Student Planning Video Transcript – Finding Courses

Welcome to the Student Planning informational series for the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus and University of Guelph-Humber. Student Planning is a self-serve system available to all U of G, Ridgetown and Guelph-Humber students who are actively enrolled in a program. It combines optional degree planning with intuitive course search tools and registration in a new, easy to navigate online environment. To assist both new and returning students, a series of training videos has been developed to help guide you through the most common features of Student Planning.

To get started, go to WebAdvisor and click on the Access WebAdvisor button. Enter your central login username and password if you are not yet signed in. Then, select Course Catalog.

In the Course Catalog, the first thing you will notice is that there are two tabs: “Subject Search” and “Advanced Search.” Let’s begin with the "Subject Search" tab.

On the default tab of “Subject Search”, you can search for courses using common words. For example, if you are looking to enrol in a management course, you can simply type in “Management” in the field next to “Search for a course subject.” The subjects that match your keyword will populate as you type in real time. Click one of the subject results and all the courses for this subject will be populated.

Note that coloured dialog boxes will appear on certain courses to provide helpful information. This information can be to let you know that you have completed a course, a course is in progress or a course is planned.

To narrow down your search results, you can use the filter options found on the left-hand side. 

You can search for courses taught by a specific professor, courses offered in a specific term, specific course levels (such as 1st year, 2nd year, etc.) and more. By selecting any of the filters, the results will automatically update to reflect your request. 

If you wish to search for courses directly using the course code or certain filters you can use the "Advanced Search" tab. In this tab, you have many search criteria options to narrow down your search. 

As an example, we will search for a course with the code “MGMT 1000” in the term “Fall 2021." Select “Catalog Listing” under “Results View” and click the “Search” button. You will receive results in the same format as the “Subject Search” tab, but the filters are already applied. 

Again, the filter options are available on the left-hand sidem and you can further refine or revise your search.

Alternatively, if you select “Section Listing” under “Results View” in the "Advanced Search," the search results will be laid out in a different format that makes it easy to compare details about course sections, including seat availability, meeting times and instructors.

Now that you know how to find a course using either the “Subject Search” or the “Advanced Search” options, we can look at adding a desired course.

There are two ways you can add a course. You can add it to your plan or directly to your schedule if course offerings for the semester have been posted. Course offerings for the semester are usually posted about two weeks before the course enrolment period.

Let’s begin by looking at how to add a course to your plan. Once you have found the course that you are interested in, click the “Add Course to Plan” button. A confirmation message will immediately pop up towards the top right notifications.

To add a course to your planned schedule, find a course that you are interested in. Once you have found that course, click the drop-down menu entitled “View available sections.” 

Here you can browse the available sections. Once you have found the section that you would like, click on the “Add Section to Schedule” button towards the top right-hand corner.

Another way to add sections directly to your schedule is through the “Section Listing” view in the Advanced Search. In your search results, click on the “Add” button in the first column of the table for the course section you would like to add to your schedule. Review the details in the pop-up window and then click on “Add Section.” The Planned Status column will now show as “Planned” for that section.

Whether you added a course to your plan or to your schedule, these changes will be reflected in the "Plan & Schedule" section. In the next video, we will show you how to register for the courses you have selected. 

We hope that you are now familiar with how to search for courses using Student Planning. Watch our other Student Planning videos for more information about degree planning and course enrolment at the University of Guelph, Ridgetown Campus and University of Guelph-Humber.