Knowing more about who makes up your audience can make a big difference to how you deliver content. At UTS, the subject dashboard is a useful tool that allows subject coordinators to access an abundance of important information about their student cohorts.
The subject dashboard is designed to give subject coordinators up to date data on student (infographics), pathways, enrolled and withdrawn, degrees they are enrolled in, age groups, English backgrounds etc.
In this post, Jeremy Lindeck and Amara Atif show how they have benefited from using the dashboard in their subjects.
Jeremy Lindeck
Using the subject dashboard
I mainly use the dashboard for the subject Communication for IT Professionals. This subject has around 600 students in Autumn and around 200 in Spring. The subject aims to introduce IT students to the skills they will need at University such as referencing, evaluating sources, academic writing, and presentation skills. It also gives students an introduction to the design process and ethics in technology. This is achieved through working on an ‘Engineers Without Borders’ project. Students work in groups to find a solution to a real engineering or IT challenge faced by Indigenous communities in Far North Queensland.
I start off looking at the basis of admission. This allows me to build a rough picture of the cohort. The makeup of the cohort is very different in that students in Autumn are mainly recent school leavers, while in Spring there is a much greater proportion of international students. Up until last year, the majority of students in spring came from Insearch. However, this number went down significantly in 2021. I look at the ratio of male and female students as it is a long standing goal to attract more women to IT. Finally, I take a look at the marks to see if there are any noticeable trends.
Benefits of the subject dashboard
When I first took over this subject, the dashboard showed me that I was designing for two very different cohorts and that it was important that the materials were designed to meet the needs of both groups. In particular, it became apparent that students in the Spring session needed more scaffolding as often their language skills were less proficient. They may also need help adjusting to life in an Australian university. Dashboard trends also allowed me to predict the number of students so I could start employing tutors earlier according to needs. Finally, as the subject changed completely from previous versions, it was necessary to compare marks to ensure the subject wasn’t becoming too easy or difficult.
Amara Atif
Using the subject dashboard
I am a new user of the subject dashboard tool. I started using it this session, (Autumn 2022) for a postgraduate first-year subject with 100 enrolments. This subject is Enabling Enterprise Information Systems. I am a new coordinator for this subject, so I was interested in learning more about my students such as how many were commencing, continuing, and repeat students, which pathways they were coming from, their basis of admission, background (domestic, international, English as first language or as additional language), age, gender and the subject past results. Therefore, exploring the data and information visualisations available in the ‘Summary’ and ‘Enrolment Flow’ tabs in my subject dashboard helped me be aware of subject enrolment trends and the size and diversity of my student cohort.
Benefits of the subject dashboard
As subject coordinators, we usually make assumptions about our students and the knowledge they bring with them. I found this subject dashboard very helpful in sense-making and reflection. I can interpret the data and ask myself questions about the subject and what pedagogical actions or interventions I can take to help and support my students better. I have more international students for this particular subject, so I think more about how I can help them understand the subject better. Looking at the current data for this subject, I have already made some changes in my subject design and classroom strategies. As the session is not over yet, I can measure the impact towards the end of the session and see how understanding my students better has helped me change my teaching practice. This can lead to evaluating my teaching practice via the ‘Past Results’ tab in my subject dashboard, where I can see the pass percentage, average score of students, and information visualisation to compare grades with the previous offerings.
Further resources
- For more information on the subject dashboard, please visit the UTS Data Hub. Support is available through IT help – Data Analytics and AI team.
- Video for academics on using the subject dashboard.
- All subject coordinators have access to the subject dashboard on the VPN site.
- Please contact Kathy.Egea@uts.edu.au for more support.