05/01 - March

Dear Colleagues

2004/05 Student Data Processing - Early Systems

This Circular announces two student data systems being developed at HESA.

Pre-Collection Validation System (REF: V04011)

Although HESA publishes validation kits for institutions to use before they submit their data, the development of the data quality agenda has placed a greater emphasis on the more sophisticated checks that are included in the second stage of validation. This stage of validation takes place within the COMMIT transaction on the data collection system.

Over 90% of instititions failed at the second stage of validation during the 2003/04 collection.

During April HESA will open the Pre-Collection Validation System (PCVS) for the 2004/05 collection. This system will provide an opportunity for institutions to expose their data to the full range of validation checks in advance of the main collection opening in August.

The PCVS will run through the existing "Aardvark" data collection framework. It will provide an INSERT transaction that runs the first-stage validation checks and a simplified COMMIT transaction that contains the second-stage validation checks. The full range of COMMIT reports (check documentation, HIN, POPDLHE etc.) will not be implemented until the main data collection system goes live in August.

The PCVS is being implemented solely to help institutions identify problems in their data at an early stage. Data submitted to the PCVS will not be retained by HESA or forwarded to statutory customers.

The validation kits containing the full suite of first-stage validation will be published on the HESA web site when the PCVS goes live. We strongly encourage you to run these programs locally before data is submitted into the HESA systems.

Access codes for the PCVS - reference V04011 - will be sent to student record contacts. We strongly encourage institutions to begin checking the quality of their data at the earliest opportunity; in our experience, the earlier you find an error, the easier it is to put right.

DLHE April Target List System (REF: E04011)

Institutions will need to identify which students to include in the DLHE April survey for the 2004/05 reporting period. The definition of the population to be surveyed as part of the April survey are those leavers who complete their courses between 1 August 2004 and 31 December 2004 and are counted within the DLHE target population (POPDLHE). [Leavers who complete their courses within this period will be returned to HESA in the 2004/05 Student Record with a date between 1 August 2004 and 31 December 2004 reported in DATELEFT]. The algorithm to calculate the coverage of the DLHE population can be found in the introduction to the 2004/05 DLHE coding manual here.

At the beginning of April 2005 we will be opening a system that will help institutions identify students to be included in the early survey. The system will run within the existing HESA data collection framework and will be accessed from the home page at submit.hesa.ac.uk. Like other data collection implementations, we will issue an access code that can be used to create user accounts (or add permissions to existing user accounts) and gain access to the system.

In order to generate the target list for the April survey, you will need to submit a normal combined (type 11) or student (type 12) data file to the system. The system will validate only those fields required to calculate and generate the target list for the April survey. If the system is unable to generate the target list, it will generate a report listing the errors in the data that make this calculation impossible. The fields that need to be completed are:

• RECID
• INSTID
• HUSID
• DOMICILE
• SURNAME
• FNAMES
• RSNLEAVE
• DATELEFT
• QUAL1
• QUAL2
• FEEELIG
• PTITLE
• MODE
• SPLENGTH
• UNITLGTH
• LOCSDY
• POSTCODE
• OWNSTU (optional)
• OWNPSD (optional)

The access codes for this new system will be sent out to student record contacts and DLHE contacts in early April 2005.

The April target list system is being introduced solely to help institutions identify those leavers to be included in the April survey. Data submitted to the system will not be retained by HESA or forwarded to statutory customers.

Further Information

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

Yours sincerely

Andy Youell
Director of Quality and Development