02/02 - July

Dear Colleagues

THE 2001/02 (JULY) HESA STUDENT RECORD COLLECTION (Ref: C01011B)

This Circular sets out the plans for the C01011B data collection.

Timescales for Collection

The critical dates in the collection are as follows:

Student Record Validation

As with previous recent data collections, two stages of validation take place; 'Submission level' validation and 'COMMIT-stage' validation. Validation kits for the submission level validation rules are available from the Validation section of the HESA WWW server index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=607&Itemid=233. These kits contain all of the validation checks that are run when files are submitted to HESA.

New submission-level validation checks for the C01011B collection

Warning Rules

COMMIT-stage validation checks in the C01011B collection

COMMIT-stage validation checks are only run once a COMMIT request has been received by the data collection system. These checks can only operate within a database-type environment and, therefore, cannot be included in the submission level validation kits.

Institutions are reminded that any return that fails COMMIT-stage validation will require a resubmission to be made. Institutions are therefore advised to attempt to COMMIT their data as soon as they have sent the entire return in and have received the appropriate frequency counts and status report.

Check Documentation

Once a return has successfully passed the COMMIT stage, check documentation will be downloadable from the web site (see ‘Method of Returning Student data to HESA’ section below). At this point HESA will also begin scrutiny of your return and may wish to raise quality issues with the Student Record contact.

A copy of the check documentation template, along with the definitions used in analyses, can be found shortly on the HESA WWW site at index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=233.

Method of Returning Student data to HESA

The 2001-02 HESA Student Record data collection utilises the web-based data collection system. This system is designed to provide institutions with greater usability and a faster response to submissions.

Colleagues in institutions will need to register as users of the data collection system in order to administer their submission. Registration requires an access code, which will be emailed to Student Record contacts.

Previous years Student Record users have been cleared down for security reasons and so colleagues in institutions will need to re-register each year as users of the data collection system in order to administer their submission. Registration requires an access code, which will be emailed to record contacts once the system is live for a particular collection. Once you have registered you will be emailed a robust password from HESA.

The web address for the data collection system is http://submit.hesa.ac.uk.

This site provides step-by-step instructions on how to send a Student Record to HESA.

The data collection system operates via a web interface and uses transactions to identify the processes to be undertaken. The INSERT transaction adds data to your return and the DELETE transaction deletes any selected file from your return. The COMMIT transaction should be submitted when all of the data for your institution has been inserted and has successfully passed validation.

You can send data in either its standard raw format (ASC/CSV) or compressed using pkzip/winzip. Compressing data can sometimes solve the problem of not being able to send large amounts of data through your institution’s Firewall (the protection between your computer and the Internet). Please look at the online data collection system help for further information on identifying and solving problems that might be experienced when sending data.

Errors, Warnings, Frequency Counts and Check Documentation and other information will be downloadable from this web site.

To make full use of the data collection system you need to use one of the following web browsers:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or above (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/)
• Netscape Navigator 3.0 or above (http://www.netscape.com/)
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 with the file upload add-on installed
• Any other RFC 1867-compliant browser.

Please contact Institutional Liaison who will gladly help you if you experience any problems using a web browser other than Internet Explorer.

Most browsers can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. The browsers above can be obtained from the addresses in brackets next to them. You may wish to ask your local IT support team to do this for you.

The data collection system is an interactive system, allowing institutions full control of their data submissions. However, colleagues should note that they need to be pro-active in requesting feedback information from the system - Errors, Warnings and Verification information need to be downloaded from the web page (simply by clicking on the appropriate icon). Similarly, whilst using the system, you may need to re-activate the web page by pressing the ‘Refresh’ button - otherwise you may think the system has not responded simply because your screen is no longer showing you the live picture.

Collection and system news will be displayed on the system through the collection, please read these items as they provide information regarding the ongoing data collection operations.

Further Guidance on the Student Record 2001/02 (C01011B)

Record contacts are reminded that changes to the 2001/02 Student Record collection were notified in Circular 00/03 issued in November 2000 (together with replacement pages for the Coding Manual for use in 2001/02), which is available from the HESA website at javascript:alert('This content has been archived. Please email HESA for help.');. What follows then is further advice and guidance for completion of the July Student Record in 2001/02.

Students whose activity ends within a given HESA reporting year, even if the final assessment takes place after 31 July (for example if they have resits in August/September), should have their qualifications included in the return for that year. Qualifications from dormant status should only be returned in the following years’ return where this is not possible.

From 02/03, the fields listed below that currently capture qualifications on entry data become ‘Not Used’. Therefore this July, 01/02, presents the last opportunity that institutions will have to complete these fields. From 02/03 HESA will use linking techniques to make this data available to statutory users on behalf of institutions. It is therefore important that institutions endeavour to return accurate information in these fields in 01/02.

Field 23 A/AS level points score
Field 24 Highers points score
Field 157 A and AS levels
Field 158 SCE Highers and CSYS
Field 159 Vocational qualifications at Level 3/Advanced

Field 14 Ethnicity

Code 10 'White' is not a category recognised in the 2001 Census. However, it continues to be available for continuing students i.e. those with a COMDATE before 01/08/2001. Students with a COMDATE before 01/08/2001 should not be re-coded.

Where a student with COMDATE before 01/08/2001 registers concurrently for a second programme of study with COMDATE after 01/08/2001, the preference is to recode to the new coding frame where it is not possible to hold two ethnicity codes for the student.

Where a student completes a programme of study with COMDATE before 01/08/2001 and starts a new programme of study at the institution (with COMDATE after 01/08/2001) institutions should make every effort to recode ethnicity data already held to the new coding frame. This may mean that students are asked to choose the appropriate code from the new coding frame when they enrol as opposed to confirming details already held.

Field 67 Feeband

Code 41 ‘Postgraduate’ should be used if the fees for the year are at the standard rate paid by the research councils. Code 42 ‘Half postgraduate fee’ should be used if the fees are half this amount. The standard rate paid by the research councils changes annually. Institutions are informed of the current fees each year by the funding bodies. Code 99 ‘No fee band’ should be used when some other arbitrary amount is charged.

Field 72 Year of programme of study

Year of programme of study should be incremented for each year of a course a student studies. In particular, where students study full-time courses on a part-time basis the year of programme of study should increment every year. For example, if a student is studying a degree normally taken full-time over 3 years, part-time over 6 years, the year of programme of study should start at 1 and increase each reporting year to 6.

Field 161 Outcome of ITT programme

The description of codes 6, 7 and 8 relating to the outcome of skills tests has been revised as follows:

6 ‘QTS withheld (standards met but not skills test standard)’
7 ‘QTS withheld (standards not met but skills test standard met)’
8 ‘QTS withheld (standards not met, including skills test standard not met)’

New codes A and B will be introduced for 2002/03:

A ‘QTS withheld (standards met, skills tests not yet taken)’
B ‘QTS withheld (standards not met, skills tests not yet taken)’

For July 2002, institutions are advised to use code 6 where ‘QTS withheld (standards met, skills tests not yet taken)’ and code 8 where ‘QTS withheld (standards not met, skills tests not yet taken)’.

Use of UCAS data in making HESA returns

Institutions are reminded that there are currently a series of transfer records available from the UCAS on-line record transfer system (MARVIN) that should be used to assist institutions in the use of UCAS data in making returns to HESA in 2001/02. Further information may be found on the HESA web site from http://www.hesa.ac.uk/datacoll/ucas-hesa/ucas-hesa.htm.

Students who leave before 1 December

Students may have left by 1 December, but a return will be required for them in both the December and July collections if they have followed a programme of study in the period 01 August – 31 July.

Institutions need not return records for students who start a course and leave within the first two weeks without completing. Students who start a course and do not leave within the first two weeks will need a record returned on all applicable datasets. It should be noted that Statutory Customers and HESA will exclude from any progression analyses those records returned for students who start a course and leave within the first two weeks without completing.

If a student is registered at the institution on 1 December then they must be returned to HESA whether they leave within the first two weeks of the programme or not. There are no current plans to create Performance Indicators (PIs) based on early leavers but there is policy interest in the extent to which students leave early from courses.

Performance Indicators

HEFCE have asked HESA to point out that, although previously the Funding Council has accepted data amendments for incorporation into calculation of the PIs, it is now expected that the data supplied and signed-off to HESA is correct, and that this data may be used without further amendment.

Funding calculations for institutions in Wales

Field 8 of the module record, CRDTSCM, should be coded '7' for Welsh institutions. Field 9, CRDTPTS, has to be completed with a figure other than '999'. The reason for this is because credit points are used for funding purposes. Credit points are not used for funding of postgraduate research students. However, dummy modules should be returned for postgraduate research students, and a value reflecting 180 credit points for a full-time full year student should be returned in CRDTPTS. If CRDTSCM is coded '9', the data will fail validation.

In the past, field 74, STULOAD, which collects student FTE, has sometimes been incorrectly completed for postgraduate research students. It is essential that this field be correctly completed as it is used in the calculation of postgraduate research funding. If STULOAD is completed with zero values for postgraduate research students, where the student is in the first three full-time years of the programme (or equivalent) and not dormant, there will be a validation warning when data is submitted.

Further Guidance on the Student Record 2002/03 (C02011B)

What follows is further advice and guidance in advance of completion of the July Student Record in 2002/03.

Following the introduction of field 166 Institution’s Own Campus Identifier from 2002/03 onwards, institutions are asked to contact HESA in order to confirm the codes they intend to return in field 3, Campus Identifier, from 02/03.Institutions should provide the campus name and the full postcode of the administrative headquarters of the campus.

Institutions should request new entrant to HE information directly from students during the enrolment/registration process, and not infer it from field 21, Highest qualification on entry. The DfES are keen to encourage capture of this information directly rather than by inference, and so have offered the following further guidance to reinforce this requirement.

Institutions should ask students a direct question along the lines of: "Have you ever started a higher education course (i.e. above A level or equivalent) in the UK before?"

The outcome of any previous HE study is not relevant to this particular field. This field is very important to the DfES because it is used to identify "initial entrants" and it helps to inform the monitoring of progress towards the Government's HE participation targets.

The TTA have confirmed a policy change to HESA, which will affect coding in these fields for Primary ITT students. Ministerial approval has been received for the removal of the requirement for all trainees to study a primary specialism. This will take effect from 1 September 2002, so is relevant from the 02/03 reporting year, and will mean that trainees beginning a new primary course will not have to have a primary specialism, although those on an existing course will need to continue with their specialism.

Code 31 ‘Foundation course at HE level’

Code 31 ‘Foundation course at HE level’ becomes ‘Not Used’ from 02/03. If the foundation course is not integrated into another qualification, then the course is at FE level and code 77 ‘Foundation course at FE level’ should be returned in field 41. If the foundation year/course is integrated into another qualification, e.g. a first degree, code 21, ‘First Degree’ should be returned in field 41. In order to maintain consistency throughout the sector, institutions currently returning records using code 31 will have to recode these for both continuing and new students.

Code 09 to become ‘Not Used’

For the purposes of this field, special programmes are either AIRS or bridging programmes. In order to maintain consistency throughout the sector code 09 ‘Other’ will become ‘Not Used’ from 02/03. Institutions currently returning records using code 09 will have to recode these to 01 ‘Not a special programme’ for both continuing and new students.

The HESA record for a student studying for a foundation degree bridging course should indicate this in field 52, SPPRG, for each academic year during which they are active for the bridging course. The FTE recorded in field 74, Student FTE, should be increased to reflect the additional FTE of the bridging course. Where the bridging course spans two academic years, the first of these academic years should be returned as 'non-standard' in field 153/138, Type of Programme Year. Where a student is only active for the bridging course during the academic year, they should return field 41, General Qualification aim of student, with entry 61, 'Institutional undergraduate credit which may be counted towards qualifications within codes 01 to 52' - that is, when a student withdraws during or following completion of the course, or where they transfer in from another institution prior to commencing the course. In comparing HESA data to HESES, HEFCE will use the above information to generate two countable years for such students.

New codes A and B will be introduced for 2002/03:

A ‘QTS withheld (standards met, skills tests not yet taken)’
B ‘QTS withheld (standards not met, skills tests not yet taken)’

New Date Format

The HESA data collection system will, for the reporting year 2002/03, adhere to the international date standard ISO 8601: 2000. This change will affect the way in which dates are displayed on screen and in the reports produced for institutions to download. There will be no immediate change to the valid entries currently available to institutions when completing date fields. However, institutions should be aware that at some point in the future this will change and all date fields will have to be completed with dates that adhere to the international standard date format. Institutions will be given enough notice in order to change their systems where necessary. The two formats specified in ISO8601: 2000 are:

Long date format: dddd d MMM yyyy e.g. Monday 22 April 2002 and can be truncated to 22 April 2002
Short date format: yyyy-MM-dd e.g. 2002-04-22

December Student Record

Record contacts will be pleased to know that the HESA Board has agreed to discontinue the December Student Return, and with immediate effect. There will therefore be no December return during 2002/03. This decision will produce an on-going reduction in the data collection burden for institutions; its timing will also allow institutions a little more breathing space to implement the significant changes to the student record for 2002/03, which will now apply for the first time to the 2003 July collection. The background to this decision may be of some interest, and is covered in a letter from the Chief Executive of HESA to institution Chief Officers, which is enclosed for reference as Appendix 1 to this Circular.

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 (Alison Berry, Marietta Nkweta, Janet Earl or Clara Elcocks) at HESA or email (Liaison@hesa.ac.uk).

Yours sincerely

C Jane Wild
Director of Operations

Annex 1 - Cessation of the HESA December Student Record

HESA December Student Return

I am pleased to tell you that the HESA Board has agreed to discontinue the December Student Return. This applies with immediate effect, so there will be no December return during 2002/03. This will produce an on-going reduction in the data collection burden for institutions; its timing will also allow institutions a little more breathing space to implement the significant changes to the student record for 2002/03, which will now apply for the first time to the 2003 July collection.

The background to this decision may be of interest to you. The PA Consulting report which identified the total accountability burden on the sector as £250million/year led to the setting up of an HE Accountability Forum. One of its areas of interest was data collection, and the collection of mid-year information was identified at an early stage as a candidate for rationalisation. A detailed study was conducted by PA Consulting to establish what use was made of mid-year information, and it became clear that although there was a need for aggregate information at an early stage, little use was made of the individual information collected through the December return. It has taken a considerable amount of time to identify alternative sources for the information which was actually used, or to establish with interested parties that their requirements did not justify the cost of the return; the Information Management Taskforce, established from the HE Accountability Forum, has been a prime mover in this process. The discontinuation of the return is one of the recommendations in the Better Regulation Task Force report Higher Education: Easing the Burden; Ministerial approval has now been obtained for this, and HESA’s Statutory Customers have confirmed that they are agreeable to immediate implementation.

The collection of aggregate mid-year returns by the Funding Councils (HESES or the equivalent) will continue. At present these returns are used largely to manage funding. However, expansion in the training of health professionals has placed increasing emphasis on manpower planning issues in those areas, and the Department of Health had expected the December return to provide relevant information on the desired timescale; other information required by DH can be obtained from the July return. In the absence of the December return, alternatives are being explored. If it proves practicable, any extra information will be collected with the HESES-type returns, but it is possible that there may be a need for a separate return specific to students of interest to DH. In any event, individual student records will not be required, only an aggregate return. Further information will be provided to institutions as soon as possible, but it must be recognised that the usual consultation process and timetable cannot now be followed; that is the price to be paid for the immediate discontinuation of the December return.

HESA has hitherto used the figures from the December return as the input to the algorithm for calculating institutional subscriptions. Subscriptions for 2003/04 and subsequent years will be based on figures taken from the previous July return (so the July 2002 return will be used for 2003/04) and institutions may accordingly notice a small transient change in the subscription level associated with the increased lag.

Yours ever

Robin Sibson