Whom Are We Teaching?  

The Office of Assessment and Institutional Effectiveness’s (OAIE) latest data dashboard allows users to see the student composition in each course (or several courses). More specifically, the “Whom Are We Teaching” dashboard shows student majors and levels in one or more courses and includes both historical and present data. In the dashboard tab “Which Courses Do Our Students Take,” data show another perspective. This tab lists different courses that students in each major take. Users can view the courses by student level, home college, and degree program. This dashboard is unique because it offers users the flexibility to apply the data in various ways. For example: 

• Departments can use the historical patterns of student enrollment to set enrollment priorities and allocate and reserve seats for students by major.

• Departments can examine the enrollments of its own major vs. non-major students in the courses to determine if and how the course offerings need to be modified to accommodate growth.

• Instructors can use this dashboard to see student demographics for specific classes to better plan and prepare course material.

• Advisors and departments that provide student support and resources can use the dashboard to understand what courses have larger enrollments to better plan and prepare resources and support for students.  

Although the “Whom Are We Teaching” dashboard is new, some on campus are already utilizing it. Dr. Jessica Stern, Associate Dean for Student Relations for HSS, has used the dashboard to determine how changes to the GE package in Fall 2018, particularly the mandate to allow unlimited double-counting, changed the composition of the college’s GE classrooms. She shared, “Using this dashboard, I am able to track whether, for example, students who have a major requirement in the Introduction to Social Sciences GE area are now less likely to explore other social sciences through general education.” Dr. Stern also used the "Which Courses Do Our Students Take?" tab to see how likely students in a specific major are to explore other disciplines. She stated, “Having visibility on which majors are congregating in which courses also gives me ideas about where to recruit minors (Communications majors sure seem to gravitate towards American Studies classes!) and consider interdisciplinary programs.” 

CSUF’s “Whom Are We Teaching” dashboard can only be accessed by internal users. To access the dashboard, please log into Tableau using your campus username and password. For more information, please visit the OAIE website or contact the OAIE via email.