Dept Dashboard
A current-term snapshot of department course activity
The Dept Dashboard gives a quick read on current-term course activity. Select a department and term, then click Gather Data. The goal is to make visible what is different this term, with enough historical context to decide what deserves a closer look.
The dashboard is about this term’s course activity — who is in your sections, how enrollment compares to prior years, and what’s changed. For multi-year program trends — declared majors, degrees awarded, credit hour history, DFW rates — use Dept Trends.
Getting started
Select Campus, Department, and Term, then click Gather Data. A progress bar with an estimated load time appears while data is assembling.
Headcount
Dashboard program headcount. Dashboard headline headcounts describe departmental major and second-major program records in the selected term; course activity is counted separately.
Exclusions. Students merely taking departmental courses without a matching program record are not part of these headcounts.
- A campus change can alter course activity without changing the headline program count.
The cards show undergraduate and graduate program counts with the comparison terms labeled on the display. Use the course activity sections below for the students taking departmental courses.
Enrollment above and below historical average
Two side-by-side lists compare each course’s current enrollment to its own historical average for the same term type (fall vs. fall, spring vs. spring). Only courses with at least two prior same-season offerings appear.
↑ Above average — courses running higher than their historical norm. Each row shows current enrollment and the absolute and percentage difference: +8 (+22%) vs avg 36 means 44 enrolled, historical average was 36.
↓ Below average — courses running lower than their historical norm, same format.
These panels are most useful for spotting surprises — not courses you already know are tracking low.
New courses and missing courses
New this term — courses whose number has never appeared in the department’s section history, or that are returning after a long absence. For topics courses (T: prefix), each distinct title counts as new even if the course number has run before. Topics rows also show a slot average — the average enrollment across all prior offerings under that course number — so you can judge whether the topic is drawing normally.
Missing vs. two years ago — courses that ran in this same term type two years ago but are not scheduled this term. Each row shows the course’s recent enrollment history (last 1–3 prior offerings with counts). Missing courses may be worth checking when they are part of a regular sequence or expected rotation.
Recent enrollment history is shown as counts first, then terms: 28, 31, 25 (Fa23, Sp24, Fa24).
Recurring topics courses
Topics courses (T: prefix) running this term that have been offered at least twice before under the same course number. Shows current enrollment alongside recent prior offerings. Useful for identifying which rotating topics draw consistently and might warrant a permanent course number.
Drop volume and rate context
The Early and Late Drop Watch lists use Regstats’ count screen. A course appears when its drop count is unusually high relative to strictly earlier offerings of the same course, delivery campus, college, season, and part of term, under the dashboard threshold profile. The current and historical rates appear beside the counts to show whether higher volume also reflects a higher chance of dropping.
Early drops — DR/DD registration-status rows before the grade-consequence deadline. They are registration churn, not academic outcomes. Higher early drop rates may reflect scheduling conflicts, course-fit issues, unclear expectations, or normal registration churn.
Late drops — DG/DW registration-status rows after the grade-consequence deadline. They supply the withdrawal outcome used by CEDAR’s DFW policy unless the record is an audit. Elevated late drop rates are a prompt to look more carefully at course difficulty, pacing, section context, and student support conditions.
Early-drop rate divides DR/DD by the class-list first-day proxy (still registered plus all drops). Late-drop rate divides DW/DG by reconstructed census enrollment (still registered plus late drops). The percentage-point difference compares the selected term with the mean of usable prior offering rates. Rates provide context and do not determine which courses enter these count-selected lists.
Where your majors also study / Who minors here
Two side-by-side donuts:
Where your majors also study — minors declared by currently enrolled students whose home major is in this department. Shows where your students are investing time outside your courses — useful for identifying cross-listing opportunities, interdisciplinary partnerships, or advising coordination with high-overlap departments.
Who minors here — home majors of students who have declared a minor in this department. Surfaces which programs send students here as a secondary interest, useful for identifying curricular partners and advising outreach targets.
Both reflect the current term’s declared programs.
Credit hours by level
A multi-year trendline of student credit hours (SCH) generated by the department’s sections, broken out by course level (lower division, upper division, graduate). The shared definition below states which credits count; for detailed analysis, see Credit Hours in Dept Trends.
Passing-outcome student credit hours. Dept Trends and dashboard credit-hour histories sum course credits attached to ordinary passing outcomes in the selected scope.
Exclusions. Nonpassing, missing, and audit outcomes are excluded. This helper uses passing_grades, the ordinary-grade portion of the DFW pass set, without passing retake variants.
- This is not all attempted instructional workload or an official earned-credit transcript total.
Student composition
Donut charts and data tables showing the major and class-standing breakdown for students currently enrolled in the department’s lower- and upper-division sections. Answers: what fraction of the students in your courses are your own majors, and what year are they? This can provide context for curriculum design, prerequisite policy, and advising conversations.
Where to go next
The dashboard is a current-term snapshot. For historical analysis, there are dedicated tools for each of these questions:
| Question | Where to look |
|---|---|
| How many declared majors do we have? How has that changed over five years? | Dept Trends → Headcount |
| What is our credit hour production history? Who are our students by major? | Dept Trends → Credit Hours |
| How have degrees awarded changed over time? | Dept Trends → Degrees |
| How has the mix of new entrants (freshman, transfer, continuing) shifted? | Dept Trends → Demographics |
| How do DFW rates compare across instructors? | Dept Trends → DFW (password required) |
| How has enrollment trended for a specific course over many years? | Course Dynamics |