Credit Momentum Dashboard

The Credit Momentum dashboard shows students’ progress of completing and attempting credits through their first year of enrollment to the end of their fourth academic year. It helps measure how students are progressing toward on-time completion. The disaggregates show which students are or are not gaining academic momentum early so you can determine interventions to help them succeed.

Which Students are Included

The dashboard calculations only include first-time and transfer-in students who attempted at least one credit in their first academic year. It excludes students with “unknown” attendance types.

Full- vs. Part-Time Students

The PDP determines if a student is full-time or part-time based on the total number of credits the student attempted during their first term at your institution. We collect information each academic term to determine the number of credits required.

How It Works

Student Credit Accumulation Threshold

The dashboard calculates each student’s first-year credit accumulation rate (CAR) individually based on their starting term, including summer and intersession terms. It does not calculate it based on your institution’s academic year.

The credit accumulation threshold is 15 credits per year for part-time students and 30 credits per year for full-time students. In other words, a part-time student will need to earn 15 credits in their first year to be counted in the default calculation, but a full-time student will need to earn 30 credits.

You can also view a second threshold of 12 credits for part-time students and 24 for full-time students.

Institution Credit Accumulation Rate

The dashboard calculates your institution’s CAR by dividing the total number of first-year students who met their full or part-time credit accumulation threshold by the total number of first-year students.

Student Credit Completion Ratio

The dashboard calculates each student’s credit completion ratio (CCR) by dividing the total number of credits the student earned in a given year by the total number of credits the student attempted in their first year.

The dashboard calculates each student’s CCR based on their starting term, including summer and intersession terms. It does not calculate it based on your institution’s academic year.

Institution Credit Completion Ratio

The dashboard calculates your institution’s CCR by finding the average of all students’ individual CCRs within a given cohort year. The average includes only first-time and transfer-in students who have completed at least one credit.

Dashboard Sections

Dashboard Specific Filters

From Chart Settings, you can select a credit threshold (15/30 Credit Threshold or 12/24 Credit Threshold) and Academic Year.  These selections will impact all visualizations on the dashboard.

Change between Cohorts Call Out Boxes

These callout boxes display the change in Credit Accumulation Rate (CAR), Credit Completion Ratio (CCR), Average Credits Attempted, and Average Credits Completed between the selected cohorts.

The change is calculated by looking at the associated metric from the second year selected and subtracting the associated metric from the first cohort year selected.

If no data exists for either selected year, the boxes will show as blank.  If the same year is selected for both, the difference will show as 0.

Average Credits Attempted and Completed Year-Over-Year

At the basis of both the CAR and CCR calculations is the average number of credits attempted by a student and the average number of credits completed by a student.

This visualization displays the average credits attempt and average credits earned by students in each cohort year, with a visual display of the full-time and part-time thresholds.

As you select additional academic years, the full-time and part-time thresholds will adjust accordingly (i.e. if you have selected AY 1 and AY 2, the full-time threshold, if 15/30 is selected, will display as 30 credits for part-time and 60 credits for full-time).

Year-Over-Year Trends for CAR/CCR Broken Down by Dimension

This section displays the calculated CAR or CCR across 8 academic years.  As above, you can view the calculation for any combination of Academic Years 1 through 4 by updating your selection in the dashboard-specific filter in Chart Settings.  The grey line indicates the overall percentage.

Year-Over-Year Totals for CAR/CCR

This visualization allows you to see a stacked bar chart displaying percentages or counts for Did not Achieve Threshold and Achieved Threshold if Credit Accumulation Rate is selected, and Credits Attempted but not Completed and Credits Completed if Credit Completion Ratio is selected.

Using the Dashboard

The best way to use this dashboard is by selecting dimensions. Dimensions allow you to view changes in student populations in each cohort across several years. For example, you can see student readiness in math or English by selecting the math prep dimension and then adding the English filter. The dashboard will display the count and percentage of students not ready for either math or English.

If you select a dimension with multiple values, like race/ethnicity, you can use the race/ethnicity filter to remove populations and refine the data.