18 July 2019
M Whytock
By em
ail: [FYI request #10404 email]
Dear M Whytock
Official information request for information related to the Faculty of
Engineering and Computer Science
I refer to your official information request dated 28 May 2019:
1. May I please have a breakdown of all students enrolled in a degree run by the Faculty
of Engineering (interested primarily in BEng(Hons) and BSc). May I please have total
student numbers, and student numbers broken down by degree and major (e.g. 2017
1000 students total, 600 doing a BEng in software, 300 doing a BSc in CompSci, etcetc).
Please find the requested information attached.
2. May I also have a grade distribution breakdown for papers ENGR121 and ENGR122 for
the history of the courses e.g. ENGR121 2017 A+ 5, A 3, A- 10.... 2016 A+ 2, A 7, A- 4....
Please find the requested information attached. Please note, the University can only
provide grade distribution data that is held in a system called Banner. Therefore, we have
provided all requested information that is held in Banner which goes back until 2014.
3. I would also like to know for the numbers of failing grades, the number of students who
retook the paper, number of students who drop out of uni directly after failing, and
number of students who switch majors/degrees directly after failing the paper (for each
year in history pf the paper). e.g ENGR121 2017 total failing grades: 25, number of
retakers: 17, number of uni dropouts: 2, number of major/degree switchers: 6
The number of students who enrolled in ENGR121 and 122 who received a failing grade can
be found in the attached information. The remaining information requested cannot be
provided by the University. The information you are seeking in this case is not held by the
University but would need to be created in order to respond to your request. For the
University to provide this information, highly skilled staff would be required to undergo
complex work writing scripts and performing multiple separate analyses. I am therefore
refusing this portion of your request under section 18(g) of the Official Information Act
1982 (the Act) as the University does not hold any official information relevant to this
request.
4. May I also please have any data you have pertaining to the dropout rates of
ENGR121/ENGR122 for the history of the courses - numbers of students who were
enrolled and dropped out of the paper, a distribution of what stage of the course they
dropped out in (maybe timeline can be week 0-2, week2-6, week6+. I would also like to
know the number of students who after dropping ENGR121 or 122 switch
degrees/majors or drop out of uni directly after dropping out of the course. This would
be for each year in the history of the course too. e.g ENGR121 2017 no. of course drops:
19, weeks0-2:12, weeks 2-6: 5, week 6+: 2, no of uni dropouts: 3, no of major switches:
13)
The number of students who enrolled in ENGR121 and 122 that either withdrew from the
course, or later dropped out of the course, can be found in the attached information. The
remaining information requested cannot be provided by the University. As stated
previously, the information you are seeking in this case is not held by the University but
would need to be created in order to respond to your request. I am therefore refusing this
portion of your request under section 18(g) of the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act)
as the University does not hold any official information relevant to this request.
5. In addition, (I know this may not be possible due to privacy reasons) do you have any
statistics as to what courses people switch into after dropping these courses e.g. 50% of
people who drop ENGR121 will switch into MATH151, or can you provide any data that
would allow me to analyse and extract this kind of statistics.”
The information requested cannot be provided by the University. As stated previously, the
information you are seeking in this case is not held by the University but would need to be
created in order to respond to your request. I am therefore refusing this portion of your
request under section 18(g) of the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act) as the University
does not hold any official information relevant to this request.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision.
Information
about
how
to
make
a
complaint
is
available
at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact me at
[email address] or 04 463 5249.
Yours sincerely
Georgia Tawharu
Adviser, Information Access and Copyright
