Course registration and changes

Continuing students select their course choices for the following academic session using course selection forms. These are circulated in early May each year and need to be completed and submitted before noon on Friday 13th June 2025.

We aim to allocate everyone to as high a preference as possible but you may be allocated to any course you include in your preferences. Please consider your preferences carefully and only put courses you would be willing to study on your course selection form. Submitting your form before the deadline will increase your chances of being enrolled on your first choices. 

The number of preferences we need to complete the allocation process depends on your programme and which year you are going into. Your course selection form will ask you for the required number of preferences and will need to be completed in full in order to submit.

The best place to find details of which courses are running and available on your degree programme is through your Degree Programme Table on DRPS (Degree Regulations and Programmes of Study).

DRPS

You may be able to view the timetable for a course through DRPS but not all timetabling information may be available while the course selection forms are open. We will do our best to ensure there are no clashes on your timetable when we are allocating your courses but we will also be working with limited timetable information.

If you need more support, please email your Student Adviser. Please check your timetable as soon as you have been enrolled on your courses and check for any clashes. If you notice a clash, please get in touch so we can adjust your enrolments.

No, you will not receive an email confirmation. Once the form is submitted, the following message will appear: ‘Your response was submitted.’ Please make a note of the chosen courses for your own record as you submit the course selection form.

No, due to the volume of forms being processed by the Student Experience Team, no confirmation emails are issued when you have been signed up to your selected courses. We will contact you at your student email address if there are any problems with your form, so keep an eye on your inbox once you have submitted it. All course registrations should appear on your MyEd by the first week in September.

We advise you to complete your form as early as possible, particularly if you wish to be enrolled onto courses with quotas. If you submit your form early, you will not see your chosen courses on your student record immediately – no-one is able to see their courses in EUCLID before August. However, if you submit early, you will have your course choices prioritised in the background. As we need to work with other Schools and their deadlines, we cannot offer a precise date when your allocations will be finalised.

Course selection forms need to be completed before noon on Friday 13^th June 2025 for 2025/26. 

If your home School is outwith Informatics then you should contact your own Teaching Organision to find out what the course selection process is. Your home School is responsible for registering you for all courses, including those from Informatics, and you do not need to complete the Informatics course selection form or seek permission from our school.

It is not possible to take a course if the timetable clashes with that of your compulsory courses. It may be possible for you to take the course in the next academic year.

We do try to avoid allocating students to clashing courses but as the timetable for courses may change and we do not have the full timetable when allocating, this is not always possible. If you notice a clash on your timetable, please contact us as soon as possible so we can find an alternative course for you.

Many courses operate quota systems and will not allow students to enrol once that quota is met. You are asked on the course selection form to list several options of courses, in order of preference, in case this happens.

We do always aim to register students onto their preferred courses, but there are several reasons why you might have been allocated to one of your lower preferences instead. This might be to avoid a timetable clash, or in order to fulfil the specific requirements of your degree programme. It might also be because lots of other students had also expressed an interest in the same course, and that space restrictions make it impossible for all of them to be allocated to it. Where a course is full, we cannot make any exceptions to register additional students.

Some courses have pre-requisites or co-requisites in place to ensure that students are able to undertake and understand the work involved. If you do not meet these requirements, then the course is most likely not suitable for you to take.

Please note, meeting the pre-requisites for a course does not guarantee you entry.

Taking courses outside those required and permitted by the Degree Programme Table for your degree is not usually possible. If you believe you have a strong case, please contact your Student Adviser, who can discuss this with you and advise on potential for a Course Concession application.

Some schools have specific enrolment criteria for their courses. If you are hoping to take a course not within Informatics, or not within the schools you are taking a joint degree with, you should read the course DRPS page carefully to see if you need to contact the school to request a space on the course. You can still list non-Informatics courses on your course selection form, but we may not be able to add you to the course until we have received confirmation from the owning school that there is a space for you.

If you have requested to transfer onto another programme within the School of Informatics, then please complete and submit the form for the programme you want to transfer onto. Programme transfers are processed over the summer. If you later find out you have not been successful in transferring onto your requested programme, please contact your Student Adviser who will be able to change your course selection to your current programme of study.

If you would like advice on what subjects would complement your degree programme, please contact your Cohort Lead or Student Adviser. Looking at the joint degree options for your subject can also give you an idea of what optional courses would go well with your compulsory ones.

If you are looking to change your optional courses, please email your Student Adviser via rt+sstcoursechanges@inf.ed.ac.uk giving details of which course(s) you want to add and which course(s) you want to remove from your selection.  Including the Course Code is essential as Student Advisers may not be able to process your request without it.  You can request to change your course registration up until the end of week 2.  If you decide to change course it's important to check that it meets your Degree Programme requirements for that year, maintains an equal split of credits across both semesters, that you have met any pre-requisites/co-requisites and that you've checked the timetable to avoid clashes.

Credits are indicative of workload and expected study time for a course and the quota is in place to ensure you are able to manage the work you are taking on. If you think this may be of benefit to you, you should discuss it with your Student Adviser. If it is agreed that you may proceed, you should confirm this when you submit your completed form.

When selecting courses you must take exactly 120 credits in each year of study and are permitted to take extra credit in years 2 and 3 to make up a deficit from years 1 or 2.  Informatics course materials are available on Open Course where you have an interest in accessing materials for other courses:

Open Course

'Auditing' a course is taking a course as 'class only' without taking assessment or contributing credits to your programme. It's not possible to take Informatics courses as "Class Only", instead course materials are available via Open Course.  These pages contain course materials to allow students to engage with courses in a similar way to if they were registered on a ‘class only’ basis.

Informatics Open Course

If you have applied to spend a year abroad, you are expected to take courses that correspond reasonably closely to the courses you would have taken in Edinburgh, both in terms of content and credit weighting. If studying abroad, please make sure that your student record for Year 3 has been updated in EUCLID by the end of week 2 so that it indicates "Non-compulsory year abroad (full year) - level 10".  If the record has not been updated by the end of Week 2 and it still shows some usual course names, please contact the Informatics Exchange Coordinator. More information about studying abroad for year 2 students can be found on the Studying Abroad page.

Studying abroad

If you are returning to Edinburgh after a 3rd year abroad please make your course selections as normal for your 4th year of study according to your Degree Programme.  If you have taken a year abroad for Year 3 you are exempted from the requirements of that year - for example, when students go abroad in Year 3, we do not make them do the System Design Project when they come back. Study Abroad Information and FAQ for Informatics students can be found from the Studying Abroad page.

Studying abroad

In most cases, you should assume you will be progressing to the next year of study and complete your preferences with that in mind. If you have applied for a repeat year, you should provide preferences for your repeat year instead. If your request is refused, we will be in touch to discuss your options. If you're in any doubt about your progression status, please contact your Student Adviser.