08/01 - June
Dear Colleagues
HESA Student Record 2008/09 onwards
Following the introduction of the redeveloped Student Record for 2007/08 it was always intended that there be a period of stability in the record. Therefore for 2008/09 there will be no change to the record, with the exception of the way in which FE students, particularly Welsh for Adults, are reported by institutions in Wales, and the addition of one extra field on the StudentOnModule entity, also applicable only to institutions in Wales. Affected institutions are already aware of these changes; the details of which will be included in the 2008/09 coding manual to be published shortly.
As soon as the 2007/08 collection is complete there will be a post-implementation review. This is intended to consider both the content of the new record and also the collection process. It is likely that there will be a range of outputs from that review that might impact on 2008/09, 2009/10 or 2010/11 returns, depending on their nature.
As part of this review HESA is planning to hold a number of 'How was it for you?' workshop sessions with institutions in January - further details will be published shortly.
However, HESA is already aware of a small number of changes that have been requested by Statutory Customers for the 2009/10 Student Record and is taking the opportunity to consult institutions at this stage, in order to be able to give maximum notice for the implementation of any agreed changes.
The details are included in this Circular, to which institutions are invited to respond.
NHS Bursaries
In order to support funding calculations and also flag exemptions from the ELQ policy, HEFCE need to be able to identify courses that attract NHS bursaries. It is therefore proposed that for institutions in England, an additional field is added to the Course entity, in order to indicate courses for which students are eligible for NHS bursaries, either for the entire course, or for part of the course. (There are some medical and dental courses for which bursaries are available only for the later years.) This information may also be required in Northern Ireland in the future.
Institutions in England and Northern Ireland only are invited to comment on this proposal.
New qualifications
The Student Record collects the qualification aim for a course against a detailed coding frame. Since the specification of the 2007/08 record was finalised a number of new qualifications have emerged. In particular, a new set of qualifications for teaching in the lifelong learning sector have been developed. Currently there are no codes for these qualifications; therefore institutions will have to code these against the generic codes. For 2009/10 it is proposed to add explicit codes for these qualifications and to require institutions to use them.
Use of JACS
Currently institutions are only required to use the full 4-digit JACS coding in a subset of subject areas. HEFCE has requested that from 2009/10 institutions be required to make appropriate use of the full 4-digit JACS coding in all subject areas. This is needed to future-proof work on strategically important and vulnerable subjects, so that as the landscape changes it will be possible to assess the past performance of newly important subjects. This requirement applies to both Courses and Modules. There will be some courses where it remains appropriate to code at principal subject level, but others where a more detailed code can be used. So for example, a general Biology course would continue to be coded as C100, but a specific course/module in Biodiversity would be coded C181. Similarly, a generic Religious Studies course would be V600, but as specific Islamic Studies course would be V622.
All institutions are invited to comment on this requirement.
Coverage of the Record - Students studying all or part of their course overseas
There are a number of different circumstances in which a student might study all or part of their course overseas and as such might need to be included on either the Student Record or the new Aggregate Overseas Record. It is proposed that the treatment of such students be resolved as follows:
- There will in any year be a small number of (probably research) students who, due to the nature of their research, spend their entire studies overseas. These students will need to be included in the HESA Student Record. It is proposed that such students should be coded 'F On study year abroad for the year as a whole' in Instance.LOCSDY, for each year of their instance, with the appropriate full-time or part-time codes used for Instance.MODE. Given the likely small numbers of such students it is proposed that this combination of coding be accepted by means of a validation switch.
- Some students will begin their course overseas knowing that they will transfer to the UK part-way through. In order that the coverage of the Student Record is consistent with that of HESES, these students need to be included in the Student Record from the beginning of their programme. It is proposed that they be coded as 'F On study year abroad for the year as a whole' in Instance.LOCSDY, for the early years of their programme, until they transfer to the UK.
- Some students will be expected to spend almost all of their time overseas and as such will be included in the Overseas Aggregate Record when they first register. However, if such students come to the UK for a short period they will need to be included in the Student Record for the relevant reporting year. When they return overseas it is proposed that the HIN be closed off and the student return to being included on the Aggregate return. A code will be added to Instance.RSNEND to allow for this.
- Where students on distance learning programmes move between UK and overseas locations as a consequence of changes in personal circumstances they will need to remain on the Student Record.
Institutions are asked to provide details of any circumstances that they do not consider to have been resolved by the guidance issued to date or in the proposal above.
Initiatives with short term monitoring requirements
From time to time funders introduce initiatives (for example Life Long Learning Networks (LLNs) and employer co-funding) where there is a requirement for a limited period to track students who are recruited under the initiative. In the past HEFCE has achieved this tracking by making use of existing fields, typically OWNSTU, OWNPSD and INSTCAMP, in a way that was never originally intended. This approach is unsatisfactory, as it requires the negotiation of something special with each HEI, and for the funder and the HEI to maintain records of each special arrangement. Furthermore this can cause problems when initiatives overlap.
Prior to 2007/08, adding additional fields to the HESA Student Record required all institutions to include the field on their return. The changes HESA has introduced for 2007/08 mean that where a field does not apply to a particular student the institution simply need not return it. Therefore, it is now possible to add fields to the record and only require them to be returned when an institution is participating in an initiative. Given the flexibility offered by the new record structure, institutions are asked to consider how they would like such initiatives handled in future. Although this is only immediately relevant in England, all institutions are invited to comment as other funding councils may want to make use of this functionality in the future. Four possible approaches have been identified:
- Add additional, normally time-limited, fields for each new initiative, potentially at short notice.
- Add a general purpose field to the record to which codes can be added, again at relatively short notice.
- Continue as now with institutions telling the funder how to identify students on an individual basis.
- Do not monitor such initiatives until after the next record review.
The first and second options are by far the most flexible and either of these would represent a good solution from a data management standpoint. Either option would effectively add an explicit, rather than implicit, data burden to participating in a particular initiative. The first option would add a separate additional field for each initiative, while the second option would require fewer changes to Student Record systems as new fields would not be required for each initiative. For students participating in multiple initiatives, e.g. Lifelong Learning Network and employer co-funded provision, the second option would require multiple occurrences of the field to be returned. The third option is the current approach, which is liable to error and has a very high management burden. The final option is not likely to be practical in all cases but could be considered if aggregate data can be collected by other means, and will thus have the lowest burden.
Institutions are asked to indicate their preferred method of monitoring short term initiatives.
TDA-funded SAS Students
The TDA has requested that, for 2009/10, students participating in SAS programmes have this information recorded on the Student Record. It is intended that this be achieved by defining a new Reduced Return, with the data to be supplied to HESA by the institution providing the SAS programme. In addition to a subset of existing fields (not yet finalised) TDA have indicted the need for two new fields to be added to the record for these students. These fields would record the reference number of the school whether the student undertakes their SAS experience and the subject of the placement (using JACS2). These fields would both need to be added to the Instance entity.
Institutions in England with such provision are asked to comment on the proposal to add these new fields.
Action required
Institutions are invited to comment on the proposals set out above. Responses should be sent by email to consult@hesa.ac.uk by Monday 14 July 2008.
Next steps
Following analysis of the responses to this consultation, and consequent further discussions with Statutory Customers and other interested parties, further details about any changes to be made for the Student Record in 2009/10 will be published and record contacts notified in the usual way.
Yours Sincerely
C. Jane Wild
Director of Operations
