Visual Displays of Data

  • Visual Displays of Data
  • 09.17.19

Long-term Enrollment Trends

  • by Michael Le, Research Associate, Humboldt State University

Humboldt State University is one of 23 campuses in the nation’s largest four-year university system, the California State University system. While a formal office of Institutional Research was only founded in 2009, digital data dates back to 1991. Conventional wisdom is to report only the most recent data (e.g., 3 to 5 years). However, to offer the campus easy access to long-term data, a public Tableau workbook was created to show enrollment data from 1991 to present. There are 5 core elements to each tab:

  1. Plain English definition of the metric of interest.
  2. Tree map showing the latest data. This also doubles as a color legend.
  3. Sparkline showing enrollment changes over time.
  4. Line chart of the metric of interest, presented as either the head count or percent of total.
  5. The whole dashboard may be filtered by college or department.

See the dashboard live. 

Dashboard: HSU Fall Enrollment (1991-Present)

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