HESA Student record 2012/13
File structure
Version 1.0 Produced 2012-09-27
Data must be returned to HESA as an XML file. XML is the eXtensible Markup Language and is a W3C recommendation. There are many XML training resources on the web, including the W3C Tutorial on XML and the resources of W3Schools.
Files must be encoded with UTF-8 and schema validation will be in place to ensure this. Institutions must specify the encoding used in their XML files in the first line of the file (i.e. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>) and to ensure that their files are actually saved with that encoding. If XML files are edited with some text editors and the encoding is not specified or does not match the actual file encoding, there may be problems when submitting these files for validation.
The physical file structure to be returned to HESA is based on the data model but with repeating elements defined within some of the entities. The repeating elements are:
| Entity | Repeating element | Description |
| Course | CourseSubject | A JACS3 subject code and a proportion indicator |
| Module | ModuleSubject | A JACS3 subject code and a proportion indicator |
| Instance | RAEData | A Unit of Assessment code and a proportion indicator |
The physical file structure is described in the diagram below. Entities with a blue background are returnable for FE students in England only.
Contact Liaison by email or on +44 (0)1242 388 531.