98/05 - July

Dear Colleague

Student Record Coding Manual 1998/99

The aim of this Circular is to provide institutions with further clarification of the Student Record Coding Manual for 1998/99. The guidance contained has been developed in response to queries raised by institutions.

Further clarification is provided for the fields below:

 

Field 15 Disability Allowance

The student disability allowance is known as the ‘Disabled Student Allowance' in England and Wales and the ‘Disabled Students' Allowance' in Scotland. The ‘Disabled Student/s' Allowance' is only applicable to home or EU domiciled full-time undergraduate students under the age of 50 and full or part-time PGCE students under the age of 50. Therefore codes 4 and 5 should only be used for these groups of students. Codes 1 and 9 should be used for all other students.

 

Field 21 Highest Qualification on Entry

The TTA has advised that code 10 ‘Undergraduate qualification with QTS' should include students who hold a Certificate of Education with QTS.

 

Field 23 A/AS Level Points Score

This field is included in the December collection for ITT undergraduate students in England and Wales at the request of the TTA. HESA will only forward this information to the TTA for those ITT students with code 1 in Field 53, Teacher training course identifier. This field need not be completed for ITT students coded 2 in Field 53.

 

Field 54 ITT Phase/Scope

As a consequence of DfEE Circular 10/97 section 2.3.2, the TTA have advised that existing programmes will have to be re-classified into the new specific age ranges. Therefore continuing students, as well as new students, will need to be re-coded to the new classifications.

 

Field 67 Fee Band

Students undertaking PGCE programmes of study should typically be coded either 01 or 02 in this field.

 

Field 68 Major Source of Tuition Fees

This field should record information about who actually pays the tuition fees and not eligibility to pay tuition fees. Code 01 should include students who have applied to an LEA and been refused any support and so have to pay all of the £1000, as well as those students who decide not be assessed by an LEA and pay all of the £1000 themselves, i.e. code 01 should be used where the student pays all the tuition fees themselves and there is no element of support. Codes 02-97 should be used where somebody other than the student pays the total, or a proportion of, the tuition fees, i.e. where there is some element of support, however small.

Code 07 ‘Fee waiver under government unemployed students scheme' - this scheme is only applicable to part-time undergraduate students.

 

Field 70 Mode of Study

Code 34 should only be used for FE students. Therefore the note ‘Supervised postgraduate students working away from the institution should be coded as 34, ‘Part-time, not released from employment' is incorrect. Supervised postgraduate students should be coded 31, ‘Part-time'.

 

Field 72 Year of Programme

Continuing students who previously undertook a foundation year as an integral part of their undergraduate programme do not have to be re-coded following the new guidance that Year = 0 is now available to identify foundation years.

 

Field 148/133 UCAS Number

Students who did not enter their current programme of study through UCAS should have 000000000 (nine zeros) returned in this field.

 

Field 151/136 Student Instance Number

Medical students who undertake an intercalated first degree should have the same student instance number returned for the intercalated first degree programme as for the original medical course. As a result of this guidance it will now not be acceptable to return a dormant record for the original medical course while the student is following the intercalated first degree.

(An intercalated first degree is where students on a first degree, usually in medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine, interrupt their studies to complete a one year course of advanced studies in a related topic. On completion of the intercalated year, the student resumes studies on their original programme of study.)

Students undertaking sabbatical (code 51, Field 70, Mode of study) should have the same student instance number returned as their original programme of study.

 

Field 153/138 Type of Programme Year

Code 1 ‘Year of programme of study contained within the HESA reporting period 01 August - 31 July' would contain any programme of study for which the programme year both started and finished within the period 01 August - 31 July. For example, a year of a full-time undergraduate degree programme that commenced in September and finished in June.

Code 2 ‘Year of programme of study not contained within the HESA reporting period 01 August - 31 July' would contain any programme of study for which the programme year spans two HESA reporting periods, i.e. the programme starts after 01 August in one calendar year and finishes after 31 July the following calendar year. For example, a one year research postgraduate programme that can commence at any time during the academic/financial year and finishes 12 months later.

 

Field 155/140 Completion of Year of Programme of Study

 

Extra-mural and Continuing Education Students

Many extra-mural and continuing education students start studying part way through the academic year. Their year of programme of study will therefore continue into the following HESA reporting period. In the July data collection these students should be returned using code 3, ‘Year of programme of study not yet completed, but has not failed to complete'.

 

Definition of Completion

Completion of the year of programme of study does not relate to academic success or failure. It is therefore possible for a student to fail any number of modules but still complete the year. Provided a student reaches the final assessment stage of a module they are viewed to have completed that module, irrespective of the academic outcome. It is at institutions' discretion what constitutes a substantive module; however it is advised that any module required for progression should be considered as substantive. In addition, modules constituting more than 15% of the work for the year should usually be considered as substantive.

In relation to the note; ‘If code 2 is returned, then either fields 33, Reason for leaving, and 35, Date left, must also be completed to end a student instance or field 152/137, Suspension of active studies, must be completed to show the study is suspended or field 70, Mode of study, must have a mode of study ‘Dormant'' it should be noted that for validation purposes these cases will be treated as a warning rather than a error.

Field 157/142 A and AS Levels
Field 158/143 SCE Highers and CSYS
Field 159/144 Vocational Qualification at Level 3/Advanced

In completion of these fields duplicate subjects should be discounted. There is no reference list of overlapping subjects, but, you are advised if a subject with the same name occurs more than once, not to count it twice, otherwise all subjects can be included.

Code 97, ‘Combination of 1 or more of above' should be used where the institution knows that the student has either; A/AS levels (Field 142/157), or SCE Highers and CSYS (Field 143/158), or Vocational qualification Level 3/Advanced (Field 144/159), but the number of qualifications is not known. In this way code 97 provides more information than code 99, ‘Not known' but less detail than the fuller codes 01-04.

 

Sandwich and language year abroad students

For institutions in England and Northern Ireland, codes 23 and 24 should only be used for courses meeting the definition of Sandwich given in Schedule 5 of the Education (Mandatory Awards) Regulations 1998 ( SI no. 1998 1166). Courses which do not consist of alternate periods of full-time study and industrial, or similar, work placement but which institutions regard as sandwich may be coded as 25. However, in general, HEFCE would expect full-time courses where a year is spent studying abroad to be coded as full-time while at the institution, and optional or compulsory year-out (codes 52 and 53) while studying abroad. If a student spends part of a year studying abroad it is not possible to differentiate this using mode but this should be identified using location of study (code 2).

 

Comparisons between the December and July Returns

The ‘1st December' census count of student enrolments is a key total in particular for the DfEE for monitoring and projecting student numbers. The accuracy and completeness of the count is therefore of crucial importance as is the requirement, by definition, that the ‘1st December' count is the same on the December record as it is on the July record of the same academic year.

If you have any queries on the issues raised in this Circular or with any of the changes to the student record for 1998/99, please contact the Agency's Institutional Liaison Team, Helen Skitt or Alison Berry (liaison@hesa.ac.uk) who will be pleased to help you.

Yours sincerely

C Jane Wild

Director of Operations