Course Requests Instructions - Advisors – Burke Tech Support

The advisor's responsibility is to vet, examine, confirm and approve all of the advisees course requests in all three trimesters. The advisor's attention to detail is crucial to the smooth functioning of the course request and scheduling process. Advisors are the primary gatekeepers that will be closely examining and double-checking each student's requests. If advisors see any problems with the recommendations, requests, or required courses, please contact the department chair and/or an administrator to help.

Rising MS students do not use the SIS to make course requests.

This page includes a screencast and written instructions. The software may look a little different each year, but functions the same way. Written instructions are below.

Getting to Course Requests

From your home screen in SIS, go to Groups and then to your Advisory. Then click on the Course Requests tab. All of the instructions below pertain to this Course Requests tab.

Features We are NOT Using - do not use these!

The numerical designation to the left of the courses in the course requests list, the order of the courses in the list, is irrelevant. The courses can be in any order. You can only set rankings and preferences using the Notes field as described below.
We are not using the Alternate course feature. Do not request any Alternate courses.

View/Approve/Deny Existing Requests

The first screen you will see shows you all your advisees. This is because the Filters are set up to show all requests for Academics course requests.

It's probably best NOT to change the Filters.

For each student, you can see how many requests they've made and how many requests have been approved.
You will be done when:
- The number of requests for each student is the same as the number of approved requests
- The Student request status column will show Fully Approved for each of your advisees.
Manage student requests by clicking on the pencil to the left of the student's name.
This brings you to a new screen.
On the right, you'll see View = All Year. Change the View to see each trimester. You need to check and approve course requests in all three trimesters.
You will see the courses the student has requested listed in a window on the right titled Selected requests.
For each course click Approve or Deny, as appropriate.

Once you have Approved/Denied an advisee's requests, the advisee will not be able to change those requests, but they may make additional ones.
Once you have Approved/Denied a request, you cannot remove it, unless you first select the Pending button.
You don't have to act on all of an advisee's requests in one session.

When you are done with this task, click Save in the lower right. The save button will sometimes give an error message because you don't have "enough academic requests" in a particular trimester. Click "Okay" when this error message comes up and the requests will save. If you do not click Save, you may lose your work.
Then click Back in the upper left to return to the original Course Requests screen.

Add/Remove Requests

From the Course Requests tab, click the pencil to the left of the student's name.
You can remove courses by clicking on the trash icon to the right of the course name.
You can add courses by clicking on the department on the left to expand the list of courses in the department. Then click Request for each course you want to request.

Note that for courses that are offered in multiple trimesters, once you've requested the course, there will be a drop-down menu next to the course name to choose which trimester the student prefers to take the course. If the student prefers to take the course multiple times, you should Request it multiple times and specify the trimester each time.

When you are done with this task, click Save in the lower right. If you do not click Save, you may lose your work.
Then click Back in the upper left to return to the original Course Requests tab.

Set Preferences and Write Notes

From the Course Requests tab, click the pencil to the left of the student's name.
Click on the little note icon (square with corner folded up) to the right of the course name.
A small text box will expand under the course name.
If preferences need to be entered, type the preference rank here. The first character in the note should be a number. 1 indicates the student wants to take the course, 2 is the second choice, etc. A student can indicate "1" for multiple courses, but should always designate backup choices (2,3,4) for any elective courses.
You can enter a text note in the field after the preference, for example, "1 - I really want this course."
- Only the advisor can write a note for a Recommended course, and you can’t put in a note for a Recommended course once you’ve requested it. So if you want to add a note, you need to do it BEFORE you request it. If you've already requested it, just delete the request and the course will pop back down to the Recommended list. Then put in the note and request it again.
When you are done with this task, click Save in the lower right. If you do not click Save, you may lose your work.
Then click Back in the upper left to return to the original Course Requests tab.

Set Preferences for Courses that are offered in multiple trimesters

Some courses are offered in multiple trimesters, e.g. PE.
If the student only wants it once: once the course is requested, you will see a drop-down menu next to the course that you use to specify the trimester.
If the student wants to take the course multiple times: request it multiple times and use the drop-down menu to specify the trimester for each request.
Put a 1 in the Notes field for each instance the student wants to take course.