04/04 - July

Dear Colleagues

2003/04 HESA STUDENT RECORD COLLECTION (REF: C03011)

This Circular contains links to documents and further guidance that are required for the C03011 data collection. Institutions should therefore review the information contained in the following documents:

Timescales for the Collection
Validation Kit
COMMIT Stage Validation Rules
Check Documentation Template
HESA Data Collection System Help

Sections 1 to 4 below contain other useful information pertaining to this data collection.

1. Revisions to the 2003/04 Coding Manual

Institutions have previously been advised of changes to the following fields: TOTALTS, DOMICILE, NATION, SBJQA1, NOTACT and FUNDCOMP. Institutions are reminded to review these changes which are listed in the coding manual history zone.

2. Data Quality

Analysis has shown a number of areas where coding practice is compromising data quality. The following data quality issues are therefore brought to your attention.

DOMICILE

There are a significant number of EU domiciled students who are recorded as UK domiciled. Institutions are reminded that the DOMICILE field should reflect the student's permanent or home address prior to entry to the programme of study.

POSTCODE

Analysis of the distribution of postcodes has shown that there is some evidence that the term-time address of students is being used to populate the POSTCODE field. Institutions are reminded that the postcode should also record the student's permanent or home address prior to entry to the programme of study.

QUALAIM and TTCID

Analysis of PGCE and Certificate of Education students training to teach at FE level shows that QUALAIM and TTCID are not being coded correctly. A large proportion of these students have been coded '08' Postgraduate diploma or certificate (not PGCE) not mainly by research in QUALAIM. Institutions should ensure that PGCE students are coded '12' or '13' in QUALAIM. Furthermore, a large proportion of these students have been coded '0' Not a teacher training course in TTCID. Institutions should ensure that students on initial teacher training courses that do not lead to qualified teacher status are coded '2' in TTCID.

QUALENT2

Code '28' Professional qualifications in QUALENT2 should only be used for those qualifications that are generally accepted to be at HE level. Therefore, where a qualification has undergone QCA accreditation, whether or not it can be coded 28 would depend on if it had been judged to be at HE level by the QCA. Where qualifications have not undergone QCA accreditation, institutions will have to use their academic judgement as to whether or not the qualification is at HE level.

SURNAME, FNAMES and SNAME16

Some names being returned in SURNAME, FNAMES and SNAME16 are incorrect. Words such as 'DR', 'MRS', 'AND', 'PREVIOUSLY', 'NEE' and 'NOT APPLICABLE' are being included in these fields. Institutions should ensure that name data is reported accurately as it is important for the performance indicators (PIs) and other analysis.

QUAL1/2

In some cases qualifications obtained are being returned twice. For example, where a course finishes in September of a given year, the qualification obtained is being returned in a record that covers activity up until 31 July of that year and then again in a record that covers activity in the following year. Where a course finishes within a given reporting period, the qualification obtained should be reported in that reporting period and not earlier. In any event the same qualification obtained should not be returned more than once.

STULOAD

There are large numbers of active records (MODE not 63 or 64) with zero FTE, which cannot be explained by the method of returning FTE for non-standard academic years. As a result, a new validation rule has been introduced to STULOAD as follows: If MODE=01, 02 or 31 and TYPEYR=1 then this field should not be 000.0. The rule is set at the level of a warning because TYPEYR is at the course level and STULOAD at the student level.

MSTUFEE

Code '07' Fee waiver under government unemployed students scheme is not being used by institutions as much as would be expected. Institutions should ensure that this code is returned where appropriate. Furthermore for institutions in England, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) advise that failure to return this code where appropriate may, in future, affect funding allocations.

TYPEYR

Large numbers of students have TYPEYR recorded incorrectly, or are changing from non-standard to standard academic years between HESA reporting periods. Institutions are reminded that any student on a full-year course will be on a non-standard academic year, and therefore it is expected that most masters and doctoral students will be returned with a TYPEYR other than 1. In general students should not change between non-standard and standard academic years; the only exception being where the course includes a partial year that starts and completes within one HESA reporting period. An example of such as case would be a student on an 18 month masters programme starting in October, that would be recorded as TYPEYR=2 in the first HESA return and TYPEYR=1 in the second.

JACS

Analysis of the 2002/03 dataset has shown that there are cases where HESACODE was returned for continuing students. Institutions are requested to revisit subject coding for continuing students to ensure that any remaining HESACODE is mapped to JACS.

3. Further Guidance

QUALAIM

Code '15' Post Registration health and social care courses

Code '15' Post Registration health and social care courses should be returned for post registration health and social care students taking undergraduate continuing professional updating modules. Post registration health and social care students studying for undergraduate qualifications should be coded to the appropriate code in QUALAIM and not to code 15. For example, a post registration health and social care student studying for a first degree should be coded '21' First degree, rather than 15. Validation rules have been relaxed to allow regulatory body information to be returned for these post registration students.

Social work courses

HESA has been advised by the Department of Health that courses leading to eligibility to register to practice with a social care statutory regulatory body will not necessarily be coded '18' or '33' in the QUALAIM field. Institutions offering courses leading to eligibility to register to practice with a social care statutory regulatory body should return regulatory body information in REGBODY and DHREGREF irrespective of the code used in the QUALAIM field.

The HEFCE HESES re-creation facility

HEFCE is to make available, for the purposes of data quality, a web based facility designed to allow institutions to re-create the Higher Education Students Early Statistics Survey 2003-04 (HESES03) from their 2003-04 HESA Student Record. Use of this facility, prior to submission of the HESA return, is encouraged by both HESA and HEFCE as an essential element of all English institutions' data quality processes. This is a separate utility to the HESA data collection system and all enquires regarding the re-creation facility should be made to HEFCE.

4. Data Collection

Access codes

Access codes are issued to record contacts at institutions once the data collection system for a given return opens. Record contacts unable to locate the access code should contact Institutional Liaison. It is the responsibility of the record contact at the institution to issue the access code to other colleagues who are involved in submitting data to HESA. For security reasons HESA will not issue access codes to anyone other than the record contact.

Reports and re-submission of data

Institutions are required to review the reports that are produced following a successful COMMIT transaction (e.g. the check documentation) and to re-submit data during the appropriate period in order to address queries.

Sign-off slip

The sign-off slip will be produced when the return has been set to CREDIBLE and not at the COMMIT stage as in previous years.

Who to Contact During Data Collection

Institutions should consider Institutional Liaison as a general first point of contact and in addition the team also cover specific areas as indicated below:

If you have any queries on the issues raised in this Circular please contact the Agency’s Institutional Liaison team (Marietta Nkweta, Janet Earl or Clara Elcocks) at HESA or email (liaison@hesa.ac.uk).

Yours sincerely

C. Jane Wild
Director of Operations