Visualization of enrollment data using chord diagrams

Abstract

Distance and online universities have usually more flexible academic requirements than brick-and-mortar ones, so students do not uniformly advance within the programme they enroll into as they are supposed to. Furthermore, due to their intrinsic nature, distance students need additional support for deciding which subjects they will take every semester. On the other hand, teachers have usually no idea about what other subjects are taking the students enrolled in their subjects. This paper proposes the use of chord diagrams for visualizing the relationships between pairs of subjects taken by students, with the aim of providing both university managers and students with a clear picture of possible bottlenecks, that is, combinations of subjects that might affect students¿ performance. Chord diagrams can be used to analyze intra-semester data (subjects taken simultaneously) and inter-semester data (sequences of subjects taken by students) and provide a fast overview of what is happening within a given programme at subject level. Furthermore, it is possible to interact with chord diagrams in order to filter and obtain additional subject details if desired.

En este trabajo se propone el uso de diagramas de cuerdas para la visualización de las relaciones entre pares de materias cursadas por los estudiantes, con el objetivo de proporcionar tanto a los directivos y estudiantes universitarios una imagen clara de los posibles cuellos de botella, es decir, combinaciones de materias que puedan afectar rendimiento de los estudiantes.

En aquest treball es proposa l'ús de diagrames de cordes per a la visualització de les relacions entre parells de matèries cursades pels estudiants, amb l'objectiu de proporcionar tant als directius i estudiants universitaris una imatge clara dels possibles colls d'ampolla, és a dir, combinacions de matèries que puguin afectar el rendiment dels estudiants.