Student Planning and Registration Guide

Student Planning

and

Registration Guide

2 
 
 
Contents 
 
Accessing the Planning and Registration Module ......................................................................................... 3 
Help and Support .......................................................................................................................................... 3 
Basic Navigation ............................................................................................................................................ 4 
Searching for Courses ............................................................................................................................... 4 
Viewing Options ........................................................................................................................................ 4 
Printing Options ........................................................................................................................................ 5 
Creating a Registration Plan and Adding Courses to Your Plan .................................................................... 5 
Student Registration Plans Screen ............................................................................................................ 5 
Searching for Courses and Adding Courses to Your Plan .............................................................................. 6 
Removing One or More Courses from Your Registration Plan ................................................................. 9 
Creating a Second Registration Plan ......................................................................................................... 9 
Removing a Registration Plan ................................................................................................................... 9 
Verifying Your Plan ........................................................................................................................................ 9 
Status Indicators ..................................................................................................................................... 11 
Registering for Your Courses ....................................................................................................................... 11 
After You Have Registered .......................................................................................................................... 13 
Dropping Courses .................................................................................................................................... 13 
Swapping Course Sections .......................................................................................................................... 13 
Quick Register ............................................................................................................................................. 15 
Changing Grading Options .......................................................................................................................... 16 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Accessing the Planning and Registration Module

1. Sign in to the Agora Portal using your BC credentials

2. Select the EagleApps Planning and Registration link in the Academics and Courses area.

Help and Support

If you have an issue or require access to EagleApps, please open a help ticket using the EagleApps

Help/Incident Request Form, and production support/subject matter experts will contact you directly

and also set up time with you (if that helps). Below you will find the relevant links for help and support

of EagleApps.

Form

Purpose

Who Should Use These

Forms

EagleApps Help/Incident

Request

This form is to be used to

submit application or data

issues encountered when using

any of the EagleApps Modules,

including Enrollment (CMCO),

Student Accounts, Institutional

Awards, or Financial Aid.

Only those users who actively

use EagleApps and have an

EagleApps account.

Student Services Systems

Access Request

This form should be used to

submit requests for access to

any of the applications and data

supported by Student Services.

Boston College

Community/Public that are

authorized to use these

applications per their job

requirements and duties. These

users must also be approved by

the respective business owners

of each application to ensure

they have the clearance to view

and/or modify the

corresponding data.

Basic Navigation

When you open the Planning and Registration screen, it will look very similar to the sample screen

below. It contains:

• A drop-down menu where you can select the semester for which you want to register, if

multiple semesters are available for registration at this time.

• A blue registration context header that displays the dates when classes begin and end for that

semester, the date and time of your registration appointment, if one exists, any holds on your

record which may affect your ability to register for classes, the count of your planned and

registered courses, and number of credits. If this is your first time accessing the Registration

module, your planned and registration courses and credits will be zero.

• A letter i icon provides screen level help about student registration.

• A magnifying glass Icon that you can use to search for courses.

• A calendar which you can use to return to the schedule display.

• A printer icon which you can use to create a .pdf to download that you may share with your

advisor.

In the main Registration screen, select the term you want to register for from the drop-down menu on

the left-hand side.

Searching for Courses

Use the Magnifying Glass icon on the left side of the screen to search for your courses. You will be able

to select values from a variety of criteria to narrow the courses which you may wish to consider.

Viewing Options

There are two viewing options for the Student Schedule available from the Calendar icon:

• Calendar – Default view that allows you to see the days and times when the courses in your

Schedule and Registration Plan are offered

• Tabular – Lists registration data in a columnar format

You can switch between any of the viewing options at any time by clicking the radio button next to the

view you want to select.

Printing Options

You can print a PDF version of your Registration Schedule by clicking the Printer icon. Please note that

you CANNOT print a copy of your Registration Plan. You need to copy your Registration Plan into a file

where you can save it and print it, or you can take a screen shot of your plan.

Creating a Registration Plan and Adding Courses to Your Plan

In advance of your registration appointment you may begin building a registration plan, which is a

detailed list of classes in which you are interested in registering. You may create up to two registration

plans for a semester. The first registration plan is automatically created and is named “Registration Plan

1.” You may at any time create a second registration plan by clicking on the Add Plan button. The

second plan will automatically be named “Registration Plan 2.” Likewise, you can eliminate an existing

plan by selecting the plan using the radio button, which makes the plan active and then clicking on the

Edit Plan Name button.

For an example of when multiple plans may make sense for you, consider the case in which you have

applied for an external internship or job which would occur during the afternoons. You may want to

create one plan comprised of classes that only take place during the morning that you could perhaps

name “Morning Classes Only,” leaving your afternoons free for the internship or job, and a second plan

comprised of classes taking place throughout the day in the event you are unsuccessful securing the

internship or job.

Student Registration Plans Screen

You build your course schedule for the semester in the Student Registration Plan section of the screen.

As you add courses to your plan, you will see the following information:

• Name of your Registration Plan (Registration Plan 1 is the default name)

• Up and down arrows next to a course that can be moved up or down in your plan by dragging the

arrow up to move a course up or dragging the down arrow to move the course down

• Section for the course section

• Course Title

• Format for the course (for example, Lecture or Online Asynchronous)

• Days of the week when the course is offered

• Timeslot when the course is offered

• Building where the course is located

• Room where the course is held

• Instructor(s) teaching the course

• Credits for the course

• Grading option – Letter grade or Pass/Fail

• Status (this field is blank until you are registered in the course)

At the bottom of the screen you will see a row of buttons that you will use during your registration

process.

• Add Plan – Select this button when you want to create a new registration plan.

• Edit Plan Name – Select this button if you want to change the name of your registration plan.

• Remove Selected – Select this button if you want to remove a particular course from your

registration plan.

• Verify Plan – Select this button if you want to check for conflicts or any other issues pertaining

to your registration plan before you register your courses.

• Register – Select this button when you want to register the courses in your registration plan.

Searching for Courses and Adding Courses to Your Plan

1. From the Student Registration screen, select the term you want to register for from the drop-

down menu on the left-hand side. It is possible that only a single term may be available at a

particular time.

2. Note that the system has already created Registration Plan 1 for you.

3. To search for courses that you may wish to take, click on the Magnifying Glass icon in the upper

left of the screen. This will take you to the integrated Course Offering Faceted Search page.

4. The Course Offering Faceted Search allows you to specify a variety of criteria which are used to

narrow the results of your search. These criteria include:

• Keywords – Used to specify a word which appears in either the course title or the course

description. If you wish to search on a keyword string, enclose phrases and Course Codes in

single quotes. ('MATH1100', 'social justice')

• Days of the Week – Used to specify on which days of the week a section will meet. An ‘M’

will result in sections that have at least a Monday meeting, even if they meet on other days

as well (M-only, MWF, MW, MTWThF, etc.). An ‘M’ and a ‘W’ will result in sections which

have at least a Monday meeting or a Wednesday meeting (M-only, W-only, MW, MTWThF,

WF, etc.).

• Time of Day – Used to specify time ranges when the section starts. Late morning will result

in sections that start at 10:00am, 10:15am, 10:30am, 10:45am, 11:00am, 11:15am,

11:30am, 11:45am, or anything in between.

• Subject Area – Used to specify subject areas or departments which offer the courses. A

type-ahead allows you to start typing the name or department code so that you do not have

to scroll through the list which is sorted by subject code abbreviation.

• School – Used to specify the school in which the course is offered. These are the broadly-

defined schools and do not differentiate between ungraduated and graduate versions of

schools that have both levels.

• Credits – Used to specify the credit value of the course offering. The majority of courses at

Boston College are 3-credit classes.

• Status – Used to specify the registration status of the section.

• Fulfills requirements – Used to specify the requirements satisfied by the course offering.

These options include Core requirements, Major requirements, Minor requirements, and

Electives.

• Delivery Method – Used to specify the manner in which the section is conducted, such as

Clinical work, Lecture, Seminar, Lab, Field work, independent study, etc.

• Course Level – Used to specify undergraduate, graduate, or both graduate and

undergraduate.

5. When you are ready to perform your search, click the blue Apply to Search button on the left

side of the screen and the results are displayed. You can further refine your course search by

entering keywords and additional criteria, or removing individual filters and clicking Apply to

Search.

6. Tips for searching for courses:

• Within a single category such as Subject Area, multiple selections result in an OR condition,

meaning that ACCT, HIST, PHYS is interpreted by the system as Accounting, or History, or

Physics courses.

• Across categories, multiple selections result in an AND between the categories and an OR

within the category, meaning that Subject Areas ACCT, HIST, PHYS with Fulfills Requirements

Natural Sciences is interpreted by the system as Accounting or History or Physics courses,

which also satisfy the Natural Sciences requirement.

• The more selections you make within a particular category, the broader your search results.

• The more selections you make across multiple categories, the narrower your search results.

In fact, no results may be found.

• Particularly helpful searches include the Subject Area and Fulfills Requirements

combination, as well as combinations including the Days of the Week and/or Times of the

Day.

• Keywords are particularly helpful in searching for courses which may contain content of

interest to you without your knowing their Subject Area.

• The search will return a list of courses which have any section meeting your search criteria.

• The results of your search are presented to you in order by the course code. They include

the course code and title, the course description, the credit value, and various restrictions

related to the course.

7. Click the Expander arrow (>) in the upper right of the course information to view a list of sections

for the course offering you selected.

8. The table of section details displayed contains the following information:

• Section – The Section number and type of instructional method.

• Days – The days of the week which the section meets.

• Time Slot – The beginning and ending times associates with those Days.

• Building – The building in which the class will take place.

• Room – The room number in which the class will take place.

• Instructors – The names of the class instructors or teaching assistants.

• Registered – The first number shows the number of students who have already registered

for the section and the second number shows the total seats available in the section. Once

registration begins, these numbers can alert you to when a particular section is becoming

full.

9. There are special symbols that are important to recognize in the table of section details:

• A green calendar symbol indicates that the section has start and end dates which differ from

that of the regular semester. If you place your mouse over the calendar symbol, text will

display the class begin and end dates. If you click on the calendar, other important deadlines

associated with that section will appear.

• A blue book symbol allows you to link to the bookstore system to get a list of instructional

materials such as textbooks (if any) that are required for that section. Clicking on the book

symbol will provide that list (if one is available).

10. Once you decide which section you would like to include in your Registration Plan, click on the

slider under the Select column. Note that the other sections disappear from the table. If you

wish to see the whole list again and perhaps choose another section, click on the slider again.

11. Certain courses are taught in what is known as a multi-format offering, which means that there

are sections of two or more delivery methods, one of each must be taken to be properly

registered for the course. Examples are courses which are taught in a Lecture/Laboratory or

Lecture/Discussion format. The system will assist you in choosing appropriate combinations of

sections. For example, should you select a Lecture section from a list, all the other Lecture

Sections will disappear from the display, leaving only Laboratory or Discussion sections

remaining. As each type of section is chosen, only those sections of a type still needing to be

chosen will remain unselected in the display.

12. Once you have chosen the appropriate section or sections, the Add to Plan button is displayed.

13. Click the Add to Plan button to add the section(s) to your Registration Plan. The system will

return you to the Student Registration screen and you will see the section information shown in

a tabular display of your plan, as well as the Calendar View above. Sections that are in a

Registration Plan are shown in the Calendar View with a black background.

14. You may return to the course search by clicking on the Magnifying Glass icon in order to

continue adding sections to your Registration Plan.

Note: The system will inform you if you reach the maximum number of courses or credits that

you may put in an individual plan.

Removing One or More Courses from Your Registration Plan

• Select the course or courses that you want to remove from your Registration Plan.

• Click Remove Selected.

Creating a Second Registration Plan

There are a number of reasons why you might want to create a second Registration Plan. Let’s say that

you want to add all courses with morning timeslots in one plan and add all courses with afternoon slots

in a second plan to make sure that you can register for all your selected courses. Or you could be doing

an internship during this semester and you want to ensure that your classes fit in with your work

schedule. To create a second Registration Plan, click the Add Plan button.

Removing a Registration Plan

• Click Remove Plan to remove your Registration Plan.

Verifying Your Plan

1. Once you are satisfied with the courses in your plan, you should click Verify Plan. By doing so,

the system will evaluate your ability to register for the courses in the plan and inform you of any

difficulties you will have registering for any of your courses. These difficulties can include school,

major, minor restrictions, closed sections, time conflicts, co-requisite requirements, and

required department or instructor approvals. These warnings will appear in your plan with a

yellow caution sign.

2. Yellow triangles indicate warnings that allow you proceed, such as the course requires either

department or instructor approval.

3. Click Continue with Warnings to proceed with the registration process.

Click Close to display the Warning message on the screen without completing the registration

process.

NOTE: If multiple warning messages are displayed, the Continue with Warnings button applies

to all warnings and allows you to continue with the registration process.

Click Close to display the Warning messages on the screen without completing the registration

process.

Status Indicators

Status Indicators alert you to issues with your plan and error messages provide descriptions about the

issues that need to be corrected. You will see Status Indicators when you verify your plan and when you

Status Indicator

Description

Warning

Exemption

Indicates an issue with the

course that warns the user, but

still allows the user to proceed.

Examples include

Department/Instructor

Permission.

Yes

N/A

Indicates that your exemption

request is in process. Clicking on

the symbol displays its current

status.

N/A

Registering for Your Courses

To register for courses from your plan, do the following:

1. (Optional) Click Verify Plan. This step is recommended to ensure that you are aware of any

course conflicts or other issues before you attempt to register the courses in your plan. For

example, students with earlier registration appointments may have caused one or more of your

sections to fill.

2. (Optional) Under Add Registration, enter the Course Code for the course for which you wish to

3. Click on the checkbox next to each section for which you wish to register. You may use the

checkbox on the header line to select all sections with a single click.

4. Click Register to register the courses that you selected from your plan.

Error messages will display above the schedule if there are any course conflicts, or if a course

requires permission from either the instructor or department head. Note that if permission is

required, you will NOT be able to register for that course until your exemption request is

approved.

Once your courses are registered, the courses from your plan are added to your calendar and

your courses are displayed in the Student Schedule section of the screen. Each course section is

displayed in a different color in the Calendar View; anything still in your plan will continue to

display in black.

5. Once the final exam schedule is set, you may click on the Final Exam tab to view your exam

details. This may not be available until later in the semester.

The following example shows registered course sections displayed in mauve and sage green.

After You Have Registered

Once you have successfully registered for classes, you can continue to make changes throughout the

add/drop period, subject to Boston College’s various policies. To make most changes to your existing

schedule, you must be in the Tabular View of the Student Schedule.

Dropping Courses

To drop a course simply select the checkbox next to section(s) and click Drop Selected. The system will

validate that you are within the deadlines and will provide a success message if the drop is successful in

adding the new section.

Note that if the course requires a course combination of a Lecture, Lab, or Discussion, both will be

dropped in the same transaction. Also note that you may not drop the last remaining section in your

schedule. You will need to contact your Associate Dean’s Office to do this. The system will alert you to

this and prevent that drop transaction.

Swapping Course Sections

Sometimes you may register for a course that is not your preferred choice. Later, as you monitor the

registration numbers for your preferred section, you discover that a seat has become available for it.

However, you do not want to take the chance of another individual taking the seat after you dropped

the registered section and then attempt to add the preferred section. This is where swapping sections

will assist you.

To swap course sections:

1. Add the course section that you wish to register into your Registration Plan using the method

detailed above.

2. Select the checkbox next to that section in your plan.

3. Select the checkbox next to the section in your Student Schedule that you wish to drop.

4. Click Swap Sections.

5. Click Yes to confirm swapping course sections.

The system will only drop you from the existing section if it is successful. If the swap is

successful, you will see a confirmation message. The new section will display in your Student

Schedule.

If for some reason the swap is unsuccessful, you will see an error message explaining why you

are unable to swap course sections. Note that you still have a seat in your original course

section.

Quick Register

After the registration period has begun and you have reached your registration appointment time, you

can take advantage of the Quick Register feature while using the Course Search function. You will notice

that after you choose a section, both the Add to Plan and Quick Register buttons become available. The

Quick Register button automatically registers you in the selected course, bypassing the need to add it to

your plan first. This feature is generally used when there are only a few seats left in a class and you want

to ensure that you get that last seat before the class fills.

To use quick register:

1. Select the slider button next to the course that you want to quick register. The example below

shows that Health Psychology is selected as a quick register course.

2. Click the Quick Register link. Your course is automatically added to your Registration Schedule

and is also added to your calendar. Note that the course is not displayed in your plan.

The following example shows the Health Psychology course displayed in purple in the Student Schedule

section of the Student Registration screen.

Changing Grading Options

After your courses are registered, you can change the grading option from a Letter grade to Pass/Fail or

Audit. These changes are subject to policies which the system will enforce.

To change your grading option:

1. Select the course that you want to change from a Letter grade to Pass/Fail or Audit.

2. Click Change Grading Options.

3. A dialog box will display showing the options available to you. Choose the option you want.

4. Confirm your choice by clicking Yes.

5. You will see the new grading option displayed in your Student Schedule.