Student record 2017/18 - File structure
Student record 2017/18 - File structure
Version 1.0 Produced 2018-06-29
The physical file structure to be returned to HESA is based on the logical data model but with repeating elements associated with some of the logical entities expressed separately.
The repeating elements are:
| Entity | Repeating element | Description |
| Course | CourseSubject | A JACS subject code and a proportion indicator |
| Module | ModuleSubject | A JACS subject code and a proportion indicator |
| Instance | Engagement | (English ESFA only) |
| Instance | Financial Support | A financial support type and amount |
| Instance | ITT Placement | Placement information (English ITT only) |
| Instance | Learner Employment Status | Employment attributes and status (English ESFA only) |
| Learner Employment Status | Employment status monitoring | Monitoring data relating to employment attributes (English ESFA only) |
| Instance | Learner funding and monitoring | Learner funding code and type (English ESFA only) |
| Instance | Learning delivery funding and monitoring | Learning delivery funding code and type (English ESFA only) |
| Instance | Learning delivery work placement | Learning delivery work placement start and end dates (English ESFA only) |
| Instance | REFData | A Unit of Assessment code and a proportion indicator |
Repeating elements with a blue background are returnable for students funded by the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in England only.
Data format
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. Providers 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.
Ordering of attributes for submission
The order in which entities and fields should be submitted is governed by the Cyy051.xsd file, which is ordered according to the following principles:
- Entities are presented in parent-child order, starting with the 'Institution' entity.
- Fields within entities are presented in the order of primary key fields, candidate key fields, foreign key fields, and non-key fields.
- Child entities then follow.
- Each field or entity within a parent entity is presented in alphabetical order to aid their location.
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