BOSS Guide for

Exchange Students
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
PRIOR TO COURSE REGISTRATION
1) Course Planning 3

2) Researching On Courses 3

3) Bidding Online SyStem (BOSS) 3

4) Course Registration Dates 3

5) BOSS Currency: “e-Dollars (e$)” 4

6) e-Dollars Refund Policy 4

7) Make-up Lessons 5

8) Important Notes on BOSS 6

9) Contacts 6

BIDDING IN BOSS
10) BOSS Navigation Flow 7

11) Accessing BOSS 8

12) BOSS Navigation Overview 8

13) Search for Course 9

14) Add to Cart 12

15) Plan Timetable 12

16) Place Bids 14

17) Errors When Submitting Bids 16

18) Drop If Credits Exceeds (DICE) 17

19) Edit Bids 18

20) Checking Results of Bid 19

21) Drop Enrolled Course 19

22) Grade Penalty 20

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 PRIOR TO COURSE REGISTRATION

1) Course Planning

Students on full exchange will be allowed to enrol in a maximum of 5 course units during the bidding
period prior to term start. Students who wish to undertake more than 5 CUs of courses must seek
permission from their home university and must reserve some e$ to bid for the additional courses
during BOSS 2A (second week of term). The minimum bid amount per course is e$10.

For students on partial exchange, only a maximum of 4 course units will be allowed to be enrolled
during the bidding period prior to term start. Students who wish to undertake a 5th course unit will have
to reserve some e$ and bid during BOSS 2 (first week of term). The minimum bid amount per course is
e$10.

A course with 1-credit has 3 contact hours per week over a term of 13 teaching weeks (i.e. 39 contact
hours). A 0.5-credit course has a total of 18 contact hours per term. Law courses with 1.5 SMU credit,
have a total of 57 contact hours per term each.

2) Researching on Courses
Look at the list of courses offered to exchange students provided by your exchange programme
coordinator.

Search for the course description via the online course catalogue. It contains description of the course,
topics covered, reading list and grading system.
a) Go to the SMU website
b) Click on Programmes
c) Under Course Catalogue, click on Online Search
d) Search course on Alphabet list based on first letter of course code
e) Click on Change Term – Choose 2022-23 Term 1
f) Choose course you want to view – brief outline and enrolment requirement
g) View Section – Shows the different timeslots for the course
h) Click on Course Outline icon – detailed description, reading list and grading

Make sure all the courses you intend to enrol do not have class or exam clashes. You can check the class
and exam timetables online at the following link:
https://publiceservices.smu.edu.sg/psc/ps/EMPLOYEE/SA/c/SIS_CR.SIS_CS_SS_CLS_SCHD.GBL

Do plan for alternatives in case courses that you wanted are fully subscribed.

3) Bidding Online SyStem (BOSS)

BOSS is the courses registration system intended to empower students with the choice of selecting the
courses they wish to enrol. Based on available resources in the form of e-dollars (e$), students will need
to make their choice by considering the demand and supply of the courses as well as their academic
study plan.

Students who wish to have a smooth and problem-free course registration exercise should familiarize
themselves with the rules and regulations governing the course registration exercise.

Note: Students will only have the access to BOSS after they are matriculated online.
BOSS is the ONLY channel through which all students are to enroll for their courses. The University
will not entertain requests for change of classes, even if the classes taught by the same professor.
Students should not direct such requests to their professors as the enrolment process is not under
the purview of the professors.

4) Course Registration Dates

There are 3 rounds of course registration.
BOSS Round 1C – Pre-term course registration
BOSS Round 2 and 2A – Add/ Drop period in Week 1 and 2 upon term commencement
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 BOSS Round 1C (18 – 22 July 2022)
BOSS Opens BOSS Closes Release of Outcome
Window 1 18 Jul, 10AM (Mon) 20 Jul, 10AM (Wed) 20 Jul, 2PM (Wed)
Window 2 20 Jul, 5PM (Wed) 21 Jul, 10AM (Thu) 21 Jul, 2PM (Thu)
Window 3 21 Jul, 5PM (Thu) 22 Jul, 10AM (Fri) 22 Jul, 2PM (Fri)

BOSS Round 2 (15 – 22 August 2022)

BOSS Opens BOSS Closes Release of Outcome
Window 1 15 Aug, 10AM (Mon) 17 Aug, 10AM (Wed) 17 Aug, 2PM (Wed)
Window 2 17 Aug, 5PM (Wed) 19 Aug, 10AM (Fri) 19 Aug, 2PM (Fri)
Window 3 19 Aug, 5PM (Fri) 22 Aug, 10AM (Mon) 22 Aug, 2PM (Mon)

BOSS Round 2A (22 – 29 August 2022)

BOSS Opens BOSS Closes Release of Outcome
Window 1 22 Aug, 5PM (Mon) 24 Aug, 10AM (Wed) 24 Aug, 2PM (Wed)
Window 2 24 Aug, 5PM (Wed) 26 Aug, 10AM (Fri) 26 Aug, 2PM (Fri)
Window 3 26 Aug, 5PM (Fri) 29 Aug, 10AM (Mon) 29 Aug, 2PM (Mon)

Important notes:
Students are strongly advised against adding or dropping courses in the last 1 hour before the close of
BOSS, as there had been cases of students whose registration requests were not processed in time
before the system closed.

Students should start bidding from the very first bidding window (BOSS Round 1C Window 1). This is
because after the clearing of each bidding window, the number of places/ available classes will be reduced,
as students who have placed the bids successfully will have their places confirmed. Students should not
start to bid near the end of the bidding period and expect a full range of choices of places/classes made
available to them.

Only matriculated students can bid for courses. Applicants who have missed the scheduled matriculation
dates will need to be first matriculated and then wait till the next window before they can bid for their
courses.

Students who miss all bidding windows in BOSS Round 1C will need to wait until the start of term on 15
August 2022 to bid for their courses.

5) BOSS Currency [“e-Dollars (e$)] & BOSS Processing of Bids

“e-Dollars (e$)” are the currency used to bid for courses during the course registration exercise for each
term. e-Dollars (e$) have no value outside the course registration process and are non-transferable.

Each exchange student will be allocated e$100 to bid for courses in all the bidding rounds. No extra e-
Dollars will be given at any bidding round or window.

Students can check their E-account via OASIS > Policies and Self-Service Apps > BOSS Bidding from
15 July 2022.

No rollover of e$ if the exchange students are staying for more than 1 term in SMU.

The e$ will only be deducted from the student’s account if the bid is successful. The amount of e$ to be
deducted is equivalent to the stipulated bid price submitted by the student for that bidding round. The
account balances of unsuccessful bidders remain unaffected by the transaction.

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 In each round, there are a several window periods for students to bid for courses. Results of the bidding
will be released at the end of each window. Students can check the outcome of their bids via OASIS >
Policies and Self-Service Apps > BOSS Bidding

In the event of a tie bid (tie bid occurs when the number of students submitting the same exact e$ bid for
a section exceeds the number of vacancies available), the the system will allocate the seat randomly.

Students who were not successful in their bid, can bid for the course again in the next bidding window or
round.

6) Dropping of Confirmed Courses & e-Dollars (e$) Refund Policy

Should you be unsuccessful in your bids, FULL refund of your bid will be returned.

Students who wish to drop a confirmed course during Round 1C, 2 or 2A, the ‘Drop’ is immediate and
e$ will be refunded immediately. However, the maximum e$ refund for each round will be as below:
BOSS Round 1C – your bid or e$50, whichever is lower
BOSS Round 2 – your bid or e$30, whichever is lower
BOSS Round 2A – your bid or e$10, whichever is lower

We encourage students to complete their bidding within Round 1C as available seats will be lesser and
refund of e$ will be lower if you drop courses in later rounds.

Students who drop their courses after the close of Round 2A will be issued either a ‘W” (withdrawn)
grade or ‘F’ (Failed) grade. In addition, there will be NO refund of e$ for the dropped courses.

Students who wish to drop a course after the close of Round 2A will need to do so via OASIS > Policies
and Self-Service Apps > BOSS Bidding

Please note that a ‘W’ or Withdrawn grade which will be given for courses dropped in the time period
between week 3 and week 7. Students will get a ‘F’ or Failed grade for courses dropped from week 8
onwards. Both ‘W’ grade and ‘F’ grade will be reflected in student’s transcript.

7) Make Up Lessons

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8) Important Notes on BOSS

Students should check OASIS on a regular basis as important announcements are posted in OASIS.

Students should check the results of their bids after the release of the BOSS Outcome. Please do not
assume that your bids will be successful.

Students are advised to keep records of their bids as well as confirmed class scheduled.

The University reserves the right to:

a) cancel classes with low enrolment; and
b) change the professors and/or schedule of planned classes in view of extenuating circumstances. For
such case(s), e$ will not be refunded.

9) Contacts

Students who require further assistance or have queries on course registration matters should contact
the respective exchange coordinator team listed below:
• International exchange (ISEP): isep.inbound@smu.edu.sg
• Local exchange (SUSEP): susep@smu.edu.sg

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 BIDDING IN BOSS

10) BOSS Navigation Flow

6. More than max.

biddable credits?

1. Search for your desired courses in the Class Search page.

2. Add the desired sections for each of the courses to the cart.
3. View the classes in a graphical class timetable using the toggle pin in the Plan & Bid page. Check for
conflicts in class and exam schedules. Change the classes to view as desired.
4. Checkout the shortlisted courses that you wish to bid.
5. Enter the bid amounts for the sections of your choice. For easy reference, the toggle pin next to the
courses that are pinned (to the class timetable) in the bidding cart will be green in colour.
6. If you are placing bids for more than your maximum enrolment (i.e. bidding at the maximum biddable
course units), you will be asked to drop the extra course (Drop If Credit Exceeds).
7. In DICE, enter the priority of drop (e.g. “1” for first to drop) against the course to be dropped, if all
your bids are successful. In some exceptional situations (e.g. the course to be dropped is 0.5 course
unit), you may need to enter “2” against another 0.5 course unit to be dropped, or change DICE
priority to a course that is 1 course unit.
8. Submit your bids.
9. If there are errors in the bids, you will be notified on the same page.
10. Common errors are: failure to check for timetable or exam conflicts. Rectify the errors. Re-plan and
re-submit bids by going back to Step 1 or Step 3 as required.
11. You will be notified if the bids are submitted successfully. Wait for the release of the BOSS results.
12. For bids that are unsuccessful, review your plans based on class vacancies available. Repeat Steps
1-8 in the next window of BOSS.
13. For bids that are successful, you will be enrolled in those classes.

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11) Accessing BOSS
Students can access BOSS once you are matriculated as an exchange student.
a) Go to SMU website
b) Click on CONNECT
c) Click on OASIS Intranet
d) Log in using your SMU UserID (smustu\xxxx.2022) and password
e) Select Home tab
f) Under Pre-Term Activities and Info > Pre-Term Course Registration/Add/Drop of Courses after
Start of Term, select BOSS Bidding

Should you forget your password, please email helpdesk@smu.edu.sg to reset it. It may take up to 3
working days to reset your password. Please provide the following in the email:
a) Full Name
b) SMU Email Address (e.g.) michaelbrown.2019@exchange.smu.edu.sg
c) Phone
d) FIN number
e) Home Address

12) BOSS Navigation Overview

1 10 11 12 13 14

2 6

7
3
8

4 9

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 No Name Description
1 Term Selector Select the term of the courses for which you are bidding
Admin Hold If you have an admin hold, you will not be allowed to bid for any courses until
the hold is released by the department or office (e.g. Finance, Library) that
2 (Year-long exchange
placed the hold. This could be due to unpaid fees. To have the admin hold
students only) released, you must approach the specific office to clear the hold
3 BOSS Dates Current BOSS window, start and end time.
4 Term Info Total number of enrollment and biddable CUs for the term
5 E-Account All transactions of your e-dollars/e-points
6 Bidding Results Results of your bids
7 OASIS
Announcements Additional/Cancellation of classes
My Bidding Activities History of your bidding activities
Overall BOSS Results Results of the previous BOSS windows
8 Enrolments Courses that you are enrolled in the current term
Exemptions/ Credit
9 All exemptions and credit transfers that you have
Transfers
10 Plan & Bid To plan courses and place bid for the term
11 Class Search Class search for Last Academic Year
12 Summary For full time SMU students only
13 Quick Links For full time SMU students only
14 Contact Us For full time SMU students only

13) Search for Course

To search for courses, click on Plan & Bid on the top right of the page.

Do NOT use Class Search as that shows modules from the last academic year.

Navigate to the Course Search page by clicking on the icon in the Bidding Cart section to
begin bidding.

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 You will be brought to the Course Search page. Input the values into the fields for which you would like
to perform your search.

The following are descriptions of the fields:

a) Subject Area: Select the subject area(s) that you would like to view the courses for. You can select
multiple values. E.g. Select FNCE and MGMT if you want to retrieve all the Finance courses and all
the Management courses.

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 b) Catalogue No: Enter the catalogue number (course code) if you already have a specific course in
mind. E.g. Input 101 (coupled with FNCE as the subject area) if you would like to bid for FNCE101 or
Input .120 (coupled with COMM as the subject area) for COMM.120.

c) Course Title: Input the Course Title or part of a title if you know the title of the course. E.g. Input
“Creative Thinking” if you would like to bid for the course Creative Thinking. You can also specify a
wildcard (%) to improve your search. A % sign in front of the word will return you search results that
only contain characters before the chosen word. Likewise, a % sign behind the word will return search
results where there are only characters behind that word.

d) Class Section: Select the section number if you already know the specific section that you want to
bid.

e) Course Area: Select the course area of the courses that you would like to view. You can select
multiple (usually no more than 2) values. For example, if you select Finance and Marketing major, it
will give a list of courses that are for Finance and Management majors.

f) Day of The Week: Select the day(s) that you only want to retrieve courses that have lessons on your
selected day(s). You can select multiple values. E.g. Select Monday and Wednesday if you would
like to retrieve courses that have lessons on Monday and Wednesday.

g) Classes only (ignore exam): Uncheck this field if you would like your search to return courses that
have both lessons and exams on your day(s) which you have selected. Otherwise, leave it checked.

h) Meeting Time From & To: Select the timings to retrieve courses that have lessons that fall between
your selected timings. E.g. Select 0815 to 1200 if you would like to retrieve courses that have lessons
that are in the time range of 0815 to 1200.

Click on the Reset button if you would like the Search fields to be reset to their default values.

Click on the Search button to perform your search and wait for the Results to be displayed.

Select the course(s) that you would like to enrol by checking the box next to the course title and all the
available sections will be displayed in the right column. Vacancies for each section can be viewed here.

Note: Courses may have many sections (denoted by the G number). You need to scroll down to see all
sections.

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 The course outline will be displayed if you click on the Section number (e.g. G1).

14) Add to Cart

If you intend to bid for a section, click on “Add to Cart”. This is not bidding yet.

Note: You may select multiple sections of the same course to the cart during your planning but only bid
for 1 section of each course.

15) Plan Timetable

Return to Plan & Bid (click on )to see the courses that you have added to cart.
You may remove courses from the list by clicking on the red crosses.

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 You need to toggle the pins to green to see the courses in the Class Timetable.

Conflict detected

Exam Timetable is reflected below the Class Timetable for your reference.

You may toggle the pins until your preferred timetable is achieved.

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16) Place Bids
In the Bidding Cart section of the Plan & Bid page, click on the Checkout button to place bids on the
sections in your Bidding Cart.

You will be brought to the Checkout Bids page.

Check the box next to the course(s)/ section(s) for which you wish to bid for.
Courses which you have viewed earlier in the class timetable are indicated by the green pins.

The selected course(s) should appear in the previously empty section above with an input field next to it.

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 Enter the bid amount (e$) against that section.
Minimum bid is e$10 and the incremental value is e$0.01, e.g. e$10.01, e$12.31 or e$14.54.

Click on Submit My Bids to submit your bids.

If there are no issues with submitting your bids, you will be asked to confirm.

After your bids are submitted successfully, a confirmation will be given.

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 When you return to Plan & Bid page, the colour of the courses will change to magenta to show that
bids have been placed for them.

17) Errors When Submitting Bids

If there is an error in the submission due to reasons such as not having enough e-dollars, the message
will be shown to you.

If there is an issue in the sections that you are bidding for, such as a clash of timetable, an error message
will be shown.

Click on the icon to view details of the error message.

Detailed Error Message

Error Message

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18) Drop If Course Exceeds (DICE)
DICE is activated when the number of your bids (in course units) exceeds the maximum term enrolment
limit. If you are bidding to the maximum biddable credits (e.g. bidding for 5 credits although the maximum
allowed is 4 credits), you will be asked to indicate DICE.

NOTE: You CANNOT use DICE to bid for another section of the same course (e.g. You cannot DICE
FNCE101 G1 to bid for FNCE101 G2) or another course with conflicting timetable/ exam clash.
You will have to drop the conflicting course before bidding for the intended course.

Error Message

It means you need to indicate the course you wish to drop in the event that you are successful in bidding
for all the courses.

You may indicate “1” as the first course to drop and “2” for second course to drop in the DICE column.

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 If you already have the maximum number of courses enrolled and you wish to bid for another course
using the DICE function, do NOT put the priority ‘1’ on the course that you are bidding for. It will be
dropped even if you are successful in your bid.

You will need to click on the lock symbol to unlock the enrolled course that you wish to drop.

Unlock to place drop priority

Error Message

DICE field becomes editable for you to place drop priority.

19) Edit Bids

You may edit your bids any time before the window closes.

Return to Plan & Bid to see the courses that you bid for.

Click on the Checkout button to enter the Checkout page to edit your bids.
Remember to click on Resubmit My Bids after you have edited your bids

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20) Checking Outcome of Bids
At the end of each window, outcome of the bidding will be released. Students may view the outcome in
BOSS.

Courses that you have successfully bid for will be shown in the Enrolments section in the Plan & Bid
page.

Courses that are enrolled will be indicated in Green in the Class Timetable. Courses which are
unsuccessful in the bidding will be in Blue.

You may wish to try bidding for the unsuccessful course/section again (if there are still vacancies) or look
for an alternative course or section to bid.

21) Drop Enrolled Course

Go to Plan & Bid, under Enrolments, you will be able to view all the courses that you are enrolled.

To drop a course, click on Drop Enrolled Class.

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 Select the course that you wish to drop.

You will NOT be able to reverse the drop and the course will immediately be placed into the pool for
bidding. Please take extra care when selecting the course to drop.

The system will prompt you to confirm the drop.

Remember to read the Warning message (if any) and take note of the refund amount before you perform
the drop because the drop is not reversible.

Click on the Drop Selected Classes button when you are ready to perform the drop. You will be navigated
back to the Plan & Bid page. You will be able to view your updated course enrolments under the
Enrolments section.

After a course is dropped during the bidding window, it will not appear in Enrolments section
anymore. If a course is dropped after the bidding window, the dropped course with penalty grade
(either an ‘F’ or a ‘W’) will be displayed.

22) Grade Penalty

All adding and dropping of courses should be done by BOSS 2A (Week 2 of term).

No adding of courses can be done after BOSS Round 2A.

You may still drop courses but there will be a grade penalty. Please take note:
Drop course in Week 3 to Week 7 – “W” (Withdrawn) grade will be reflected on SMU transcript
Drop course from Week 8 onwards – “F” (Failed) grade will be reflected on SMU transcript

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