Another issue you may face with late arrival students is accessibility to the course textbook or other learning materials. Of course, with the growing use of e-books, this may not be a concern. But if you are still using paper versions of textbooks in your course, you may face at least one of two problems. One is that perhaps the book has sold out of the bookstore, at least temporarily, by the time the student has been able to register late. Another is that students who work during the day when the bookstore is open, or who live at a distance from the campus bookstore, may not be able to get there immediately to purchase their learning materials.

One thing you can look into is whether the publisher of your textbook will allow you to upload one or two chapters as Adobe Acrobat pdf files to your class for your students to download in case they don’t yet have their books. Some publishers have such pdf files available to all instructors to adopt their textbook. This, by the way, can also be a lifesaver to even on-time students who must depend on long-distance ordering of their books and can often encounter similar backorders of needed learning materials.