Statistics

This has been a debacle for both the DeCal Board and the Undergraduate Course Facilitator Training & Resources for many years. We have yet to create a system to track classes with the highest enrollment, the lowest, and the average class size. In the past, the former UCFTR coordinator, Polly Pagenheart, tried to disaggregate the data with enrollment figures based on the enrollment “cap” that facilitators place on their classes posted on the DeCal website. She had mixed results.

Because we can’t accurately say that at the moment we have 4,357 students currently in DeCals, or 5,237, or 3,897, or whatever, we cannot fully lobby for resources successfully. A command of that number will definitely give us credibility, especially in the eyes of the administration. Also, the exact enrollment figures can be regularly released as a kind of press release thing (on campus) and could be used as a means to keep DeCal’s significance in the forefront of everyone’s mind.

One solution that has come up in the past is to use Cal Profiles to search for section number of DeCal classes. When the DeCal facilitators submit their course proposal forms, the Course Control Numbers are included. Therefore, technically we can manually check the hundreds of CCNs through the website. However, this is a laborious task that may not produce the most up-to-date data as Telebears would and not practical given the technology we have today. We had over 140 courses listed in Spring ‘06 alone.

We Need Your Help!

Therefore, we are desperately looking for interested individuals to embark on a data fishing expedition and design a plan to accurately measure student enrollment. This will definitely be a monumental project to undertake.

If this sounds interesting to you, please call 510.642.9127 or e-mail decalprogram@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Updated June 27, 2006.