What CEDAR Counts
CEDAR is built from snapshots of institutional source data. Most numbers are counts of rows or unique people after CEDAR applies a clear scope: term, campus, department, course, program, status, and sometimes grade outcome. The explanations below are read directly from the shared versioned definition records, also used by the app.
CEDAR is for exploration, planning, and methodological transparency. It is not a census-freeze or official-reporting system unless your institution has built a separate certified process around it.
Enrollment Counts
DESR enrollment and available seats. Section enrollment and available seats describe the retained DESR snapshot; crosslist handling depends on the displayed grouping.
Exclusions. Filters and home/crosslist handling determine which sections contribute; check the local section scope.
- Current registration and post-term history are different lifecycle snapshots and should not be treated as comparable census freezes.
Class-list registered enrollment. Distinct students still registered in the selected class-list group when the extract was pulled; only RE, RS, and RR statuses count.
Exclusions. Waitlists and all drops are excluded from registered enrollment.
- This is a snapshot, not a frozen census count. It describes final enrollment only after the term is complete.
Reconstructed census enrollment. Class-list registered enrollment plus late drops (DG/DW) estimates the population that stayed beyond the early-drop period.
Exclusions. Early drops (DR/DD) and waitlists are excluded.
- No census-frozen count exists in the source. This reconstruction does not recover registration dates or actual peak occupancy.
Registration Status
Registered statuses are RE/RS/RR, waitlists are WL, early drops are DR/DD, and late drops are DG/DW. The records above and below state how each measure uses these categories. Early drops describe registration churn, not DFW outcomes.
Grade Outcomes
Course DFW / nonpassing rate. The share of classified course attempts that did not pass. By default only A+ through C, CR, and passing retake equivalents pass; non-audit late drops count as DFW. AUD is excluded even with late-drop status. Each term's attempt counts separately, even when a section number (CRN) is reused.
Exclusions. AUD is excluded from numerator and denominator regardless of registration status, including DG/DW. Early drops never count as DFW. Blank/NA grades are excluded unless late-drop status supplies the withdrawal outcome.
- A visible opt-in control may also count C- and D-range work as passing; it does not make P or S pass.
- Rates from versions before 2.0.0 may differ because reused section numbers could suppress later-term attempts.
- Before 3.0.0, some outcome paths counted late-drop AUD as DFW. Saved outcomes must be rebuilt under the corrected policy; older files are rejected rather than silently reused.
Headcount
Program headcount. Unique students with matching Academic Studies program records in each term. Combined major, minor, and concentration filters require membership in the same term.
Exclusions. Records outside the institutional and program filters are excluded. Active program filters also exclude missing student IDs or terms. Combined filters display the primary selected program type (major, then minor, then concentration); secondary filters restrict membership. Multiple groups are not additive unique headcounts.
- Department is a program-row filter. Leave Department unselected when combining programs from different departments.
- Same-term membership means the declarations appear in the same Academic Studies term; it does not establish exact dates of overlap within that term.
- This is an exploratory program-record count, not a certified institutional 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.
Credit Hours
Attempted student credit hours. Dept Trends and dashboard credit-hour histories sum the course credits of every enrollment still registered (RE, RS, RR) in the selected scope, whatever its grade, so a term has credit hours as soon as it has registrations.
Exclusions. Audits, waitlists, and every drop status are excluded. Banner zeroes credits on late drops (DG, DW), so excluding them does not change a settled term.
- An in-progress term counts students who may still withdraw, so its credit hours fall slightly by the time the term closes.
- Version 1.0.0 counted only passing grades (earned hours). Attempted hours run about 12-13% higher for a graded term, so 2.0.0 figures are not comparable to figures exported under 1.0.0.
Retention And Persistence
Course retention and next-term persistence. Among students who took a course, returning means registered enrollment anywhere at UNM in the next fall or spring, or a degree awarded in between. The outcome-split persistence table and the retention trend use this one definition.
Exclusions. Future follow-up is missing, not zero. Persistence outcomes come from the canonical classifier; anchors with no classifiable outcome (blank grade, audit) are excluded.
- This is a course cohort, not the first-time degree-seeking cohort used for official institutional retention reporting.
- Differences between outcome groups do not establish that a course caused departure.
- Pathways Roadblocks uses its own next-term rule (registered or late-drop records); see its definition.
Pathways Roadblocks uses a different return rule and record grain; see its definition. Do not assume the two views have identical cohorts or denominators.
Waitlists
Class-list waitlist demand. Waitlists, Regstats, and the Department Dashboard count distinct WL students after removing anyone already registered in the same course-title, term, delivery-campus, college, and part-of-term scope.
Exclusions. Students with matching RE/RS/RR registered rows, duplicate waitlist rows within that group, and courses on the shared excluded-course list.
- Historical pulls can retain only students still waitlisted when the term closed, so a small past-term count is not evidence that earlier demand was small.
- Waiting is evidence of expressed interest, not proof that a new section will fill.
- Versions before 2.0.0 did not govern Regstats or the Department Dashboard, which used DESR section-snapshot waitlist counts.
Courses, Crosslists, And Topics
CEDAR tries to preserve meaningful course identity:
- Crosslisted sections may be compressed or split depending on the tab.
- Combined lecture/lab courses with a
Csuffix are counted as one course when the question is course offerings rather than CRN count. - Topics courses can share a course number while having different titles; views that need course identity keep the title so distinct topics are not collapsed.
When a table shows repeated-looking rows, check whether the row is separated by campus, course title, section, part of term, crosslist status, or instructor.
Reading A Rate
For any percentage, ask three questions:
- What is the numerator?
- What is the denominator?
- Which rows were excluded before the rate was computed?
CEDAR’s in-app blue explain boxes answer those questions near complex tables. This page gives the shared vocabulary; the local table note gives the exact scope for that view.