TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preamble
The Course popularity report provides detailed student preference data and is extremely useful in determining which classes, and the number of classes, should be allowed to run.
Report heading explanations
Course: Course code.
Subject: Course subject name.
Year: The year level of the course. For multi-year datasets, this will be the year level that displays first in the Elective data > Courses > Years field.
#C: The number of classes, as entered in Elective data > Courses > #C field.
Interest/ Interest per class: Shows the sum of weighted student preferences, where each subsequent preference counts for 80% of the previous preference level. A course with many requests may have low interest if a lot of requests are 'low value'. There may be two courses of equal number of preferences, yet the spread of preferences levels may be such that one course has far lower level preferences than the other.
S/C: Student to class ratio, showing the average number of students per class. This is the number of students who have selected this course in their main preferences (not their fallback preferences), divided by the number of classes.
Pref 1, 2, 3....: Each column shows the number of students who selected the course, at that preference level.
Total (main): Total number of students who selected the course as a main preference.
Total (all): Total number of students who selected the course as a both main preference and as a reserve.
View student names
Double click on any Pref value to see the list of students the value represents. Viewing the list of students who requested the course may contribute to the decision making process.
Reserve courses
Make note of which courses have a high number of first reserve preferences. You may consider running an extra class of these courses, as E10 will look to give students their reserve preferences where not able to grant a main preference. It can be worth checking that there are places available in these classes, and even experimenting running an extra of these courses in different versions of line generation. One of the benefits of E10's line generation tool is that it is easy to experiment - try changing the number of classes running and see whether there is a benefit to running the extra classes.
Further considerations
Consideration on dropping or running courses should not be solely made on the number of preferences expressed so much as the student Interest, as very high interest may encourage you to run a course with low number of preferences, and conversely low interest may encourage you to consider dropping a course despite a higher number of preferences for it compared to other subjects.
A key focus is to examine low values for 'interest per class'. These may not be worth running, despite the raw numbers of requests. This table is based on 'requests' so is a guide only. Requests may not actually be granted due to line clashes or class sizes. The best way to examine which class to consider 'not running' is Dropped classes in the View lines screen, which shows the 'actual' interest, not theoretical. This table is just a quick guide for what can perhaps be confidently cut, before even generating lines.
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