C09025 Check documentation guide

Introduction

• Item priorities
• What to do if you find issues within your check documentation
• Onward uses of Staff data

Introduction to check documentation 

A successful TEST_COMMIT/COMMIT transaction will generate several reports containing management information that institutions will need to review to assess data quality. The check documentation is the most substantial of these reports.

Check documentation takes the form of an Excel workbook containing a series of tables which present much of the submitted data to enable institutions to ensure that their submission represents their institution's profile as expected. Review of the check documentation should be undertaken by institutions to verify the submitted data. Within the check documentation is an 'Institutional_information' tab. This section of the check documentation includes Items 1 to 8 which contain information for institutional analysis. The items held within this tab are provided for institutional purposes and may highlight useful internal planning/data management areas.  A work sheet labelled CCANALYSIS_2 (Item 9) is also provided for institutions' benefit. This sheet provides a breakdown of academic employment function and activity by cost centre for both standard and atypical contracts along with a breakdown of staff FTE data and Staff/Student ratio information. HESA does not scrutinise check documentation Items 1 to 9.

All other tabs within the Excel workbook are designed to be checked by both institutions and HESA. Institutions are in an excellent position to recognise more detailed anomalies within their data, using local knowledge of the intricacies of their own institutions, and are strongly encouraged to closely scrutinise the check documentation reports. The check documentation is also used by HESA to conduct data analysis and quality assurance of a data submission. Queries raised on these issues form the basis of any data quality queries fed back to institutions through the Minerva data quality database.

This guide details each of the items in turn, providing details of the populations and fields used in their creation along with guidance on interpreting the item and tips detailing common issues. Note that this guide is not exhaustive and institutions are advised to extensively review the check documentation.

Data Supply: The derived fields (identifiable as those that begin with 'X') used for each check documentation item are listed within this help guide. The derived field specifications and populations can be downloaded from the 'Data Supply' icon that is available following a successful commit. These are designed to provide the Person, Contract, Grade and Cost Centre tables as downloadable .csv files during the data collection process and so enable institutions to replicate the populations used in the check documentation. The files can also be exported to institutions' local systems to act as a basic data management tool.

Item priorities:

Critical
Major - high priority
Major - low priority
Minor

Each check documentation item is allocated an anticipated priority. These priorities are based on the knock-on effects, the data concerned, and common issues. However, the assigned priorities should be taken with caution as these are only anticipated priority. Dependent on the inserted data the actual severities assigned to data quality queries raised in Minerva may differ. For example, Item 16 is classified as MAJOR -LOW, however if an institution with a medical school returned their data with no clinical academics this would inevitably increase the severity of the query raised.  

What to do if you find issues within your check documentation:

Where anomalies are found you should record them on any relevant Minerva queries raised by HESA and set the queries as to be fixed on resubmission. The institution should then contact liaison@hesa.ac.uk to request that the data is decommitted in order that the necessary amendments can be made and the data resubmitted.

Onward uses of Staff data

Staff data is used in the Statistical First Release - Staff at Higher Education Institutions in the United Kingdom, in the Resources in Higher Education Institutions HESA publication, through heidi and in data enquiries handled by the HESA Information Provision team. Data is also passed to HESA's Statutory Customers for their own onward analyses.