A new student portal: VUnet
VU University Amsterdam will launch a new student portal on 28 March 2011: VUnet. VUnet is a one-stop portal for all information that could previously only be accessed by logging in to a number of separate systems.
VUnet includes:
- Blackboard announcements for your degree programme;
- Your marks;
- Courses you have registered for;
- Your personal schedule indicating times and locations of courses and exams.
You can use VUnet for the following:
- Registering for courses and exams;
- Submitting a change of address;
- Completing your registration details (e.g. additional address details or your prior education).
New system, uniform rules
In order to implement SAP/SLM properly, a number of processes at the university need to be standardized. Any administrative differences between faculties and programmes will now be a thing of the past! It will be much easier to take courses outside of one's own degree programme, which will be of great benefit to educational accessibility. The new uniformity will also be advantageous from an administrative point of view, because work can be done more effectively.
Consequences for students
For you as a student the transition to SAP/SLM means that you must use VUnet to enrol in each courseyou wish to take and each exam you wish to sit. The deadline for enrolling in a course is four weeks prior to the start of the course. The deadline for registering for an exam is two weeks before the exam.
These deadlines are required to ensure that the course is added to your personal schedule, that you are granted access to the relevant Blackboard page for the course, that you are assigned to a group, that marks can be recorded, and so on. This is a big change and therefore an important point of attention for students who previously did not need to enrol individually, for example because they were taking a fixed programme of courses, or because they were only auditing the lectures.
New rules
Hereby an overview of the new rules when implementing VUnet:
- Registration for all courses and exams.
You must use VUnet to register for all courses. The system will immediately tell you if space is still available. All activities that you register for will appear in your personal schedule, which is where you will also find any scheduling changes. If you have not registered for a course, you will not have access to it, your marks will not be registered, etc. In short, you cannot participate.
When registering for the course, you will automatically be registered for the corresponding exams. - You can only register for courses in your own degree programme.
You can only register for courses in your own degree programme. VUnet will not display automatically courses from other degree programmes. If you want to take courses from other degree programmes, then you must first request permission from the Examination Board. This request for permission can be done with the form: Approval Academic Profile, which can be found on the website. Once there is an approval of the Examination Board the Educational Office can 'open' the subject for you to register for it.
Please note. The procedure for this request takes around 4 weeks. So, be on time with your request in order for you to receive an approval before the closure of the enrollment period. - Extra curricular courses
It is possible to take courses outside your own study programme that do not count toward your degree. These courses can be found and register for at the programme ‘extra curriculair’. - Taking Master's courses as a Bachelor's student
You cannot take Master's subjects if you are registered as a Bachelor's student. A student however is allowed to make a provisional admission request for a Master's programme. Conditions for this request are written down in the Education and Examination Regulations (EER). For more information about this procedure, contact the Educational Office Desk, or your student counselor. - Uniform registration deadlines throughout the university
The deadline for registering for courses is four weeks before the start of the period/semester. This applies to all degree programmes. - The registration deadline for exams and resits
Registration or deregistration for exams or resits must be completed at least two weeks before the exam date. - Administration fee: 25 Euros
After the deadline you can no longer register or deregister through VUnet. If you would still like to register, you can contact the student services desk at the Educational Office to enroll you manually. If there is still space available, you will be allowed to register for a 25 Euro administration fee (at a maximum of 50 Euros each time). This is a VU-campus rule. At the Faculty of Sciences this administration fee will be charged from September 1st 2011 onwards.
If you fail to deregister for an exam in time and you do not show up, you will be recorded as a 'no show'.
Questions?
The introduction of VUnet is truly a massive project. Although tremendous effort has been put into the preparations for the big rollout, we might still encounter a few hiccoughs along the way. If you have a question or problem, please stop by the student service desk at the Educational Office during regular opening hours.
