ONLINE COURSE OF STUDY POLICIES
From the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church, Division of Ordained Ministry
Effective January 1, 2015; Revised Nov. 8, 2021
REGISTRATION FEE
The registration fee for an online class is due upon submission of the registration form. It is nonrefundable and nontransferable toward any other class. A student will not receive a password to log into a class until General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM) has received the registration fee and registration form with the required signatures of annual conference officials.
DROP / WITHDRAW FROM A CLASS
A student may drop / withdraw from a class by notifying the instructor via email within 30 days of the class start date. The student must copy the GBHEM Course of Study Registrar (cos@gbhem.org) on the email request to the instructor.
If the student follows these steps, their official Course of Study Transcript will indicate Withdrawal (W) from the class. The instructor will confirm the withdrawal via email to the student and the Course of Study Registrar for GBHEM approval. The student will not receive a tuition or registration refund or credit. If the student fails to complete the class work by the end of the class and has not requested to withdraw, they will receive a failing grade (F) for the class.
AUDITING COURSES
It is expected that students take COS courses for credit. Under special circumstances, an audit may be approved.
Course of Study courses will only be open for auditing if there is room in the course after people who need the course for credit have registered and/or by exception.
Students who want to audit a Course of Study course must receive audit permission from GBHEM prior to beginning the pre-registration process. Contact the COS office at cos@gbhem.org.
Students with audit permission must pre-register for the course using the online COS/ACOS registration process, receive approval from their district superintendent and conference registrar, and pay for the course.
Auditors are expected to participate in discussion forums and complete all work in the course.
Auditors will receive a pass/fail grade on a grade report sent to them at the end of the course. Students are responsible for sharing the grade report with their conference. Audits are not recorded on GBHEM transcripts.
No course credit is given for a course that is audited.
ADMINISTRATIVE WITHDRAWAL FROM A CLASS
On rare occasions, such as when the student or close family member experiences a health crisis, GBHEM will consider allowing an administrative withdrawal from a class. Students must request such prior to the end of a 10-week class. The student must make the request of the instructor by email (copying the Course of Study Registrar at cos@gbhem.org), stating the reason for the request. If the instructor and GBHEM agree to the administrative withdrawal, they will inform the student via email. If GBHEM has agreed to the administrative withdrawal, the student may, upon request, receive a 50 percent tuition credit toward his / her next GBHEM online Course of Study class. This credit expires after 12 months.
Please note that the course from which the student withdrew may not be offered again within 12 months. Further, textbooks or assignments may change even if the same course is offered within the 12-month period.
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
The term of an online GBHEM Course of Study course is ten weeks. The student must log into the course and submit at least one completed assignment within two weeks of the start date of the term. If the student does not submit the first assignment within two weeks of the start date of the term, the student will be dropped from the course automatically and receive a failing grade (F).
Initial log-ins to a course will not be possible two weeks after the course’s start date. Students should at least log into the course the first week. The student is responsible to contact the instructor in advance via email if he or she cannot submit the first assignment by the deadline. Some courses require an assignment during the first week of the term. The student may receive a lower grade, at the discretion of the instructor, for submitting late assignments.
Students are expected to participate in the discussion forums. Students who do not participate in the discussion forums will not receive a passing grade. The purpose of the forums is to support the growth in perspective on issues and ideas pertinent to the student’s own academic and spiritual growth and development. Forums are not opinion chats but are guided discussions on pertinent topics and ideas related to the course. Directions for the forums are given within the course assignments.
NO FUTURE ONLINE COURSE ENROLLMENT POLICY
If a student has failed to successfully complete three online courses (in three consecutive or non-consecutive terms), the student may not enroll and take any other GBHEM online courses in the future.
Rationale: Failing a course, not completing a course, or withdrawing from a course(s) three times indicates that a student needs to take the COS or ACOS course in a face-to-face format which provides the student with direct access to the instructor as well as more built-in time management strategies, and specifically scheduled class meetings. Please consult the GBHEM website for a complete listing of schools offering COS/ACOS courses.
PASSWORD ASSISTANCE
Students who find that their password stops working should contact the Course of Study Registrar at cos@gbhem.org as quickly as possible.
DEADLINES AND PACING
After completing and submitting the first assignment within two weeks (or sooner if required by the instructor) of the course start date, students have the flexibility to complete assignments at their own pace, unless otherwise specified by the instructor. Some instructors will assign specific due dates for assignments. Some courses may have weekly assignments. Students should read through the entire course syllabus immediately in order to plan their work to meet assignment deadlines. In many cases, students will not be able to skip an assignment in order to move onto the next one. The instructor may mark down the grades of assignments submitted past deadline.
Students should schedule their time carefully. Those who fall behind more than two weeks in their assignments will have difficulty completing the course with a passing grade. Note: Some annual conferences will not reimburse the student’s tuition if the student does not receive a passing grade (a C or better from most conferences).
GRADING
The grading scale is A, B, C, D, and F. Ungraded notations include Incompletes (a temporary grade), Withdrawals, and Administrative Withdrawal.
EXTENSIONS AND INCOMPLETES
Students seeking an extension for submitting assignments must request it of the instructor and GBHEM before the course end date. This request must be made via email to the instructor, copied to the Course of Study Registrar (cos@gbhem.org). The request must cite an acceptable reason to grant the extension. If the instructor and GBHEM approve the extension, the student’s transcript will indicate a temporary Incomplete for the course.
Extensions/Incompletes are granted at the discretion of the instructor. The instructor may grant an incomplete if the instructor believes the student can finish all the class work to a passing standard within two weeks following the end of the course. Longer extensions of up to four weeks maximum may be approved upon consultation of the instructor with GBHEM. After 45 days, an unfulfilled Incomplete will be converted to a grade of F. After the maximum four-week extension, the instructor has 15 days to grade assignments and assign a letter grade to replace the Incomplete notation. An instructor has the discretion to lower the grade of assignments received during the extension period, particularly for resubmitted, rewritten assignments.
SUBMISSION OF FINAL COURSE ASSIGNMENTS, ACCESS TO GRADES, AND COMPLETION OF THE COURSE EVALUATION
All coursework must be submitted in Moodle by the last day of the course (unless an extension is granted).
Course evaluations are due within one week following the end of the course.
Faculty will post all grades and feedback in Moodle within three weeks following the end of the course.
Students can view and download a final grade report after final grades become available online. A final grade report will be emailed to students four weeks after the term ends (or three weeks after an extension deadline).
Students will have read-only access to the Moodle course for four weeks following the last day of the course in order to view grades and feedback from the instructor.
Students granted an official extension by the instructor will continue to submit their work in Moodle until the extension deadline. See the “Extensions and Incompletes” section above for policies regarding extensions.
Faculty will submit all grades for students granted an extension within two weeks following the extension deadline.
Students granted official extensions will have read-only access to view grades and feedback from the instructor for three weeks following the extension deadline.
HONOR CODE
As clergy in covenant with the United Methodist Church, Course of Study students are expected to uphold the highest ideals of the Christian life (The Book of Discipline, para. 304.2). Academic work is one arena in which clergy are expected to act with integrity and honesty. Violations of academic honor include any action by a student that indicates dishonesty or lack of integrity in academic ethics. Violations in this category include, but are not limited to, cheating and plagiarism.
Cheating includes seeking, acquiring, receiving, or passing on information about the content of an examination prior to its authorized release or during its administration. Cheating also includes seeking, using, giving, or obtaining unauthorized assistance in any academic assignment or examination. Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s work as one’s own. This rule holds true for unpublished as well as published works, information taken from the Internet, and the work of other students.
Plagiarism is a combination of lying (claiming that one has done certain work when one has not) and stealing (writers regard their work as their property). “You plagiarize when, intentionally or not, you use someone’s words or ideas and fail to credit that person. You plagiarize even when you do credit the author but use his or her exact words without so indicating with quotation marks or block indentation. You also plagiarize when you use words so close to those in your source, that if your work were placed next to the source, it would be obvious that you could not have written what you did without the source at your elbow. When accused of plagiarism, some writers claim I must have somehow memorized the passage. When I wrote it, I certainly thought it was my own. That excuse convinces very few” (from The Craft of Research by Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams [The University of Chicago Press, 1995], p. 167).
While students are allowed to study together, all written work must be submitted in the student’s own words. Students may also ask someone to proofread written work before it is submitted, to check only for spelling and grammatical errors.
Penalties for cheating or plagiarism
- In the case of a first offense, faculty may, at their discretion, apply any of the following penalties, depending on the severity of the offense:
- issue a warning
- require the student to redo the assignment
- assign a grade of D or F/0 for the assignment
- assign a grade of F for the course
- In the case of subsequent offenses, faculty and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry will institute one or a combination of these penalties:
- a grade of F for the course
- suspension for the remainder of the term
- dismissal from the Course of Study School
- General Board of Higher Education and Ministry will also send notice of the multiple violations and their penalty to the student’s Board of Ordained Ministry.
(Honor code adapted from the Memphis / Tennessee / Holston Conference Course of Study & Candler Course of Study School)
TRANSCRIPTS
Final course grades are generally available in Moodle three weeks after the end of the term.
Grade Reports for the GBHEM COS/ACOS online program are provided to the student, the GBHEM COS/ACOS records office, and the student’s Conference Registrar four weeks after the term ends.
A complete transcript of the student’s COS courses is provided to the student’s Conference Registrar in January of each year.
To request a transcript from GBHEM at other times, please send an email message to the Course of Study Registrar at cosregistrar@gbhem.org with the words “Transcript Request” in the subject line. Please note that transcripts are updated within four weeks after the end of the term.
