Students

Certificate Orientation Information

Welcome to the College of Nursing at UIC and congratulations on your recent acceptance. As a new student, you join one of the largest and most prestigious sources of nursing leadership in Illinois and beyond. Students come to UIC College of Nursing to ‘learn from and with the best' – to connect locally and globally with top notch practicing, academic, and scientific nursing and healthcare leaders.

As one of the nation's leading colleges of nursing, UIC offers an excellent education with the nation's best nursing leaders as your teachers. You will be surrounded by energetic and supportive peers, receive personal and professional guidance, as well as have outstanding clinical experiences.

Following is important information related to your certificate admission and forms that you will need to complete before the start of classes.

Enrollment Confirmation & Tuition Deposit

In order to secure your admission for the semester, a non-refundable tuition deposit of $250 is required. Checks should be made out to UIC College of Nursing and the funds will be directly credited to your account upon matriculation. The deposit is due within two weeks of your notice of acceptance from the College of Nursing and should be submitted along with a confirmation of enrollment form below.

Document	Format
Enrollment Confirmation & Tuition Deposit	PDF	Word

Establishing Access to University Services

As a first step in establishing your access to university services (including registering for classes), you will need to establish your NetID and Enterprise ID. You will need a Net ID to access campus-specific sites and services such as your UIC e-mail account and Blackboard, the UIC online course management system. You will need an EnterpriseID to access the university-wide administrative system. For example, you will use your Enterprise ID to register for classes, make address changes, access your student account, review grades, and request transcripts. Instructions for establishing these IDs can be found on UIC Web for Student.

Advising

All certificate program students receive academic advising from a faculty member who teaches in their respective program. Your academic advisor will contact you via e-mail at least two weeks prior to the start of classes. If you have not been contacted by your advisor by then, please contact the coordinator of your certificate program.

Registration

Registration, including changes to any existing registration, begins a number of months before the term and continues through the first official ten days of the term. During the registration period, all registration activity is done by the student using Student Self-Service, which may be accessed from UIC Web For Student. When attempting to register, if you receive an error message directly pertaining to the class or section you are requesting, consult with the Office of Academic Program at con@uic.edu as an override may need to be input into the system to allow you to continue to register. Once the override has been added you still have to register for the course in Student Self-Service. If you receive an error message that you do not understand, consult the Registration Help Line at (312) 996-8600.

You will not be able to register until you receive your official acceptance letter from the Graduate College of the University. This letter is usually sent 2-3 weeks after you receive your College of Nursing acceptance.

Before registering you must work with your advisor to develop a program plan. After meeting with your advisor they will remove an “advising hold” that has been put on your account that will prevent you from registering (it takes 24 hours to remove the hold).

If you have completed all of these steps are still having problems registering please contact con@uic.edu

Books

Text books are purchased through the UIC Book Store and can be delivered to you. If the faculty member teaching a course has adopted a text book, the book will be listed on the UIC Book Store website.

Clinical Compliance

For students enrolled in the School Nurse and Advanced Practice Forensic Nursing certificate programs, there are additional requirements related to immunizations, drug testing, background checks, CPR and HIPAA training. These requirements must be met prior to starting any clinical or practicum experience. The clinical compliance website contains all the information and forms needed to meet these requirements. Note that certificate students do not have to comply with the UIC medical immunization requirements

Technology Requirements

All certificate course work is delivered on-line.  Therefore all students admitted to a certificate program must have ongoing access to a personal computer with the following specifications:

• Windows operating system (2000 or XP)
• Java-compatible Web browser: Firefox 1.0, Mozilla 1.7, Netscape 6.0, or Internet Explorer 6.0 (higher versions of these browsers are acceptable) 
• 500 MHz processor (Pentium class)
• At least 128 MB of RAM 
• 1 GB free hard-disk space
• Cable or DSL modem
• Sound card and speakers
• Monitor capable of 800x600 (1024x768 recommended)
• MS Word 

UIC Email Policy

The College of Nursing uses only the UIC email address for communication with students. Your email address will be your netid@uic.edu. UIC email can be checked at the UIC Webmail site. UIC email can also be forwarded to other accounts on The Academic Commuting and Communications site.

Your UIC email is automatically added to our Graduate Student Listserv where most announcements are posted. It is important that you check your UIC regularly.

Student Policies

All students should view the student handbook to become familiar with College of Nursing Policies.

Office of External Education

The UIC Office of External Education is the university research for excellence in online education. The office maintains a comprehensive site of student resources designed to support the online learner. Please take time to review this website.

In particular, all students should complete the Blackboard tutorial. Blackboard is the online learning platform that will be used to deliver your courses.

Learning Platforms

Online course content is delivered via the Blackboard learning platform that can be accessed from the UIC Home Page by selecting it from the QUICK LINKS menu. Students will need a NetID to access Blackboard (see Accessing University Services for information on NetID). All students are required to complete the Blackboard Tutorial prior to beginning classes.

Some courses also use the Centra e-Rooms learning platform for delivering synchronous (in real time) learning content. You may wish to explore e-Rooms now. Course instructors provide more information about e-Rooms if it is used within a course.

Contact us

For further information regarding your admission to a certificate, please contact Phil Zack at pzack@uic.edu.