HESA Institution profile 2013/14

Institution profile record introduction

Version 1.0 Produced 2013-11-26

Context

The Institution profile record has been collected since 2012/13 from subscribing higher education institutions (HEIs) throughout the devolved administrations of the United Kingdom. Prior to 2012/13, campus data was collected in the Campus information collection, which was collected by HESA between 2005/06 and 2011/12.

Data collected

The Institution profile record collects two strands of metadata:

Location information on the campuses of the institution
Mapping details of academic departments to academic cost centres

A full list of the different items collected can be found in the data items document on the coding manual page.

The return of campus data is mandatory for all subscribing HEIs in the UK, however the return of cost centre data is currently optional for HEIs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Full details of the coverage of the record can be found in the coverage statement of the coding manual. The data collected in this record will be used to validate the Student, Staff and the Finance & HE-BCI record, as well as providing benchmarking material for HEIs.

Data collection

All HESA records are collected on the basis of the HESA reporting period, that determines the time period that the data being returned relates to. This ensures consistency across the data streams collected. The reporting period is from 01 August in year 1 to 31 July in year 2. For example, the 2012/13 Institution profile record was collected in respect of the activity which has taken place between 01 August 2012 and 31 July 2013.

Data for the Institution profile record is collected in-year, reporting in May on activity which has taken place already and will be taking place in the whole of the current academic year. This therefore requires some forecasting on behalf of the HEIs. The HESA data collection system opens at the beginning of May and institutions are required to have sent a full and verified set of data to HESA by the deadline for last submission in June. There are several deadlines which institutions must achieve as part of the submission process and these are detailed in the data collection schedule document on the coding manual, which will be made available in early 2014. It is important that institutions work to the set deadlines in order to complete the return on time and ensure data quality.

Academic cost centre data returned in the Institution profile return will be incorporated into COMMIT-stage validation for the Student, Staff and FSR with HE-BCI returns. It is therefore recommended that colleagues responsible for the Institution profile record liaise with those responsible for these other collections, to ensure all required cost centres are returned.

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