Navigating UAOnline

Whether a current or potential student at UAF (or any of the other University of Alaska campuses), UAOnlinewill be your main administrative tool for admissions, financial aid, academics, and the like. Fortunately, UAOnline is built with a plethora of helpful features. However, it can be daunting to figure out at first glance, so I will give you a few hints as to how to use this academic beast of a website. UAOnline goes through major changes about once or twice every year, but this mini-tutorial will go through release 8.3 (you can find out the version at the bottom left of the page).

I’m going to start by assuming that you are not a student at UAF and have not yet applied for admissions (for students who have been admitted, please see the paragraph below). Once on the UAOnline website, you will want to click “Apply for Admission or Check on Status of Application.” Fortunately, there is already a helpful video about applying for admission for new students, located here. The video link can also be found on the “Apply for Admission” page. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I will let you watch the video to learn about applying for admission.

Congrats! You are now a UAF student and can access UAOnline fully! Going back to the UAOnline homepage, you should now click on “Login to Secured Area (Students, Staff, & Faculty).” You will be brought to a page asking for your UA ID and PIN. Your UA ID will be a series of 9 digits that represent you in the University of Alaska system. While your UA ID may not be as important as your social security number, only give it University of Alaska staff when they need it. If you do not know your UA ID or PIN, you can visit <a href=” http://elmo.alaska.edu/?elmo_option=3”>this website</a> (which is also on the UAOnline login page). It has several helpful options to choose from. As a side note:

UA Username: The name of your ‘@alaska.edu’ email with the first letter of your first name, first letter of your middle name, and last name. Example:jasmith

UA ID: The nine-digit number that represents you. Example: 3########

Password: A password that YOU set for use with your UA Username. Example:cats03 (choose a STRONG password!)

PIN: A five-digit number that YOU set for use with your UA Username OR UA ID. Example: 12345 (BAD idea for a PIN!)

UAF has many uses for your UA Username, UA ID, password, and PIN. UAOnline only uses your UA Username and your PIN to log on. In other instances you will be asked for a combination of your UA Username OR UA ID and your password OR PIN.

Hopefully now you’ve actually logged on to UAOnline. There will be a large page with five big blue links. The first place you should head to is “Personal Information.” Make sure that your PIN, security question, addresses, phone numbers, emails, emergency contacts, name, social security number, UA ID, UA Username, preferred first name, ethnicity, and race are all properly set up. After that, click “RETURN TO MENU” near the top of the page.

If you want to set up a direct deposit services (which means that if UAF ever needs to send you a refund or whatnot, it will be sent directly to your bank account rather than by check in the mail), click on “Financial Information” and fill out your direct deposit information (which will require some information about your bank account, but UAF has safety policies regarding this information so there is no need to worry).

There are only two steps left! You can sign up for classes and check your academic records or apply for financial aid. Because you need money to go to college, I’ll assume that you’ll want to check out the “Financial Aid” tab first. After getting there, you should first click on the “Eligibility” tab and then click on “Holds.” As the name suggest, holds are holds on your account that prevent you from doing a lot of things like getting financial aid. Usually these holds involve a late payment or other similar academic issues. Assuming there are no holds on your account (if there are, you can contact the Financial Aid office at 907-474-7256 about them), you can return to the main “Financial Aid” menu and click on “Scholarships.”

Here you will find a questionnaire including several checkboxes as well as a large text box for a personal statement. Your answers to the questions here and your personal statement will be a major part of your scholarship application. There will also be links at the bottom of the page for various other University of Alaska scholarships. You can apply for specific UAF scholarships as well as broader University of Alaska scholarships; these scholarships vary in eligibility requirements as well as application materials, so spend some time preparing for them. The deadline for ALL UAF/UAA/UAS/UA scholarship applications is February 15^th(unless otherwise stated) before your first semester at UAF, so it is highly recommended that you fill out this page as soon as possible.

Now that you’ve applied for financial aid, let’s sign up for classes! Go back to the main UAOnline menu and click on the “Student Services & Account Information” link. This is one of the larger pages of UAOnline, so I’ll give you the gist of what each link is for.

“Important Dates and Deadlines” shows you where to find your respective school’s academic calendar. The academic calendar has all of the important dates and deadlines you need to know about, like when the last day for registering for classes is. “Admission” essentially does the same thing that we talked about earlier and helps you apply to be a student at UAF, but we’ve already taken care of that so its only real use is to review the status of your application. “Registration” is one of the more important tabs on this page, as this is where you go to look for classes and apply for them. For the sake of time I’m going to let you search through this on your own (but if you ever need more help, you can always call the Office of Admissions and the Registrar at 1-800-478-1823). The next link is “Student Records”, where you go to view things like your GPA, grades, transcripts, and holds on your account. Always make sure that you have no holds on your account before doing anything else. “Degree Works\Electronic Degree Audit” is an extremely helpful website that lets you see the progress you’ve made toward your degree, as well as answer some important ‘what if?’ questions you might have regarding certain classes or degrees. “Enrollment Verifications” is for students who need to provide proof of enrollment at UAF to some outside company like a scholarship committee or the like. “Official Transcript Request Service” allows you to send out official transcripts to other schools or scholarship committees for a small fee. “Scholarships” is essentially the same as the previously discussed page on the “Financial Aid” page. “Direct Deposit Services” were discussed earlier and can also be done here. “Student Account” is where you go to see what your monetary balance with the university is; if you owe money, this is where you go to pay it. “Contact List” is a huge list of phone numbers and emails for various important departments on campus. “Student Feedback” is a cool way to win free stuff by giving UAF helpful feedback. “Change Confidentiality/Directory Hold Option” will help you change your student records privacy settings; usually this is not recommended because your existence as a UA student will not be acknowledged even to you. If you are an active or reserve military member, “Additional Resources for Military Students” will give you all of the extra information you may need regarding tuition or the like.

Even if you understand everything in this guide, I highly recommend that you take the time to explore UAOnline for yourself. Everything I’ve learned was simply from exploring and seeing what certain areas did. Again, if you have any other questions that weren’t discussed or poorly discussed in this guide, feel free to contact the Office of Admissions and the Registrar at 1-800-478-1823. Hopefully now you have a better understanding of UAOnline and what it is used for. Keep calm and carry on!