and every erasure is recorded in the access log.

    The action is offered for teachers and students. Before erasing a teacher, move any classes, templates, or assignments still in use to another teacher, because they stay with the anonymous account. A person who also belongs to another institution, and institution administrators, cannot be erased here; contact cognificance.com and we will handle the request. Deactivation, not erasure, is the right step when someone only needs to lose access.

Beta boundary

What is live now, and what is not

Live today: managing institutions, users, memberships, sign-ins, and teaching tools when you also teach. Not yet built: seats and billing, email invitations, bulk import of users (for example, from a CSV file or a student information system), institution-wide dashboards, and institution-level report export.

Workflow 7

  1. Read the documents your people accepted

    About shows the running version and links the Privacy policy, Terms of use, and Third-party notices.

    The administration portal on a narrow screen with the navigation panel slid out over the page, showing the teaching tools, the Institution administration group, and the About link.
    The navigation panel on a narrow screen, opened from the menu button. It carries the same three groups the docked panel does.

  2. Sign out when you are finished

    Sign out ends your session and shows a confirmation page.

    The signed-out page, reading You have been signed out, with a Sign in button beneath it.
    After signing out. Signing in again starts the sign-in from the beginning.

Choose an escalation owner before launch

Define who reviews flags, what escalation means locally, and how students receive support.