[Unistats] Full Year Enrolment Statistics

[Peter Haines]

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Hi all,

I'm wondering how your institution is intending to report full year enrolment/EFTSU statistics now that we have a second submission Enrolment file.  In particular, how you would deal with students who change details from one semester to the next.

As an example, we have a student who has changed their E380 value from 22 (fee-paying overseas) in semester 1, 2001 to 42 (RTS) in semester 2, 2001 (they gained permanent residency).  If we were to count the number of student/course enrolments over the entire year, by funding type, we double count this student (once as FPOS and once as RTS).  Alternatively, if we report as at a point in time (e.g. 31 March or 31 August) we fail to report them against one of the categories.  (DETYA intend to report full-year enrolments based on the student's characteristics as at 31 August.  Perhaps DETYA can expand on their intended treatment?)  If we report both Enrolments and EFTSU based on the characteristics of the student at a point in time, the EFTSU information for one of the funding types is artificially increased and the other is lost.

A compromise might be to report enrolments and EFTSU separately.  The enrolments could be reported as at 31 March, 31 August, or both.  The EFTSU could be reported separately from the enrolments, and be for the whole year because EFTSU would automatically be apportioned between funding type and any other required student characteristics that might change.  This seems to be the better solution, because it separates the point-in-time type concept of enrolments from the time-period concept of EFTSU.  However, the downside is that it then loses the comparison between enrolments and EFTSU.

I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this matter.  I'm happy to compile the individual responses into a single reference document if that is considered useful.

Cheers

Peter Haines
Senior Information Analyst
Institutional Research Unit
ph: 02 4921 6556     fax: 02 4921 6943 
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/unistats/

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