Student record 2008/09

Version 1.1 Produced 2009-08-12

Identifying reduced returns

There are separate reduced return indicators on the course and instance entities (REDUCEDC and REDUCEDI respectively) and the status of individual fields will be validated with reference to these indicators. The reduced return types must be used consistently. This means:

• Reduced course records can only be linked to reduced instance records of the same type
• Reduced instance records can only be linked to full course records or reduced course records of the same type
• Students that have a mixture of full and reduced instances must have a full set of fields returned on the student element

Validating reduced returns

The approach to validating reduced returns differs from pre-2007/08 collections in two ways:

• The specification of which rules apply for which reduced return types is being made explicit in the coverage statements (and therefore, validation rules) for each field. In previous years, this logic was implicit in the operational documentation and the validation kit operation. From 2007/08 the documentation looks significantly different in this respect, but the underlying logic is essentially the same.
• In previous years the specification of the fields required for each reduced return type was absolute; any additional fields supplied were not validated and were not loaded to the HESA database. From 2007/08 this specification is a minimum; any additional fields supplied will be checked for conformance with the XML Schema Definition (XSD) files and, if valid, will be loaded to the HESA database. Note that files will fail validation if these extra fields are not valid.

Data requirement

As highlighted in the 'Validating reduced returns' section, the fields and entities listed below summarize the minimum data requirement for each type of reduced return. Validation may require the submission of additional data depending on the values submitted in other fields.

Although Student.OWNSTU is not listed in the requirements below as it is an optional field, institutions may wish to populate it for reduced returns to assist in identifying validation output.

Type 01 - Low credit bearing (institutions in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland only)

The low credit bearing reduced return can be used when the FTE of an instance amounts to no more than 10% in the reporting year, even if a student has multiple instances which, in total, have an FTE greater than 10%.

The following elements are included in the low credit bearing reduced return:

Type 02 - FE students at institutions in England or Wales

This reduced return can only be used by institutions in England or Wales for instances that are not funded by LSC or WAG-DELLS and where the guided learning hours associated with the instance are less than 120.

Type 03 - Incoming visiting and exchange students

This reduced return can be used when Instance.EXCHANGE = 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6.

Type 04 - Dormant students

This reduced return can be used when the instance has been dormant for the entire reporting year (Instance.MODE = 63 or 64).

In this type, in the majority of cases, EntryProfile.DOMICILE will be picked up from a previous year's data.