Students

Many times someone will ask: How many online students do you have?

The answer depends on how you (or the person for whom you are gathering the info) defines an "online" student (see the Definitions tab); it also depends on whether you need enrollment numbers or the # of unique students.Most Board of Regents' reports use enrollment.

  • Enrollment (duplicated) = Adds up enrollment in each course section. Therefore, a single student taking 3 courses is counted 3 times (duplicated).

  • Headcount (non-duplicated) = A single student is counted only once, no matter how many course sections in which they are enrolled. Easy to get within a single term; most difficult to get across multiple terms (usually what you will see is each term unique students are simply added and so then duplicated in an annual report).

Advice: Credit Hours Generated may be a better indicator of growth (see tab).

NOTE: Our #s may not match someone else's #. Here's why:

All of our systems in which data is housed (Banner, Peoplesoft, etc) are in constant flux. UWG Online only has access to live (in-flux) data. Therefore, since the # of online students can change minute-to-minute, based on drops, adds, withdraws, admin withdrawals, etc. all the way up to the last day of class and beyond, our #s may not match someone else's #s that were pulled at a different point in time or the #s provided by UWG Institutional Effectiveness & Assessment.

UWG Institutional Effectiveness & Assessment has access to "Census date" data - or data frozen and archived at specific points during each term. This is typically the data used for official accreditation reports, reports to the Board of Regents, and other national clearinghouses (IPEDS).

If you find a large discrepancy or have questions, contact jgubbins@westga.edu

Enrollment Trends and Projections