What's Happening Now in SA?

Scheduling Coordinators

Your Summer/Fall 2010 schedule of classes should be close to being completed. The blackout period begins on February 5th. During the blackout period, the R25 process is run and rooms are assigned to scheduled classes. To ensure your classes are included in the R25 scheduling process, please be sure to complete your schedule of classes by the end of the day on February 4th.

To locate forms and training resources available for Scheduling Coordinators, please click here.

Faculty/Instructors

As the Spring 2010 term draws near, faculty, instructors, and staff will find themselves using SA to perform activities they only perform a few times a year. Below is a list of activities that will be conducted in SA over the next few weeks by class instructors and department staff, and resources available to assist if needed.

Grant Class Permissions for Permission Only classes- Permissions are used when all students who register for a class must be granted permission prior to enrolling into the class or the waitlist for the class, i.e., Independent Study classes. In this scenario, you are identifying specific students that have permission to enroll in a class, and selecting the individual student on the Permission page. Permissions are different than exceptions, and the steps for granting permissions for a permission only class differ than granting exceptions. To view the quick reference guide and online tutorial for granting permissions, click here. (Note, if a class is permission only and you need to grant a student permission because of both instructor consent and another reason, follow the steps for Granting Permissions for Permission Only classes.)

Grant Exceptions to a Class- Exceptions are provided to a student to enroll in a class where either the class is closed, the student does not meet the prerequisite criteria for the class, or the student is an undergraduate student wishing to enroll in a graduate class. In this scenario, students who meet the criteria for the class can enroll using the standard registration process. Students who do not meet the criteria for the class (including a closed enrollment), must use a permission number to register for the class. The permission number is generated and assigned by the instructor or department hosting the class. To view the quick reference guide and online tutorial for granting exceptions, click here.

View a class roster- The class roster in SA is the official roster for a class, and is the template from which the roster in blackboard is created. Only the instructor for a class can view the roster in SA for the class. For instructions on how to view or print a class roster in SA if you are an instructor for a class, click here.

Customer Support - the Office of the Registrar is available to answer your questions during regular business hours. After business hours, please submit your helpdesk tickets via RT, or contact the helpdesk at x53838.

Schedule of Classes Summer/Fall 2010 - Schedule of Classes for Summer/Fall 2010 are ready to be entered into SA by the Scheduling Coordinators in each department. A variety of training and informational sessions will be offered through December and January. Go to umbc.edu/training for additional informaiton.

Deadlines:

January 29th - Summer Schedule goes live online
February 5th, 2010 - is the last day to enter schedule changes before the Blackout period. Schedule adjustments can continue after the Blackout period. However, before a class can be printed to the schedule, any changes that require a Registrar assigned room(s) must be submitted to schedregoffice@umbc.edu to determine if a room is available.*+
February 6th -19th, 2010 - is the Blackout period (no edits to the schedule of classes can be made). Adjustments can be made after the Blackout period. However, before a class can be printed to the schedule, any changes that require a Registrar assigned room(s) must be submitted to schedregoffice@umbc.edu to determine if a room is available.
February 20^th, 2010 - Start of Classes - Adjustments can be made to the schedule of classes. However, before a class can be printed to the schedule, any changes that may require a Registrar assigned room(s) must be submitted to schedregoffice@umbc.edu to determine if a room is available.
March 8^th, 2010 - The schedule of classes becomes viewable online.
March 29^th, 2010 - Registration begins.

Advising- A new Advising Center has been created to organize student information for advising purposes. Within the Advising Center, you can provide Advising Clearance, View Advising Profiles, View or Enter Advising Notes, View Degree Audit and Transfer Credit reports. The Advising Center will be available to all Advisors on August 25.

Degree Audit Enhancements - The Degree Audit Report now incorporates information for some Majors, Minors and Certificates. Missing Majors and Minors will be added within the coming months as the Degree Audit Team continues to meet with Departments to finalize degree requirements.

Prerequisite Checking - When students begin registering for Winter/Spring 2010 classes, course prerequisites will be enforced for those departments who opted to use this feature in SA. For those courses who have set prerequisites, students who do not meet the prerequisites for the class will be prevented from completing enrollment for the class that requires the prerequisite. Students who are taking a prerequisite course in progress while registering, will be allowed to complete registration, but will eventually be disenrolled from the class if they fail the prerequisite course. The use of prerequisites reduces the need to create permission only classes for the purpose of verifying prerequisites before allowing a student to enroll. For information regarding whether your office is using Prerequisites in SA during the Spring 2010 registration period, contact your Department Chair or Scheduling Coordinator.

Viewing Class Roster - Click here to download the quick reference guide on how to view your Class Roster.

SA Training Opportunities - The SA training team will be offering a variety of trainings and informational sessions throughout the Fall 2009 term. Check umbc.edu/training to view the current offerings.

SA News

Unknown macro: {rss}

Archived News

Spotlight On... Advising Center

Unknown macro: {show-to}

Click here to edit the Spotlight On section.

Ken Baron, Director of Academic & Pre-Professional Advising, Enrollment Management
Now that SA has enabled faculty and staff to successfully advise and register thousands of new and existing UMBC students, we are very excited about releasing the next set of system upgrades designed to enhance the quality and delivery of academic advising even further. Our new "AdvisingCenter" offers the availability of one centralized location to launch all advising activities. Within the Advising Center advisors can provide advising clearances; view student schedules; view a student's unofficial transcript; view a student's advising profile; search for courses within the schedule of classes; generate a degree audit report, and access several other reports and features. The enhanced degree audit report not only assesses the completion of General Education requirements, but other graduation requirements as well - including upper division credit totals and (by the end of the Fall 2009 semester) major and minor requirements. Moreover, our expanded electronic advising note functionality now enables advisors to systematically record advising notes and comments within various guided formats - ensuring clarity and accountability for each advising session.

Indeed, all of these new and existing SA tools and features have the capacity to transform the nature of academic advising at UMBC. Moving forward, my vision of advising for the campus includes the "liberation" of advisors from the clerical, drudgery of the past. In many ways, SA can and will deliver precious time back to advisors to spend with students on more educational matters - including: opportunities for research within their department; study abroad, internship & experiential learning options; graduate & professional school planning; consideration of prestigious scholarship candidacy; and preparation for various career tracks after graduation. Good academic advising includes a lot more than just registering students in open courses for the next semester. So far SA has been conduit for positive change in academic advising at UMBC and I encourage those charged with advising responsibilities to embrace these new tools as well as the opportunity we all now have to practice academic advising in a manner befitting our reputation as an innovative, research institution.

Browser not supported