Enrollment Consent and Class Permissions

Enrollment Consent and Class Permissions

Enrollment consent is a method of class level enrollment control which can be turned on in the Distributed Schedule of Classes (DSOC). Units may enable enrollment consent in cases where student enrollment is contingent upon factors not governed by prerequisites or reserve capacities.

Definitions

There are two types of add consent: instructor consent and department consent. Instructor consent means the class instructor decides which students can enroll. Department consent means that students must seek enrollment consent from the unit offering the class. In either case, enrollment consent should be granted to students based on established criteria.

Drop consent prevents students from dropping a course without permission from the department. Drop consent should always be set to No Consent on your unit’s courses, unless by special arrangement with the Office of the Registrar.

If a class has enrollment consent enabled, permission must be entered in SIS before a student can enroll.

Staff with appropriate access can view student permissions in the SIS Administrative Center, in the Student View tab. Advisors can view class permissions provided to a student in AdRx, in the Student Profile tab, or in SIS. Students can view their permissions in the Student Center by first selecting Enrollment, then Class Permissions, then the appropriate term.

UITS maintains an SIS Job Aid describing how to add a class permission. You can access the document here.

Use Cases

Whenever possible, enrollment should be controlled through prerequisites, reserve capacities, and in certain cases, the use of section level ERGs. Enrollment consent should be applied sparingly. It is appropriate for a unit to enable enrollment consent for an individual class to accomplish the following:

  • Enforce course prerequisites associated with a student’s overall GPA, co-requisite requirements, or other metrics which cannot be enforced through enrollment requirement groups (ERGs) or block class scheduling. These should described in the College's Undergraduate Bulletin. 
  • Limit enrollment to a subpopulation which cannot be defined using group codes or ERGs.
  • Limit enrollment to students based on the completion of an application, audition, or the agreement of a supervisory instructor. Many Experiential Education courses may fall into this category.
  • Restrict enrollment on classes scheduled for the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA).

Enrollment consent should not be used to circumnavigate course prerequisites. If you have questions about changing the prerequisites of a course, please write to ugcurric@iu.edu. 

If you would like to restrict enrollment on a course or class and are unsure of how to do so, please write to collschd@iu.edu.

DSOC

Department or instructor consent can be enabled on the Meeting and Enrollment Control tab of a class in DSOC.

If enabled, units should make it clear in the Class Notes

  • That department or instructor consent is required.
  • Who students should contact to receive enrollment permission.

Students will see in iGPS and in their shopping cart that department or instructor consent is required for enrollment. Students who attempt to enroll without consent will receive an error message informing them consent is required.

Entering Class Permissions

Class permissions should be entered by a unit administrator, typically a scheduling officer, based on the criteria established when the unit decided to enable enrollment consent. Academic advisors should not be asked to enter enrollment permissions. Do not enter permissions for classes outside of your unit.

Those who enter permissions should enter a comment in the permissions field in SIS justifying why the permission was entered, and the IU username of the person entering the permission.

Do not check the "closed class" permission setting. Checking this box allows students to enroll when the class is at capacity, which can create a situation where there are more students enrolled than can fit in a classroom. If adding permission for a student to join a full class without a waiting list, first verify that an additional student can be accommodated based on the classroom's capacity, raise the eCap, and, then provide the student with permission. 

In the cases where add permissions are entered based on special arrangement with the instructor, communication regarding the permission should be between the unit administrator and the instructor directly. Permissions should not be used to allow students to skip over or skip ahead of a waiting list. 

Students should be notified when a permission has been entered so that they can proceed with their own enrollment. Students are not automatically notified when permission is applied.