Chaffey College | Curriculum Overlap & Stackable Pathway Explorer

A 100% client-side Single-Page Web Application (SPA) built for Higher Education Institutional Research and Curriculum Analytics at Chaffey College.

Overview

This application ingests and normalizes the curriculum catalog export (Program Summary.csv) to analyze course overlaps across academic programs, group related credentials into Program Families, and identify Stackable Certificates (such as 100% embedded milestones) on the pathway toward an Associate Degree.

Key Analytical Features

1. Cartesian Product Deduplication Pipeline:

   • Program Summary.csv is flattened at the grain of [Program Entity Title] × [Program Learning Outcome (PLO)] × [Course Item].
   • The engine filters by selected lifecycle statuses (Active by default), excludes structural catalog header rows (where Course Number is empty), and deduplicates course requirements using the composite key: [Program Entity Title] + [Subject Code] + [Course Number].

2. Stackable Family & Overlap Engine:

   • Directional Stackable Overlap %: $\frac{|S_D \cap S_C|}{|S_C|} \times 100$ (measures the percentage of a Certificate's required courses that are embedded inside a parent Associate Degree).
   • Overlapping Units %: $\frac{\sum \text{Min Units}(S_D \cap S_C)}{\sum \text{Min Units}(S_C)} \times 100$.
   • Degree Completion Contribution %: $\frac{|S_D \cap S_C|}{|S_D|} \times 100$ (measures how much of the Associate Degree is completed by earning the certificate milestone first).
   • Jaccard Bidirectional Similarity %: $\frac{|S_D \cap S_C|}{|S_D \cup S_C|} \times 100$.

3. Three Interactive Visualization Views:

   • Stackable Family Explorer: Expandable card deck centered on Associate Degrees, displaying qualifying Certificate badges and an interactive Course Gap Checklist (Embedded/Satisfied Courses, Remaining Certificate Courses Needed, and Remaining Degree Courses).
   • Interactive Network Cluster Graph (vis-network): Force-directed node-link graph with nodes sized by total units and edges scaled by overlap percentage, paired with a Cluster Node Inspector.
   • Overlap Crosswalk Matrix: Sticky-header 2D heatmap grid comparing Degrees (rows) and Certificates (columns).

4. Client-Side Reporting & Exports:

   • Export Crosswalk (CSV): Tabular export of all filtered Degree–Certificate pairs, shared course lists, and gap courses.
   • Export Family Report (PDF): Branded Executive Summary PDF report powered by html2pdf.js.