What is the difference between SIMS and eSIMS? SIMS is short for Student Information Management System. It is available to members of staff whose work involves the management of student records. Members of staff need to follow basic training on SIMS before being granted access to the system. eSIMS is the web portal available to students and members of staff (academic and administrative). The portal feeds data directly to and from SIMS and offers a variety of functionality including: - the opportunity for students to view their study-unit registrations and results - the opportunity for academic members of staff to send emails to their students, print reports and input marks - the opportunity for administrative members of staff to manage / update student records via the web.
I would like access to SIMS, who do I need to contact? Access to SIMS is given to all members of staff involved in the management of student records. Staff are required to fill in the SIMS Training Application Form available on the SIMS Office homepage. Once this is processed you will be informed of the first available training session/s which you will be required to attend. Access rights to the system will be granted thereafter. Members of staff are not allowed access to SIMS prior to having successfully completed the necessary training.
I forgot my username / password, what should I do? Your username and password are unique to you and are defined when your profile is first created. If you are unable to log on to SIMS your password can be regenerated by SIMS Office staff on request. For security purposes users are encouraged to change their password from time to time. This can be done via the PWD table on SIMS.
After storing a record the message buffer displays 'Database not modified; Store not Executed'. What does this mean? This message is actually displayed after having stored a record for the second time without having made any changes. The system is warning the user that there have been no further changes to the record/s following the first store and hence there were no new changes to store.
Students do not have access to the enrolment option on their eSIMS portal. What is wrong? Only students that would have been progressed to the next academic year or accepted on their preferred course of studies would have the enrolment option available on eSIMS. The option will become available once records for the current academic year are updated. An email notification will be sent to their University email account once this option is made available to them.
The student has completed the enrolment task on his/her eSIMS portal however has not received a confirmation email. Should I ask him/her to contact SIMS Office? The confirmation email should normally be sent to the student within 30 minutes of completion of the enrolment task. If the student confirms that s/he has followed all the steps in the task but failed to receive the confirmation email, s/he should send an email with his/her details (Name, Surname, ID Number) toenrolment@um.edu.mt. SIMS Office staff will look into the matter and reply accordingly.
Do first year students register for their study-units online via eSIMS? First year students do not currently have the opportunity to register for their study-units online via their eSIMS portal. They are encouraged to follow instructions given to them by their respective Faculty / Institute/ School during freshers week.
A student is having issues with completing the online study-unit registration process. How can I help him /her? Difficulties that students come across when registering for their study-units are many times related to the structure of their particular programme of study. Unless the issue is of a technical nature then it is recommended that it is looked into directly by staff at the faculty given they are the ones with expertise on the individual programme of study. Ask the student to log on to their eSIMS portal and go through the steps explaining the issue encountered. Check that the total number of credits that have been selected from each section (where applicable) is appropriate and that all the rules have been satisfied. The system will often return an error giving details of the issue so please take time to read through this should a selection be declined.
I do not have access to input results on SIMS, who do I contact to gain the necessary access rights? Access to be able to input results is only granted after having successfully attended and completed training. In order to attend training, kindly fill in the Request to Attend SIMS Training form.
Which screen will display the overall study-unit result together with the corresponding marks at component level? Result records may be viewed via the SMR table. A breakdown of marks/ grades obtained for each of the components that make up the particular study-unit and the corresponding sessions may be viewed by accessing theOther >More Details option via the SMR table. For further details on the inputting of results process consult the Course 3 - Study-Unit Results Input manual.
I am not sure which table to use to input marks for a particular student. How can I check? Access the SMR table, input the relevant retrieval criteria and retrieve the required record/s. To the right of the table you will find a column called 'SAS RAS'. This indicates whether the particular result record needs to be processed from the SAS or RAS table.
I would like to check whether a result record has been published, where can I check? Publishing of results can be divided into two stages: publishing marks of individual components and publishing mark/ grades for the entire study-unit. In order to check whether a result has been published, retrieve the individual record on the SMR table. Click on the UDF button located at the top right of the table. The 'Published?' field holds details regarding the publishing status of the individual result record: Blank - The result record has not been published and hence the student cannot view any of his marks / grades. YC - Yes Component Result published YE - Yes Entire Result published. For further details on results please consult Course 3 - Study-Unit Results Input.
Known issues
There are currently no known issues with the current version of the software. If you come across any technical issues please report such to SIMS Office staff for further investigation.
