Course Reports

Course reports let you take a deep dive into a specific course — its enrollment history, who takes it, where students come from, and where they go next.

Generating a Course Report

  1. Navigate to Course Reports (under Reports in the sidebar)
  2. Select a course from the dropdown (e.g., “HIST 1110”)
  3. Click Generate Course Report
  4. Wait for the report to load

Start typing in the course dropdown to search. You can search by subject code (HIST) or course number (1110).

Report Sections

Course reports include several tabs:

Enrollment

  • Enrollment by term (bar or line chart)
  • Section counts
  • Average section size
  • Capacity utilization

Good for:

  • Understanding enrollment trends and needs
  • Identifying overall growth or decline

Course Flows

Shows where students come from before taking this course, and where they go after. This includes a Sankey diagram showing top courses took before or after the course.

Good for:

  • Understanding course sequencing
  • Identifying prerequisite patterns
  • Seeing how courses connect in the curriculum

Course flow diagrams work best for courses that are part of sequences. Isolated electives may not show meaningful flows.

Rollcall

Shows who’s taking the course, including students by major, class level (freshman, sophomore, etc.), and various trends over time

Good for:

  • Understanding your audience
  • Identifying which programs send students
  • Tailoring course content to student backgrounds

DFW (Outcomes)

Shows academic outcomes for this course.

This section requires a password due to sensitive grade data.

What you’ll see:

  • DFW rates by term
  • DFW course abverages compared to instructor DFW averages
  • Grade distribution

Good for:

  • Identifying courses that need support

Reading the Course Flow Diagram

The course flow (Sankey) diagram can be confusing at first glance but it’s actually straigtforward. Here’s how to read it:

  1. Left side — Courses students took before this one
  2. Center — The course you’re analyzing
  3. Right side — Courses students took after this one

The width of each flow shows how many students took that path. Note that only the top 8 or so courses are shown since showing every single class makes the diagram unreadable.

Example reading:

“200 students came from MATH 1215, and 150 of those went on to take PHYS 1310”

Tips for Course Flows

  • Self-referencing flows — If many students come from or go to the same course, they’re retaking it
  • Thin flows — May represent students exploring rather than a structured path
  • Missing flows — Not all students have prior/next data (new students, graduates)

Comparing Sections

Within the Enrollment tab, you can often see section-level detail:

  • By instructor — Compare enrollment across instructors
  • By delivery method — Online vs. in-person
  • By time slot — Morning vs. afternoon sections

Downloading Course Reports

Click Download HTML Report to get a formatted report you can share. This includes all visualizations and tables.

Common Questions

Why is my course not in the list?

The dropdown shows courses with recent enrollment data. If your course is missing:

  • It may not have been offered recently
  • Check if you’re using the correct subject code
  • Contact your CEDAR administrator

Why are the course flows empty?

Course flows require:

  • Sufficient enrollment history
  • Students who take other courses (not just this one)
  • Multiple terms of data

New courses or isolated electives may not have meaningful flow data.

How far back does the data go?

This depends on your institution’s available data. Check with your CEDAR administrator for specifics.

Next Steps

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CEDAR is open source software for higher education analytics.