1. Studywiz for Parents
An Introduction
Studywiz is the online educational portal BISS is using to help facilitate 21st Century
learning with students across all three IB programmes. It is hosted on servers at BISS and
accessible from anywhere in the world through http://studywiz.biss.com.cn
Students and teachers at BISS have been accessing Studywiz since 2009 and we are happy
to welcome parents into the system to join us in flattening our classrooms and expanding
your involvement in your child's learning experiences. We hope you find it not only
helpful in assisting your child with their school work through participation and monitoring
of assessment, but also as a very useful communication tool to keep in touch with teachers
and the wider BISS community. This guide is designed to help introduce you to some of
the common features we hope you will start using on a regular basis.
We will lead you through Studywiz with the help of an imaginary family at BISS, the
Citizen family. Mr and Mrs Citizen have two children at BISS - Mary Citizen in Grade 4
and John Citizen in Grade 10. Both Mary and John have individual accounts in Studywiz,
but Mr and Mrs Citizen are given only a single login that allows access to both children's
accounts. The login is based on the youngest child's student number - this can be found
on your child's student card (see below). John Citizen's student number is S12/345 and his
login name is s12345. Mary Citizen's student number is S56/789 and her login name is
s56789. The login name for Mr and Mrs Citizen is P56789, based on Mary's login
(changing the S for student with P for parent). The initial password is changeme789 (the
numbers 789 come from the last three numbers of their login name) and this should be
changed during the first use of Studywiz.

2. The BISS Studywiz login page looks like the following:
We will first access the account through the Secondary page and look through John's
work. After clicking on Secondary, Mr and Mrs Citizen will enter their details as shown
below:

3. The Studywiz homepage is split into six sections with a tab bar at the top. We will cover
five of these areas in this guide. During the guide we will refer back to the numbers shown
below next to these five sections.
1. Learning Tab
The Learning Tab at the top of the page gives you access to all of the classes that your
child(ren) take at BISS. Below you can see that Mr and Mrs Citizen can see John's Grade
10 classes as well as Mary's Grade 4 class page.

4. By clicking on any of these classes, you will be taken to the class page. There are many
ways to view the information within these pages, but one of the most useful is to look in
the Folders section as most classes are organised this way.
Within a Folder you will see the list of Activities that the teacher has set for this topic.
There are many different types of activities that can be set ranging from eBulletins, chat
rooms, assignments, resources, and so forth. These are indicated by different icons.

5. As an example, we have accessed an Assignment that John was set in English. He has
already submitted the work that was set and Mr and Mrs Citizen can check that it is
submitted and also look at the work that he has handed in. Teacher comments and grades
can also be accessed this way.
2. Latest Activities
This section of the homepage gives quick access to the most recent Activities that have
been set to save having to look through all the different folders in each subject.
3. Latest Mail
This is the internal email system used in Studywiz and is now the main way that teachers
and students communicate at BISS. It removes the unreliabilty of other web based email
systems by being hosted locally at BISS. We are moving towards this being the single way
through which all email communication will happen between teachers, students, and
parents at BISS.
The Studywiz email system operates like most other email systems you have probably used.
The advantage of this system is that all of your child(ren)'s teachers are accessible without
you needing to remember email addresses or worry whether the email will be delivered.

6. By clicking on Select a Class or Group you will be given access to all of the classes in
which your child(ren) are involved.
After choosing a class, you will see your child (identified with an [S] for student next to
their name) and also the list of teachers (identified by [T]). Cover Teacher appears in all
classes - please don't email this teacher as they are often different teachers each day :-)
All teachers in the Secondary School access Studywiz on a daily basis, so feel free to use
this system to contact your child's teachers.

7. 4. Calendar and 5. BISS Community Calendar
There are two calendars shown on the Studywiz homepage. The one labelled Calendar is
an assessment calendar used to assist students by listing due dates of major assessment
items. The various assessment calendars available are accessed by clicking on Options on
the right side of the calendar page. The default view for the calendar is Day Events but
you may find it more useful to look at the List Of Events.
The List Of Events is further customizable by choosing a Sort order or by View category.
It is quite useful to only choose All future events from the View menu.
Each calendar event can be clicked on to read more details.

8. The BISS Community Calendar is always the most up to date calendar available from the
school. Lists of events for each day can be viewed by clicking on the link within each day.
To access the an Elementary School student's class, return to the Studywiz login page and
choose Elementary. The login procedure is the same, however the homepage looks quite
different. Scroll through the list of classes and find your child's homeroom. Click on View
Class Page to see all areas of the homeroom page.

9. The Elementary homeroom page shows Featured Activities, but to see all work in which
your child is involved click on View All Folders.
All Folders show the different areas that have been added by your child's teachers. Within
each of these are a variety of activities.

10. Within a particular Folder may be further Sub Folders to be explored, as well as
Activities highlighted by your child's teacher.
We hope you have found this guide helpful, but it is only a beginning! Further guides and
sessions run by our Studywiz trainers will be coming in the future, covering areas such as
setting up your own personal calendars, developing groups to help organise community
activities, and various settings available to you. If you have any questions regarding the use
of Studywiz at BISS, please contact Mrs Julie Lindsay, BISS eLearning Coordinator.
Another great resource for Studywiz information is... your child! They have been using
Studywiz at school and it would be a great chance for them to demonstrate some of their
new knowledge :-)