Knowledge Base

What is a Schologic Pilot?

A Schologic Pilot is a fully functional, zero-risk deployment of the Schologic LMS tailored specifically to your institution's unique environment, establishing Schologic as the premier white label LMS in Kenya for academic transformation. Rather than relying on generic software demonstrations, a pilot allows your faculty, IT staff, and students to experience Schologic's AI-powered academic integrity tools, automated grading, and Open Educational Resources (OER) in a live, secure sandbox.

Our goal during the pilot is to definitively prove our core promises: reducing grading time by up to 80%, eliminating textbook costs through integrated OER (LibreTexts/OpenStax), and ensuring absolute academic integrity through granular AI forensics and academic integrity software.

Why a Digitized Pilot Management Portal (PMP)?

Traditionally, adopting an enterprise Learning Management System requires months of fragmented email threads, repetitive physical meetings, and misaligned expectations between IT, Academics, and Instructors.

We built the Schologic Pilot Management Portal (often searched as School Logic or Schoologic) to revolutionize this process, specifically optimized as the best LMS for universities and colleges in the East African region.

Benefits of the Digitized Portal for Your Institution:

1. Eliminates Fragmented Communication: No more lost emails. All deployment tasks, course migration documentation, and academic requirements are housed in a single secure workspace accessible to your entire decision-making committee.
2. Asynchronous Scoping: Design your ideal LMS environment at your own pace without waiting to schedule physical scoping meetings.
3. Instant ROI Blueprints: As you configure your pilot needs, the system automatically translates your inputs into a tangible Business Case and ROI Estimate that you can immediately present to your Vice Chancellor or Board.
4. Transparent Project Tracking: See exactly where you are in the deployment phase, from server provisioning to IMSCC course migration, in real-time.

Tailored Pathways by Institution Type

Schologic recognizes that different institutions face vastly different operational challenges. The pilot process automatically adapts to your context through specialized Use Cases:

• For Universities: Designed to protect academic integrity with AI-resistant assessment and large-scale data sovereignty. Focuses heavily on AI Forensics (RoBERTa models) and on-premise compliance.
• For TVET Institutions: Built for competency-based assessment and industry-linked skill tracking. Designed to meet rigorous CDACC compliance standards and CBET alignment while fully digitizing logbooks and supervisor evaluations through the Practicum Manager to ensure 100% compliance.
• For Colleges: Helps you transition to digital with zero textbook costs and unified management. Prioritizes the Resource Library, allowing you to import IMSCC common cartridges to provide high-quality OER textbooks to your student body.

The Pilot Lifecycle

Your journey through the Pilot Management Portal follows four distinct phases:

1. Application & Verification: The institutional champion submits a secure request using an official university/college email.
2. Design & Configuration: The champion invites their committee, selects desired modules, sets success KPIs, and white-labels the dashboard.
3. Technical Deployment: Schologic provisions the custom tenant, synchronizes automated tasks (e.g., IMSCC course migration), and activates the environment.
4. Evaluation & Transition: We track your specific KPIs (e.g., grading hours saved, AI plagiarism dropped) and generate a final evaluation report for transition to an enterprise license.

Who Should Apply?

The pilot application should be initiated by an Institutional Champion. This is typically an individual with the mandate to explore digital transformation and academic quality assurance. Common champions include:

• Head of Department (HOD)
• Dean of Academics / Registrar
• Director of E-Learning / ICT
• TVET Principal

The champion acts as the primary Super Admin for the Pilot Portal, holding the authority to invite other committee members and approve final configurations.

The Institutional Email Requirement

Important: To ensure the highest level of enterprise security and to comply with the Kenya Data Protection Act, Schologic strictly requires the use of official institutional email addresses (e.g., jdoe@strathmore.edu, registrar@uonbi.ac.ke, ict@rvtti.ac.ke) to initiate a pilot.

Why do we reject public domains (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook)?

1. Data Sovereignty & Security: We provision dedicated server resources and handle sensitive academic integrity data. We must verify that the applicant is an authorized representative of the institution.
2. Automated Provisioning: Our system uses your institutional domain to automatically map your deployment, pull public profile data to assist our support team, and prevent unauthorized sandbox generation.
3. Spam Prevention: It ensures our engineering team dedicates their bandwidth exclusively to qualified educational partners.

Step-by-Step Application Workflow

Step 1: Account Creation

1. Navigate to pilot.schologic.com.
2. Enter your full name, role, institution name, and official institutional email.
3. Select your core institution type (University, TVET, or College).
4. Click Request Pilot Access.

Step 2: The Approval Gate

Once submitted, your application enters the Schologic Review Gate. Our enterprise team manually verifies your institutional credentials. This process typically takes less than 2 hours during business days. During this time, your dashboard will display: "Application Received. Awaiting Schologic Review."

Step 3: Magic Link Activation

Upon approval, you will receive an activation email containing a secure Magic Link. We use passwordless authentication for the Pilot Portal to reduce login friction for senior management and faculty. Clicking the link instantly authenticates your device and grants you access to the Committee Workspace to begin designing your pilot.

Why Invite a Committee?

Adopting an operating system for academic integrity is an institutional decision that directly impacts how faculty teach. A successful pilot requires deep buy-in from the academic staff who will use the platform daily.

The Pilot Management Portal is designed to bring your key academic stakeholders into a single digital room. For example:

• The Head of Department (HOD) needs to evaluate curriculum alignment and competency tracking.
• The Lead Instructors need to test the AI Teaching Assistant, automated rubrics, and the RoBERTa detection models with actual student submissions.
• The IT Director needs access to API documentation, IMSCC import guidelines, and ISO 27001 data sovereignty certificates.

How to Invite Members

As the Institutional Champion, you can invite up to five (5) key stakeholders to join your private pilot workspace.

1. Navigate to the Team Setup tab in your pilot dashboard.
2. Enter the colleague's Name, Role, and Institutional Email.
3. Assign their Access Permission.
4. Click Send Invite. They will receive a secure magic link to join your workspace immediately.

Understanding Roles & Permissions

Collaboration Tools

To eliminate the need for lengthy physical meetings, the Pilot Portal is equipped with powerful built-in collaboration tools tailored for academic teams.

1. Automated Task Assignment & Scheduling

Deploying an LMS involves multiple moving parts. To keep the pilot on track, the portal automatically generates a Deployment Task List based on the modules you select.

• How it Works: If you select the OER Library, the system automatically generates a task: "Upload sample IMSCC common cartridge textbooks."
• Delegation: The Champion can assign this specific task to an invited Lead Instructor, setting a target deadline.
• Academic Tasks: If you select the Practicum Manager, a task is generated: "Upload sample CDACC logbook rubrics." This can be assigned directly to the HOD.
• Progress Tracking: The dashboard displays a global progress bar (e.g., 65% Ready for Pilot Launch), ensuring all departments and instructors complete their prerequisites before the deployment kickoff.

2. The Pilot Discussion Board

Say goodbye to lost email threads. The portal features a secure, threaded messaging center connecting your 5-person committee directly with the Schologic deployment team.

• Centralized Context: All questions regarding course migration strategies (IMSCC), rubric configurations, or AI scoring methodologies happen in one place.
• AI-Assisted Support: Our Schologic AI Assistant monitors the board and can provide instant answers to documentation queries, while our human team reviews complex pedagogical strategies.
• Visibility: All team members (including Read-Only) can view the discussion history, ensuring the HODs, Lead Instructors, and Administrators are always on the same page regarding project progress.

Selecting Your Modules

Schologic LMS is highly modular. During the pilot design phase, your committee will select the specific tools that align with your institution's immediate pedagogical goals. The platform is divided into Core Modules and AI & Resource Add-ons.

1. Core Modules (Choose One or Both)

• Class Manager: The foundational learning management environment. Includes course creation, assignment submissions, quiz generation, and the native grades table. (Ideal for standard academic faculties).
• Practicum Manager: A complete digital solution for industrial attachments and teaching practice. Includes daily/weekly digital logbooks, geofencing for physical presence verification, supervisor evaluation links, and CDACC-aligned competency tracking. (Essential for TVETs and applied sciences).

2. Powerful Add-ons

Depending on your institution's challenges, you can toggle these advanced features for your pilot:

• AI Detection & Forensics: Equip instructors with granular, sentence-level AI probability scoring using our RoBERTa models. Perfect for maintaining academic integrity in essay-heavy courses.
• AI Teaching Assistant: Drastically reduce faculty workload. This module auto-generates grading rubrics based on assignment descriptions and provides deterministic, instant grading suggestions (strengths, weaknesses, and scores).
• OER & Universal Reader: Import Common Cartridge (IMSCC) files from LibreTexts or OpenStax. Allow students to read, search, and AI-summarize high-quality textbooks directly inside the LMS—completely free of charge.

Defining Scale & Scope

To ensure a highly focused and measurable pilot, we strongly recommend establishing clear boundaries for the test environment.

Recommended Scale

A pilot should be large enough to gather meaningful data, but small enough to manage effectively.

• Student Cap: We recommend limiting the pilot to a maximum of 200 students or 10% of your total student population (whichever is lower).
• Faculty Cap: Select 2 to 5 "Champion Instructors" or Lead HODs to run the pilot courses.

Recommended Pilot Periods

• Phase 1: Standard Trial (2 to 4 Weeks)

  • Scope: This phase utilizes the existing, out-of-the-box instructor and student features. It includes your custom branding and admin dashboard but requires no complex external API integrations.
  • Goal: Within the first 30 days, your committee will have enough hands-on experience and data to determine if Schologic is the right long-term match for your institution.

• Phase 2: Extended Evaluation & Improvement (Up to 4 Months)

  • Scope: For institutions that pass the 30-day mark and wish to proceed, this phase allows for deeper customization. It involves full integration into your institution’s existing systems (e.g., Student Information Systems/ERP), development of bespoke features requested by your HODs, and extended academic testing across a full semester.

Pricing & Investment

The standard 2-4 week pilot is designed to be highly accessible. Any pricing associated with the setup, white-labeling, or cloud infrastructure depends entirely on the size of the pilot and the specific add-ons requested.

The Enterprise Guarantee: If your institution chooses to convert the pilot into a full multi-year enterprise contract, 100% of the pilot costs will be credited back toward your official contract.

Setting Success KPIs

A pilot is only successful if it proves ROI (Return on Investment). During the Architect phase, you will select the exact Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you want us to track. You can define custom expectations, or choose from our standard metrics:

• ⏱️ Grading Hours Saved: Track the reduction in manual grading time using the AI Teaching Assistant.
• 💰 Textbook Cost Savings: Calculate the exact monetary savings for your 200 pilot students by utilizing the OER Library instead of paid publishers.
• 📉 AI-Generated Submissions: Track the percentage of flagged AI essays to measure the improvement in academic integrity.
• 📊 Practicum Budget & Time Savings: Measure the reduction in administrative overhead by digitizing attachment logbooks and automated supervisor grading.
• 🎓 Student Involvement: Track daily active users, resource open rates, and digital logbook compliance.

A key advantage of Schologic is that it does not feel like third-party software; it becomes an integrated part of your institution’s digital identity. In this step, your committee will define the look, feel, and governance of your white label portal and pilot tenant.

Domain & URL Setup

You have two options for how your faculty and students will access the platform during the pilot:

1. Schologic Subdomain (Standard): Fast and secure. Your portal will be hosted at yourinstitution.schologic.com.
2. Custom Subdomain (Enterprise): For a fully white-labeled experience, you can point your own domain (e.g., lms.yourinstitution.ac.ke) to our servers. (Note: Refer to our pricing page for custom domain SSL provisioning details).

White-labeling & UI Design

Your portal should reflect your institution's pride and heritage. Through the configurator, you will upload and set:

• Institution Logos: Upload your primary crest/logo for the dashboard header, and a simplified favicon for the browser tab.
• Theme & Colors: Select your institution's primary and secondary brand colors. These will automatically map to buttons, links, and active states across the LMS.
• Login Page Design: Customize the background image or welcome message students see when they log in to submit their assignments.

Admin Dashboard Views

As the Institutional Champion or HOD, your view of the platform is different from a standard instructor. You can configure your Admin Dashboard layout to prioritize what matters most to you:

• The Academic View: A simplified layout focusing on student engagement, recent assignment submissions, course health, and faculty activity.
• The Analytics View: A data-heavy layout prioritizing real-time KPI tracking. View live graphs of aggregate AI detection scores across all departments, total grading hours saved this week, and system storage usage.

Governance & Instructor Permissions

Schologic provides granular control over what your teaching staff can and cannot do. During setup, you will define the "Control Level" granted to your Instructors:

Class & Content Management:

• Can instructors independently create new classes, or are classes centrally provisioned by the Admin?
• Can instructors upload their own proprietary files (PDFs, DOCX) to the Resource Library, or must they rely only on Admin-approved IMSCC OER cartridges?

AI & Assessment Settings:

• Can instructors customize AI detection thresholds (e.g., choosing between RoBERTa Large or OpenAI models) for their specific classes, or is a strict global default enforced by the institution?
• Can instructors manually override AI-generated rubric scores?

Student Management:

• Can instructors manually add, remove, or suspend students from their specific classes, or is roster management strictly handled by the Registrar/IT?

Communications:

• Configure global messaging and notification settings. Determine if students can message instructors directly through the platform, and define which actions trigger automated email alerts (e.g., "Assignment Graded" or "Logbook Rejected").

By defining these permissions upfront, HODs and IT Directors can ensure the platform operates securely and strictly within institutional policy.

Reviewing Your Custom Blueprint

Before you formally request your pilot, the Pilot Management Portal (PMP) automatically generates a comprehensive Pilot Blueprint. This is a consolidated summary of every decision your committee has made during the setup phase.

As the Institutional Champion, you should thoroughly review this blueprint. It outlines:

• The chosen modules (e.g., Practicum Manager, AI Teaching Assistant).
• The exact scope and scale (e.g., maximum of 200 students, 4 Lead Instructors).
• The targeted KPIs (e.g., grading hours saved, textbook cost reductions).
• Your white-labeling and dashboard governance settings.

This blueprint serves as the foundational agreement for what Schologic will build and deliver for your institution.

Formal Submission & Schologic Review

Once your committee is satisfied with the blueprint, the Champion will click Submit Formal Pilot Request.

At this stage, your customized application is sent directly to the Schologic Enterprise Engineering team. Within 24 to 48 hours, our team will review the technical feasibility of your submission. We will then update your portal with a formal acknowledgment, advising you on the exact deployment timeline and any specific prerequisites required from your IT department or HODs.

Development & Customization Timeline (1-2 Weeks)

Schologic does not offer generic, off-the-shelf sandbox accounts. We build a dedicated, secure tenant specifically for your institution.

• Timeline: The standard development, customization, and cloud provisioning process takes between 1 to 2 weeks.
• Tracking Progress: You do not need to wait in the dark. Your committee can log into the Pilot Management Portal at any time to view a live progress tracker.
• Feedback Loop: As our engineers configure your specific grading rubrics or import your OER IMSCC cartridges, they will push updates to the portal. Your team can review these configurations and provide immediate feedback directly through the PMP interface, ensuring the final environment perfectly matches your academic requirements.

Go-Live: The Admin Dashboard & Evaluation Module

Once the 1-2 week development phase is complete, your pilot environment goes live.

At this point, the Institutional Champion and designated HODs are granted access to the live Admin Dashboard. Your selected instructors and students can now log in, join classes, and begin utilizing the platform for the agreed 2-to-4 week trial period.

Simultaneously, the portal unlocks the Evaluation Module. This is where the true value of the pilot is measured.

Detailed Evaluation & Transition Process

A pilot is only as good as the data it produces. The Evaluation Module is a specialized dashboard within the PMP designed to track the exact KPIs you established in Step 4.

1. Continuous KPI Monitoring

Throughout the 2-4 week pilot, the Evaluation Module continuously aggregates data from your live tenant. You will see real-time, quantifiable metrics such as:

• Time Saved: The exact number of hours the AI Teaching Assistant saved your Lead Instructors during the grading process.
• Financial Impact: The total cost saved by students accessing free LibreTexts/OpenStax materials via the Universal Reader.
• Academic Integrity: The ratio of authentic human submissions versus AI-flagged content, demonstrating the effectiveness of the RoBERTa forensics models.
• Operational Efficiency: For TVETs, the percentage of practicum logbooks successfully digitized and evaluated by workplace supervisors without physical paperwork.

2. The 30-Day Milestone Review

At the end of the standard trial period (typically 30 days), Schologic generates an automated Executive Pilot Report. This report compares your initial expectations against the actual platform data. Your committee can use this definitive document to present a factual, data-driven business case to the Vice Chancellor or institutional board.

3. Transitioning to an Enterprise License

If your institution decides that Schologic is the right long-term partner, the transition from Pilot to Enterprise is seamless.

• Zero Data Loss: All instructor accounts, student submissions, custom rubrics, and configured classes from the pilot are securely preserved. There is no need to "start over."
• Unlocking Phase 2 (Extended Customization): Upon signing an enterprise agreement, you enter the extended evaluation and improvement phase (up to 4 months). This unlocks deep integrations (such as tying Schologic into your existing Student Information System) and rolling the platform out to the wider student population.
• Financial Credit: As outlined in the Pilot Architect phase, 100% of the investment made during the pilot setup will be directly credited toward your official contract.