Mapping Student Data

On May 11th, we released a new version of our enrollment map and a map showing our students studying abroad. This release was developed because we purchased a mapping package from the provider of our charting package to replace Google maps. The big change this mapping software allowed was easily rendering Minnesota Counties, intensity mapping based upon numeric input and easy mouse-over popup showing data per location (e.g. How many students come from Hennepin county). The end result was a more usable map.

Enrollment Mapped by Home Location
Not only did the mapping tool change for this report, but we also changed how we report the data. Since the Minnesota county data was always skewed towards the largest counties, we decided to normalize the data by finding the ratio of students per total residents in each location. Since our enrollment varies by year, we utilized the census estimiates site to find the estimated population of each county, state and country per year, to match. The end result shows the impact of each institution on the local community as opposed to the raw numbers.

Twin Cities - Fall 2010 Enrollment

Duluth - Fall 2010 Enrollment

Morris - Fall 2010 Enrollment

As you can see in the images above, the coordinate counties near the coordinate campuses are impacted more strongly that the metro area, while the Twin Cities students impacts the metro area. Without normalizing the data, Hennepin and Ramsey county dominate the maps, as they are the two largest counties in the state, containing almost 2/5 of the state population.

University of Minnesota: Students Studying Abroad
This map below shows the number of University students participating in study programs in each country for a given Academic Year and Campus. Since we aren't as concerned about the population, the intensity map shows the raw data.

Twin Cities - Students Abroad 2009-10