For UM students who have\nreturned to the campus after a long holiday, the first priority is course\nenrolment. If you are like most students who are a bit curious about the Course\nEnrolment System, read on.<\/p>\n\n
Pre-enrolment Can Meet over 90% of the Demand<\/b><\/p>\n\n
UM\u2019s current course enrolment\nprocess includes three steps, pre-enrolment, course enrolment before the start\nof the new semester, and course add\/drop after the start of the new semester.\n\u201cPre-enrolment lets students apply for courses they wish to study in the next\nsemester through online registration, so that various faculties can decide how\nmany classes to open based on the students\u2019 demand and teaching resources,\u201d\nsays UM Registrar Paul Pang. \u201cAccording to statistics collected over the past\ntwo years, quotas for each course decided based on pre-enrolment have been able\nto meet at least 90 percent of our students\u2019 demand. After pre-enrolment, Registry\ncolleagues create schedules with a class scheduling system which assigns\nstudents to different classes to avoid time conflicts. Before the course\nenrolment period starts, which is four days before the new semester opens,\nstudents already know the pre-enrolment results and schedules, and if they want\nto add courses or make adjustments, they can apply online within the course\nenrolment period and learn application results immediately.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Paul adds: \u201cThe first eight\nworking days after the start of the new semester is the course add\/drop period,\nduring which time students can still adjust their choices. The university\narranges for students to choose courses in descending order of year of study\n(from year-4 to year-1). Year-1 students are arranged to do it on the last day,\nso sometimes they may find that certain courses they wish to study are already\nfully booked. We totally understand their disappointment, but unfortunately it can\u2019t\nbe avoided, since we have to take care of the demand of students of different\nyears of study with the limited resources we have.\u201d Eduarda Vu, head of Registry,\nadds: \u201cGenerally, there will be no problem with major courses chosen through\nonline pre-enrolment, but it\u2019s difficult to fully fulfill everyone\u2019s demand for\ngeneral education (GE) courses and free electives.\u201d In the intervening time\nbetween the closing of course enrolment and the start of the new semester,\nfaculties would add new categories or increase quotas for existing categories\nfor courses in high demand to make sure that students can add courses they wish\nto study immediately after the new semester starts. Paul says the university\nattaches great importance to the smooth operation of the Course Enrolment System.\n\u201cExamination by ICTO colleagues has found that there is basically no major problem\nduring core hours (9:30am\u2013 6:30pm) when students log on in batches, the problem\noccurs mainly during the non-core-hours when all students can log onto the\nsystem, and on two nights the system became slow for about one hour due to the\nsudden surge of internet traffic. ICTO colleagues adjusted the system immediately\nafter detecting the problem. The university is also planning to invest more\nresources this year to increase system efficiency.<\/p>\n\n
Take It Easy with GE Courses<\/b><\/p>\n\n
Demand for some GE courses,\nfirst launched last academic year and are especially popular with students,\ncannot always be met. \u201cYear-1 students tend to choose easy courses like PE and\nmusic first and save courses they are less interested in for later, which will\nlead to some courses being fully booked while others not having the required minimum\nnumber of students,\u201d says Paul. The availability of limited teaching resources\nis also a problem. \u201cTake PE and music courses for example,\u201d says Paul. \u201cWithout\nsufficient classrooms and sports facilities, it\u2019s simply hard to fully fulfil\nour students\u2019 demand for these courses. We hope moving to the new campus will\nsolve this problem.\u201d For those who have tried without success to enrol for some\nGE courses, especially year-1 students, Paul advises them to take it easy and\nslowly, because most GE courses are available throughout the four years, so there\u2019s\nno need to rush, and for the time being students can always opt for those GE\ncourses and electives that are still available.<\/p>\n\n
University Education Should Emphasise Balance and\nDiversity<\/b><\/p>\n\n
Paul says: \u201cOf course we\nneed to consider the students\u2019 demand, but as an educational institution, we\nalso hope to expose students to a diverse body of knowledge by offering a\nwell-balanced curriculum that covers various realms.\u201d Vice Rector Simon Ho\nsays: \u201cWe follow the principles of efficiency, fairness and flexibility in our\ncurrent course enrolment practice, in order to meet our students\u2019 demand to the\nlargest extent possible with the limited resources we have.\u201d Prof Ho indicates\nthat there are currently two course enrolment approaches which are adopted by\nuniversities around the world\u2014the (student) demand-driven approach and the\n(faculty\/department) supply-driven approach. \u201cHong Kong universities funded by\nthe University Grants Committee tend to have a mix of both,\u201d says Prof Ho.\n\u201cCurrently UM leans towards the demand-driven approach, but we hope that in a\nyear or two when we have accumulated more experience and data on students\u2019\ndemand, we could let students select real subjects, and we hope to complete the\ncompilation of information on committed courses, schedules and teaching staff\nas quickly as possible after the pre-enrolment for students\u2019 convenience. Further\ndown the road, we may also consider whether we should switch to the\nsupply-driven approach.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Many students are interested\nto know what course enrolment will be like after UM moves to the new campus.\nProf Ho says there will be more classrooms and sports facilities, computer\nhardware and software will be improved (for example the processing capacity of\nthe Course Enrolment System will increase substantially), and there will be\nmore teachers and courses for students to choose from. UM will continue to\nimprove the Course Enrolment System, and in the process, suggestions from\nstudents as users are always welcome.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For UM students who have returned to the campus after a long holiday, the first priority is course enrolment. If you are like most students who are a bit curious…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n