Some students were able to register for classes when they had not yet fulfilled the prerequisites, although that number of classes is more limited than previous years, UK officials said.
Most of the colleges on campus use prerequisite checking to some degree, said Associate Registrar Bruce Manley. Prerequisites are turned off until colleges say they want to have them activated in the myUK system.
Those holds can be activated anytime during the semester.
Several years ago, the university changed its policy on the holds, Manley said. In the old system, there were very few prerequisites that had limited students to enroll in a class. Now, roughly 26 percent of all the active classes at UK have prequisites.
The new structure is enforced for all of the colleges of the university, but it is the specific college that decides to enforce a hold or not.
The new myUK system has fixed a default in the old system, where the computer did not enforce prerequisites, said Stephen Voss, director of undergraduate studies in political science.
“Under the new system, though, the default has been that they are enforced,†Voss said in an e-mail to the Kernel. “There’s no way for me to know what effect this switch in policy has had on student enrollments because currently, those of us who write up the schedules cannot get much ‘market information’ about what currently enrolled students have taken.â€
Voss said while there are some courses that lack full enforcement of the prerequisite, this department is moving to re-enforcement.
“Eventually we will move to full enforcement of the prerequisite, because it’s better educationally to have a structured curriculum, but we cannot just snap our fingers and switch,†he said in the e-mail. “Until enough students have the prerequisite under their belts, enforcing the prerequisite would result in classes that are unacceptably small given our resources, so we need to ease in the new model by making the prereq advisory rather than fully enforced for some classes.â€
One class where students lacking a prerequisite can enroll is PS 465, a constitutional law class that requires students take PS 360. However, students can enroll in PS 465 before taking PS 360.
“Garland ‘Andy’ Barr, who is teaching the PS 465 that she identified as lacking a prerequisite, knew that students would need some introductory coverage of ‘the basics’ before launching into the core course material, so there’s a safety valve if students ignore the advisory prerequisite,†Voss said.
Ruth Beattie, director of undergraduate studies in biology, said her department completely enforces prerequisites.
“If they don’t have a prerequisite, they don’t have the necessary information to take that course,†Beattie said.
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