Alternative provider student record 2015/16
Notification log
This document summarises all communications associated with the 2015/16 AP student collection, from first publication of known changes to the record through to collection closure in Novemeber 2016. Please refer to the Revision history document for full technical list of changes to the specifications.
HESA issue regular communications during the life of a collection:
- Circulars: announcements to interested parties concerning or issues relating to the collection. Circulars are always made available on the HESA website for later reference, and emailed out to the mailgroup for the collection.
- Coding manual release overviews: these document iterative changes to the technical documentation that define the form of the data to be submitted, as well as being a place to host resources associated with collecting that data.
2016-11-24 Coding manual release - version 1.9
Version 1.9 of the coding manual includes a number of minor coverage statement changes to the EntryProfile entity.
2016-09-22 Coding manual release - version 1.8
Version 1.8 of the coding manual includes the first release of more file structures for downloadable files - specifically, those for the National Student Survey reports, and the corresponding Understanding the NSS reports document. We have also made two label changes to valid entry labels in EntryProfile.DOMICILE and StudentEquality.NATION, reconciling the names of Suriname and Burkina Faso with the National Statistics Country Classification.
2016-09-01 Coding manual release - version 1.7
Version 1.7 of the coding manual releases the File structures for downloadable files - Unistats under the 'Submission process and quality assurance' section.
2016-08-04 Coding manual release - version 1.6
Version 1.6 of the coding manual includes a number of key guidance updates to clarify the expected coding of students. These changes include additional guidance in the EntryProfile.DOMICILE, EntryProfile.POSTCODE, EntryProfile.QUALENT3, Instance.COMDATE, and InstancePeriod.NOTACT fields. These changes are summarised in the Revision history.
Also included in this release are the File structures for data supply files and File structures for the expected instance population under the 'Submission process and quality assurance' section.
2016-08-04 Circular release 16/04 - AP student preparation guide
The 2015/16 AP student preparation guide has been issued, providing key information about the AP student record data collection process.
2016-05-19 Coding manual release - version 1.5
Version 1.5 of the coding manual includes the first release of the Derived field specifications under the 'Data specification' section.
Additional guidance has been added to the fields EntryProfile.DOMICILE, EntryProfile.QUALENT3, Instance.InstancePeriod, InstancePeriod.GROSSFEE, InstancePeriod.NOTACT, and QualificationsAwarded.QUAL. Further information about the changes is given in the Revision History.
The guidance for Instance.MSTUFEE has been reorganised to better state the requirements for this field. No change to meaning has occurred.
A minor change for the schema in C15054.xsd has been made to remove an unnecessary constraint on Instance.COMDATE
The link for the Data collection schedule is now included under 'Overview' section.
2016-03-03 Coding manual release - version 1.4
Version 1.4 of the coding manual includes the release of the file structure for DLHE survey population file, which will shortly be available to download from the data collection system.
This manual accompanies the first release of ‘rolled on’ quality rules from the previous 2014/15 collection, along with a validation kit for you to check your data against locally. These rules have been updated to account for the moving or deletion of fields between the two reporting periods, but are otherwise unchanged. This gives you an initial opportunity to assess your 2015/16 data against the status quo. The validation kit will not validate files produced for the 2014/15 record, as schema changes have been made for 2015/16 which affect the file structure.
An exclusion has been added to the Coverage of the record: students on non-designated courses where the total FTE of the course is less than one year when studied full-time (i.e. 120 credits or less for its entirety).
Two new valid entries have been added to the QualificationsOnEntry.QUALGRADE field, allowing for more complete coding qualifications. The entries have also been accommodated in the validation kit.
Following feedback from the sector, a link to the 'Further guidance on reporting qualifications on entry' is now included under the 'Further guidance' section.
2016-02-03 Coding manual release - version 1.3
Version 1.3 of the coding manual includes some structural changes to the position of fields within the collection structure, and some associated guidance changes.
Following discussions with HEFCE about the structure of the record, and the way in which data is held locally, it has been decided to move three fields from the Instance entity to InstancePeriod. InstancePeriod.COURSEID, InstancePeriod.HEAPESPOP and InstancePeriod.LOCATION all now sit at the lower level, allowing for a more granular return of data. An additional ‘Not applicable’ valid entry has been added to HEAPESPOP for the same reason.
We’ve added valid entries to QualificationsOnEntry.QUALGRADE to add new codes present in the UCAS Data for HESA (Star J) transaction: FF, PA, PB, PC, QA, QA*, QB and QC, all associated with QUALTYPE WE. We have also updated the valid entries in QualificationsOnEntry.QUALSBJ to accommodate 150 new valid entries in the UCAS coding frame.
A number of guidance updates have been made to Instance.DISALL, Instance.InstancePeriod, InstancePeriod.GROSSFEE, InstancePeriod.HEAPESPOP, InstancePeriod.MODE, InstancePeriod.MSTUFEE, InstancePeriod.NETFEE, InstancePeriod.NOTACT, InstancePeriod.SSELIG, Student.SSN and to the Coverage of the record document.
New to this release is the Data collection schedule document under the 'Submission process and quality assurance' section, listing the timescales and milestones for the collection.
The HESA XML Data Entry Tool has been updated to use the 2015/16 collection schema and is also now available for download.
2015-11-26 Coding manual release - version 1.2
Version 1.2 of the coding manual includes the release of a key collection document and a number of small changes to the technical specification released in version 1.1.
The Specification of the UCAS data for HESA (*J) 2015/16 document has been added under 'UCAS data for HESA transaction' section of the manual. The specification describes the file sent to HE providers who subscribe to UCAS, which may be used to aid in the submission of their HESA return.
Additional unbanded grades have been added to Scottish Highers and Advance Higher qualifications in the 'Further guidance on reporting qualifications on entry' document, which are already reflected in the QualificationsOnEntry.QUALGRADE field. A minor label change has been made to the label of valid entry 'IO' in QualificationsOnEntry.QUALTYPE.
A number of small guidance changes or coverage restatements have been made to the InstancePeriod.GROSSFEE and InstancePeriod.NETFEE for clarity.
2015-09-30 Coding manual release - version 1.1
Version 1.1 of the coding manual includes the full technical specification of the record for the 2015/16 reporting period. The schema, field specifications, valid entries, and guidance are all now available.
As announced earlier this year, no major changes to the structure of the collection were known for the 2015/16 reporting cycle. Since that point, it has been announced that the return of data thorough this record for the purposes of appearing on the Unistats website is to be compulsory. Further information is given in the Coverage document, but the specification of what should be returned is unchanged.
As usual, however, a number of small incremental changes have been made to keep the specification current. New entry qualification types have been added to QualificationsOnEntry.QUALTYPE in line with those that can be passed on from UCAS. Additional teacher training types have been added to Course.TTCID. A number of small terminology updates have been applied across the documentation, and guidance updated where new information is available. The Provider.SUBPURPOSE field has been removed for this reporting year as the information it provided can be obtained elsewhere.
Also new for this collection is this page itself - the Notification Log. This page replaces the previous coding manual 'Release Notes' functionality, highlighting the changes made in each successive documentation release. The Notification Log will also record all communications issued with regard to a particular collection, allowing you to see all key messages in one place. We have implemented it following positive feedback for the concept earlier this summer, and hope you find it useful. Further feedback is welcomed: please contact our Institutional Liaison team via email at [email protected], or call 01242 211144.
2015-03-26 Coding manual release - version 1.0
Publication of a suite of holding pages for any known changes compared to the 2014/15 record. No changes are known at this time. The full technical specification will be published in September 2015.
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