11/01 - February

Dear Colleague

2009/10 HESA Destinations of Leavers from HE (DLHE) Data Collection (Ref C09018)

This Circular contains links to documents and further guidance that are required for the C09018 data collection. Institutions are therefore requested to review the information contained in the following documents:

C09018 Methodology
Timescales for data collection
Check documentation (coming soon)
Validation kit
HESA data collection system help

Changes to the DLHE Record for 2009/10

Institutions should ensure that they refer to the most recent version of the C09018 Coding manual. Institutions have previously been advised of all changes to the coding manual and these are also listed in C09018 Revision history and C09018 Release notes.

Institutions are further reminded of the target response rates for the DLHE survey, namely:

80% for UK-domiciled (i.e. home) leavers who previously studied full-time;
70% for UK-domiciled leavers who studied part-time;
50% for all other EU students;
80% for Research Council funded students.

All institutions are expected to meet, or exceed, these thresholds for the 2009/10 survey. The funding bodies have indicated that they are very concerned that some institutions are consistently falling significantly below this requirement. In particular HEFCE wrote to all institutions on the 23 December 2009 reminding them of their obligations in respect of response rates. Response rates to the 2009/10 DLHE were significantly higher than in previous years, in particular the range of response rates narrowed significantly between 2008/09 and 2009/10. HEFCE will continue to monitor response rates by institution and may still take action where institutions consistently fail to meet the target response rates.

Salary data

HEFCE have indicated that they intend to publish salary information by institution and subject on the Unistats website from summer 2011 (see HEFCE circular letter 03/2011). Institutions are encouraged to carefully check salary data to ensure it is both accurate and as complete as possible, as with other data on the Unistats site institutions will not be given an opportunity to correct data prior to publication.

Using CASCOT to code SIC2007

When using the CASCOT coding tool to code to SIC2007 in Field 65 a valid code from the Standard Industrial Classification for DLHE SIC2007-4Digit-Untuned should be chosen, i.e. from the CASCOT menu choose SIC2007-4Digit-Untuned and not the (SIC(DLHE)) version of SIC.

Access and PIN codes

To submit C09018 DHLE Record data to the HESA Data Collection System (known as "Aardvark") users require an Access and PIN code. These codes allow users to create new accounts and/or add permissions to existing accounts. The PIN code will be distributed by letter a few days in advance of the Access codes that will continue to be distributed by email. Both the Access code emails and the PIN letters are sent to the nominated DHLE record contact at institutions. It is imperative that any changes to contact details are notified to HESA immediately by contacting Institutional Liaison.

For assistance with registering for the data collection system please view the Registration help guide.

Key deadlines

The timetable for submission remains as operated in previous years. The data collection system will open at the beginning of March. Institutions are reminded of the need to start interacting with the data collection system early, in order to allow sufficient time for the necessary data quality checking.

Institutions are required to send complete data that has passed first stage validation to HESA by 31 March 2011 and complete data that has passed COMMIT stage validation to HESA by 8 April 2011.

The data quality checking period is 8 April to 6 May 2011. During this time institutions are required to review the management information reports generated to assess data quality and resubmit data in order to resolve any data quality issues.

In order to meet obligations for hand-over of data to its statutory customers, HESA needs to receive all data files by 6 May 2011; this is also the date by which HESA requires the return to be verified (signed-off) by the Head or Acting Head of the institution.

Check documentation

Institutions are reminded that the data quality checking of submitted data is a shared responsibility of both institutions and HESA. Institutions are therefore advised to ensure that sufficient time is spent examining the check documentation produced through a successful commit to check that errors have not been introduced which would cause any degradation to data quality. As institutions are in a better position than HESA to recognise more detailed anomalies within their data, using local knowledge of the intricacies of their own institutions, they are strongly encouraged to closely scrutinise the check documentation reports.

To assist institutions in their analysis of the check documentation tables HESA is creating check documentation guides for each data stream. DLHE record contacts will be notified when the C09018 DLHE guide is available.

Minerva data quality database

For the 2009/10 data collection cycle HESA is launching a new data quality (DQ) database: Minerva. From C09018 onwards data quality queries raised by HESA as part of the data quality checking process will no longer be emailed to institutions. Instead institutions will be notified by email when queries have been logged on the Minerva database.

Institutions will then need to log into Minerva to view and respond to these data quality queries. Institutional record contacts will be issued with a password to be used to enter the Minerva DQ database. Assistance on using the Minerva DQ database can be found at: Minerva user guide.

Sign-off procedure

The procedure described below is designed to increase awareness of the importance of the verification (sign-off) stage as an integral part of making the return; sign-off completes the data collection process.

It is required that the sign-off form for this return be completed by the Head or Acting Head of the reporting institution. To assist in this process, once HESA has reviewed submitted data and this data has been deemed credible, an automated email will be sent to the head of the institution; the sign-off form will be attached to this email.

The deadline for completion and return of the DLHE data collection sign-off form is 6 May 2011.

Post-collection amendments to HESA return (Fixed database)

The Fixed database process is separate from the main data collection and will only be available to an institution on the explicit instruction of the appropriate statutory customer, e.g. Funding Council. Furthermore, statutory customers will only approve specific changes to the collection and so institutions will need to get approval for every field they wish to change. Institutions should also be aware that onward use of information, for example in HESA publications, or for Unistats, will be based on the original data collected and not on any amended data. This is because the availability of the Fixed database necessarily extends well beyond the publication date of information.

The agreements with statutory customers provide for HESA making a charge to institutions for use of the Fixed database. It has been agreed that for the DLHE data stream this charge is set at 20% of the institution's annual subscription, subject to a cap of £7,000.

Who to contact during data collection

If you have any queries on the issues raised in this Circular, please contact the Institutional Liaison team at HESA, or email (liaison@hesa.ac.uk).

Yours sincerely

C. Jane Wild
Director of Operations