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Unistats record 2017/18 - Coverage of the record

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Unistats record 2017/18 - Coverage of the record

Version 1.0 Produced 2017-01-06

The unistats record is required to be returned by all providers in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales for all undergraduate courses (with the exceptions outlined below). Undergraduate courses are those in the HESA Student record and AP Student with Course.COURSEAIM beginning H, I, J and C. Additionally, courses with a Course.COURSEAIM of M22, M26 and M28 (integrated masters courses) should be included.

The Unistats collection 2017/18 should include records for all courses with start dates between 1 August 2018 and 31 July 2019.

The Unistats collection allows providers to resubmit their data at any point during the collection. Providers are encouraged to update their data submissions throughout the year, if there are any changes or inaccuracies, to generate more accurate output. Information submitted to HESA or OfS throughout the year will be refreshed on the Unistats website on a weekly basis.

Welsh FE Colleges reporting via the LLWR use the same coding frame in the HE14 field (details at The Lifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR) Support Manuals page).

Undergraduate courses in the LAD/LARS are those with a Learning Aim Type of 0031, 0032, 0394, 1406, 1407, 1408, 1409, 9000, 9002, 9107, E007, 1449, 9110, 9111 or 9112 (code lists are available at https://hub.fasst.org.uk/Learning Aims/Pages/default.aspx).

For the purposes of Unistats, a course is defined as a programme of study to which a student can apply, either through UCAS or directly to the provider. Thus, if students can apply separately to courses in Physics, Chemistry and Biology, each would require a separate Unistats record. Whereas if students can only apply to a course in Science and later choose to specialise, then a single Unistats course would need to be produced.

The same guidance applies where courses have optional exit points - if it is possible for a student to apply solely for the lower award then a separate Unistats course would need to be produced, provided that the course met the FTE requirement given below. For example, if a student can apply for either MEng and BEng then two separate courses are needed. If all apply for MEng with a possibility of leaving with a BEng then only one course is needed.

For courses with multiple subjects where students may choose whether or not to follow a balanced or major/minor combination, a separate course is not required for each, however the provider may choose to provide one.

The provider that returns the Unistats record is dependent on the funding arrangements for the provider(s) delivering the course. Full details of who should return the Unistats record can be found in the Collaborative provision document.

Unistats records for sub-contracted courses will normally be provided by the provider that is responsible for teaching students, the exception is where all students at the provider are sub-contracted from a single provider. Where a provider receives public funding and has its own higher education provision, apart from that which is sub-contracted in, it would be expected that they would make their own return. Overall responsibility for the return remains with the registering provider. Further information is available in the Collaborative provision document.

Providers must ensure a Unistats return is produced for every eligible course on which they will register new students in 2018/19. Full details of who should return the Unistats record can be found in the Collaborative provision document.

Multiple Unistats courses are not required for courses with multiple start dates.

Courses which are new, i.e. have no students attached for 2013/14 and/or 2014/13 and/or 2015/16, should have a Unistats course returned. This should include the subject, level and mode information. The HESACourse and ILRAims entities should not be returned in such cases. For new courses, a Unistats course should be produced as soon as the course is advertised.

A Unistats course should not be produced for courses outside of the coverage, for example, a course must not be produced where it is only one FTE year or less (see below).

Courses for which a Unistats course should not be returned

There are some courses at providers for which no Unistats course information is required at all, these are:

  • All postgraduate courses and graduate entry programmes (including stand-alone Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) part 2 or graduate entry medical courses), with the exception of Course.COURSEAIM of M22, M26 and M28, referenced in the Student record,
  • Courses where the total FTE of the course is one year or less when studied full-time (i.e. 120 credits or less for its entirety),
  • Courses where the total FTE of the course is equal to one year that has more than 120 credits,
  • Closed courses (as defined in Course.CLSDCRS) - courses that are not open to any suitably qualified candidate and will typically be courses offered only to employees of particular organisations,
  • Courses offered mainly overseas with a location of study mainly overseas, which the funding body has not specifically sanctioned as eligible for funding. A course is considered to be offered mainly overseas if, for all students, the majority (over 50%) of their study is overseas. Sandwich courses and courses incorporating a language year abroad will not typically meet this definition, as the time spent abroad will not be the majority of the course,
  • Intercalated degrees,
  • A course that is run in the UK but only for international and/or EU students,
  • Top-up courses,
  • A course that is run specifically as a part of an apprenticeship.

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