Timescales for data collection

Timescales for data collection

Version 1.0 Produced 2010-08-26

C09042 Estates Management Statistics (EMS) - stages of data submission

This document is designed to guide institutions through the stages of data submission for the Estates Management Statistics return.

At a glance

Detailed requirements

Institutions should read the C09042 Estates Management Statistics coding manual and associated documentation for details of the requirements for the return.

If you have any queries with the requirements for C09042 please contact Institutional Liaison at liaison@hesa.ac.uk.

In advance of the collection opening HESA releases a pre-collection circular. This circular provides further guidance of the requirements for the collection year. The pre-collection circular will be made available at: Circulars library.

Notification of the publication of this circular will be sent to EMS record contacts and also circulated on sector mailgroups such as the Admin-HESA JISC mailgroup. If you would like to join Admin-HESA please contact Institutional Liaison.

The C09042 collection database opens on the submit site at least 10 weeks ahead of the return date providing institutions with the opportunity to test files against the full range of validaition and exception checks ahead of the return date deadline.

The C09042 Estates Management Statistics return is to be made through completing a web form which will be accessible from the submit site when the collection opens in November.

Access and PIN codes to register for the HESA Data Collection System will be distributed to the EMS record contact at your institution when the system opens.

To access the data collection system you will need to register for the Estates Management Statistics collection on the HESA submit website. For assistance with registration please view the Registering for the system help page.  

HESA monitors all transactions on the system to ensure institutions are progressing reasonably and not encountering difficulties. If you require assistance with the submission process, please contact Institutional Liaison.

The TEST-COMMIT facility will be available for the majority of the data collection period. This facility allows institutions to process a transaction, which if successful, will generate commit stage reports for scrutiny. These reports are for institutions' purposes only and will not be checked by HESA. Institutions are strongly encouraged to make use of the TEST-COMMIT facility as part of their data preparations. TEST-COMMIT serves as a useful interim facility in the data collection process. The facility enables institutions to view the commit reports and assess submitted data for anomalies before processing a full COMMIT to be scrutinised by HESA.

Although check documentation will be generated from a TEST-COMMIT transaction it will not show the full range of ratios calculated until after data from Finance return has been incorporated.

Following closure of the C09051 Student Record collection static data from this return will be added to the EMS system. This data will be used to auto-populate sub-heads as follows:

D3 (C1, C4 & C7)

D4 (C1, C4 & C7)

Following closure of the C09031 FSR with HE-BCI collection static data from the Finance return will be added to the EMS system. This data will be used to auto-populate sub-heads as follows:

D1 (C1, C4, C7, C12 and C13) - note this does not include D1 C14
 
D2 (C1)
 
D25 (C1, C13 and C14)

At this point the EMS record will be populated with all the relevant static data from the HESA Student and Finance collections. From this time the full COMMIT option will be available for institutions. 

Institutions are required to send complete data that has passed COMMIT-stage validation to HESA by 11 February 2011.

For institutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland all mandatory items are required to be completed for the data to successfully pass COMMIT-stage validation. These fields are listed in Mandatory Items.

A single validation failure will result in no data being imported into the system. Data which fails validation will not be considered to have been returned to the Agency.

The completion of the EMS survey is not compulsory for institutions in Scotland but institutions are advised to note that the Scottish Funding Council strongly advises the completion of the EMS return, including those fields which are mandatory in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. These fields are listed in Mandatory Items.

Institutions in Scotland which opt not to participate are required to complete a Nil Return form to indicate that the institution will not be submitting the EMS return. This form will be made available to download from the C09042 coding manual webpage. This form is required to be completed and returned to Institutional Liaison by 11 February 2011. 

A successful COMMIT transaction will generate several reports containing management information that institutions will need to review to assess data quality. More detail on these reports will follow shortly.

Institutions are required to review the reports and to resubmit data in order to resolve data quality issues. Institutions can contact Institutional Liaison throughout this period to request their data is decommitted in order to make adjustments to the submission. The data quality checking period is an iterative process during which institutions may need to submit, commit, review and decommit their data several times to ensure the final submission is credible.

During this period Data Analysts at HESA will also examine data committed by all institutions. If any anomalies are found queries will be raised through the Minerva DQ database. Nevertheless institutions are in a better position to recognise more detailed anomalies within their data, using local knowledge of the intricacies of their own institution. As a consequence institutions are required to either resubmit their data to amend these anomalies, or provide an explanation through Minerva as to why these apparent anomalies are genuine.

Upon satisfactory completion of this process data will be set to credible by HESA.

In order to meet obligations for hand-over of data to its customers, HESA needs to receive all data files by 4 March 2011.

As part of the data quality assurance procedures, HESA requires the return to be signed-off by the Head or Acting Head of the reporting institution. This verification offers both the institutions and HESA assurances regarding onward use of the data. Sign-off completes the data collection process.

On the system your institution's data will be set to credible and a new icon will be made available from where the sign-off form can be downloaded and completed. Once completed, the form should be posted back to HESA. Please note that the transaction number on the sign-off form must correspond to that of the data being signed-off.

Note: Institutions should download and keep copies of all relevant reports that they are likely to need during the year, as it will be necessary to restrict access to the site after the submission deadline.