Upholding Course Prerequisites During Registration
Beginning with registration for Fall 2028 courses, an automated process will help students confirm that all prerequisites are complete before registering for course sections. Departments and colleges will have reviewed all prerequisites to determine which to uphold during registration.
Why are we making this change?
Prerequisite checking before registration comes with many benefits such as immediate feedback for students and significant time savings for staff who previously performed manual checks after the student registered.
How is this change related to Workday?
Workday allows the university the opportunity to uphold prerequisite enforcement. This enforcement is based on courses approved through VPAC which are listed in the course catalog. Today prerequisites are required, however, while they are visible in SIS they are not upheld during registration. This means that students are able to register into course sections for which they are not eligible and Academic Departments then have to manually review registrations to uphold prerequisites.
See below for more details about this change. As more information comes to light, we will continue to update this page. As we get closer to go-live, please revisit this page for more information about recommended actions for operations and communications.
At a Glance
Click through the First Use, Audiences, and Impacted Systems tabs below to learn more.
Students, faculty, and staff will need to be aware that prerequisites will be enforced at the time of registration. Additional audience impacts are outlined below:
Students: Workday will uphold course section prerequisite requirements during registration, ensuring a student has completed or is actively enrolled in a prerequisite course before they can register for a course section.
When a student believes they are eligible to take a course where the prerequisite has not been met, they will use the request prerequisite override task to request approval to register in course sections.
Faculty: Instructors are not expected to experience a major impact as part of this change. Academic Departments will continue to manage this process and reach out to instructors related to appropriate approvals.
Staff: Academic Departments will review and process course section prerequisite override requests in Workday.
Manual review of course section prerequisites post registration will no longer be necessary.
Why it Matters: From Today to Tomorrow
Today: Current State
Course-based prerequisites cannot be enforced in SIS today. Students are able to register for a course section where they have not successfully completed the required prerequisites. Prerequisite checking is performed by departments after registration is completed using a manual process, and students who have not met the prerequisite requirements are removed from the course section.
As prerequisites have not been upheld by SIS in the past, some prerequisites may be considered recommended in practice, requiring a comprehensive review of prerequisites across UMD courses to ensure that students do not have undue barriers during registration.
Tomorrow: Future State
Prerequisite requirements will be automatically checked and confirmed before registration is permitted. Students will receive immediate feedback if they do not meet a prerequisite requirement and will not be able to register in the course section.
Workday permits students to register for course sections requiring prerequisites if they are currently enrolled in and completing required course(s).
When an exception is desired, students will use the request prerequisite override task in Workday to request an override from the academic department. Approvals occur in Workday and will enable students to register during their designated registration window.
To ensure that prerequisites are upheld as desired by departments, UMD Schools and Colleges have engaged in a comprehensive review of prerequisites across 6,100+ UMD courses.
- Immediate feedback at registration if prerequisites are not met.
- Hundreds of hours of time saved throughout the multiple registration periods in a calendar year.
- Prerequisite overrides requested and approved within Workday.
- Students are encouraged to be proactive in ensuring prerequisites are met prior to the beginning of registration.
- Academic advisors can anticipate questions on prerequisites and prerequisite overrides.
- Academic Departments will need to have a process in place to review and approve prerequisite overrides as received to support registration activities.
Please revisit this site as we approach go-live events in 2027 and 2028 for more planning details.
Learn More
More information related to prerequisite enforcement can be found in the following resources:
This website will grow over time with new information, ideas, and topics, so please continue to revisit! To ask a question or request assistance, please contact elevate@umd.edu.