CAUL collates data about university populations from various sources to provide populating data for benchmarking and to inform agreement pricing.
CAUL population data
Member institutions provide data about the number of registered users who are not affiliated with the university via the annual statistics collection process. Access to this data is provided via the university library benchmarking statistics on CAUL’s Tableau dashboards.
See the dataset definitions in the document library for more information on the element Population: Non-institutional Persons.
Additionally, dual-sector institutions (institutions with both vocational education and tertiary programs) provide data about vocational education student populations via the annual data collection process.
Government population data
CAUL ingests and provides access to government data related to university staff and student populations.
There is typically a lag in the availability of this data. For Australia, in the second quarter of each year, the Australian Government Department of Education generally completes publication of population data for the year before last (for example, all data for 2023 will be made available in the second quarter of 2025). Data for Aotearoa New Zealand is typically released earlier. However, there is still a lag.
Once the Australian and Aotearoa government population datasets are complete, CAUL uploads the data to Tableau. In the interim, most Australian data can be downloaded directly from the Australian Government Department of Education. Data for Aotearoa is not published in a consolidated source. However, some population data is available from EducationCounts.govt.nz
FTE data and bands
The CAUL FTE data and bands provide standardised full-time equivalent (FTE) figures used for licensing and pricing digital scholarly content across CAUL Consortium member institutions. This data ensures consistency and fairness in content procurement negotiations.
Learn more about the FTE data and bands.