The College of The Bahamas

POLICY WITH RESPECT TO REGISTRATION FOR COURSES

1. Authority

The strategic plan of The College of The Bahamas 2007 sets as a goal that "registration will be effective [and] efficient..." Management of the registration process falls under the direct purview of the Registrar.

2. Terminology/Definitions

2.1. Course Registration Unit (CRU) - a count of one occupied seat (generally also equal to 3 credits) in any given course section. If there are twenty-five students in one course section, the CRU count is 25. If one student is taking 4 courses, his enrolment accounts for 4 CRUs.

2.2. Current Student - a student meeting one or more of the following criteria:

2.2.1. currently enroled in courses at The College,

2.2.2. not currently enroled but was enroled in one or both of the immediate past Fall or Spring semesters.

2.3. New Student - a student enroled or registering for courses for the first time at The College.

2.4. Returning Student - a student meeting one of the following criteria:

2.4.1. previously enroled in courses at The College more than one year prior and now returning to continue studies at The College,

2.4.2. a College of The Bahamas graduate accepted to start another programme of study at The College.

2.5. Advisement - process by which students discuss their academic status and course enrolment schedule with their assigned academic advisor.

2.6.Course Reservation - the act of selecting, and thereby, reserving a course section during the active registration period. This will normally be completed by students using the online system.

2.7. Course Confirmation - reserved courses are confirmed when one of the following conditions is met:

2.7.1. courses are paid for prior to advertised deadline,

2.7.2. scholarship funds or their equivalent, as defined by the Business Office, are received by the Business Office, or

2.7.3. a deferred payment plan with receipt of initial payment in the student's name is approved by the Business Office.

2.8. Registration - the multi step process by which a student (i) is advised for courses, schedule (ii) is authorized for online course reservation, (iii) reserves course(s), and (iv) confirms the course(s) reservation. These steps are completed in the order presented. Typically, there are three Registration periods: (i) Registration, (ii) New student registration and (iii) Late registration.

2.9. Late Registration/Drop and Add - during the late registration/drop and add period students can reserve and confirm courses as defined above with the following stipulations:

2.9.1. Current students who did not register during the registration period will be charged the late registration fee. The amount of the late registration fee is described in the current tuition and fee schedule.

2.9.2. Current students who completed their registration during the registration period and seek to modify their registration will be charged a drop and add fee for each form submitted to the Business Office. The amount of the Drop and add fee is described in the current tuition and fee schedule.

2.9.3. New students registering or modifying their schedule will not be charged a late registration fee nor the drop and add fee.

2.10. Waitlist - electronic list managed by the online registration software of students waiting for an available space in a course. A separate waitlist is kept for each course. Students must opt to add themselves to the waitlist.

2.11. Pending - when a space becomes available in a course that has students on the waitlist, the status of the first student on the list is changed to 'pending' and that student is notified by email of the space availability. The duration of the pending status will be advertised and is determined by the Registrar. Students must opt to reserve the space in the class upon receipt of email notification.

3. Registration Status and Priority

3.1. Course reservations are valid until confirmed or canceled as per the conditions defined in the policy. CRUs cannot be reserved if courses are at their maximum enrolment count.

3.2. Confirmed courses cannot be dropped unless dropped by the student either manually or online or in accordance with the Policy on Class Attendance (AB No: 06-88).

3.3. Waitlisted students will remain in the waitlist queue until one of the following conditions is satisfied:

3.3.1. a space becomes available in the course at which point the status of the student at the top of the waitlist will be changed to 'pending'.

3.3.2. the end of the registration period is reached, at which point all waitlisted and pending students will be removed from the waitlist queue.

4. Advisement Period

4.1. In the Fall and Spring semesters the advisement period will begin no earlier than the first school day after the published 'last day to withdraw without academic penalty'.

4.2. The advisement schedule for each semester will be published in the current academic calendar.

4.3. The advisement period will end as per the schedule below:

4.3.1. Fall semester - last day of classes in the preceding Spring semester

4.3.2. Spring semester - last day of classes in the preceding Fall semester

4.3.3. Summer term - last day of classes in the preceding Spring semester

4.4. Advisement will occur during the late registration periods.

5. Authorization Period

5.1. Authorization is an integral function of the computerized registration and therefore no manual option exist for this step. Students are authorized to reserve courses online using one of the following methods:

5.1.1. by the assigned advisor using the online software, or

5.1.2. by the advising school chair using the online software.

6. Course Reservation Period

6.1. All students will reserve courses using the online registration software.

6.2. Manual course reservations will only occur under the following conditions:

6.2.1. during the late registration period, and

6.2.2. for students who have technical issues with the online reservation process that cannot be resolved via the published help mechanisms. These instances must be documented using the Occurrence Defect Report as defined in the Occurrence Report SOP.

The Office of The Registrar
Ground Floor - Room 103
Portia Smith Building
Phone: 302-4490
E-mail: registrar@cob.edu.bs

Last updated: October 22 2008