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Student Alternative 2019/20 - Student instance FTE

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Student Alternative 2019/20

Fields required from institutions in All fields

Student instance FTE


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Typefield
Short nameSTULOAD
Description

This field holds the measure of a student’s intensity of study (for this InstancePeriod) during the reporting year 1 August - 31 July. The value can be recorded to one decimal place and must be between 0 and 300.

Applicable toEngland Scotland
Coverage

All instances.

Notes

Full time

Full-time, full year students, studying at the normal level of intensity for their level of course at the provider, would normally be returned with STULOAD 100. For providers operating a credit-based system we would generally expect that for undergraduate courses a STULOAD of 100 is recorded for a student studying 120 credits in a year.

Full-time students who are studying at a higher intensity and are therefore expected to complete their course more quickly than usual for their mode and level of course at the provider should be returned with a STULOAD higher than 100. For example, students on an accelerated degree programme which is studied over two years, rather than the usual three, would normally be expected to have a STULOAD of 150 for each year of study. Similarly, students retaking modules with attendance (i.e. repeating the teaching and learning), in addition to the normal load of modules for their course year should have a higher STULOAD to reflect this. We would not generally expect that the majority of students on a course had a STULOAD in excess of 100 in a year, unless the course is expected to be completed over a shorter period than is normally expected for similar courses at the provider. Where this is the case providers should be prepared to explain and evidence their approach to determining STULOAD.

Full-time students who are studying at lower intensity should similarly be returned with STULOAD lower than 100 to reflect this. For example, students on a degree programme which is studied over four years rather than the usual three would normally be expected to have a STULOAD of 75% (075.0).

All activity required to be undertaken should be accounted for when determining the STULOAD for a student. This includes learning in the workplace, such as professional placements, and compulsory modules that do not attract credits. These activities should be considered part of the activity for the course and for full-time students STULOAD should remain based on a comparison between the planned duration of the course compared to the standard duration for courses of the student’s mode and level at the provider. For example, students on a health and social care masters, studying a 180 credit masters but with additional work-based learning over two full-time years should be returned with a total STULOAD of 100 for each year of the course.

Part time

STULOAD for part-time students should be determined as a proportion of an equivalent full-time course.

Providers operating a credit points system should use the number of credit points studied from the current year of the part-time course compared with the number of credit points that may be obtained from the current year of a related full-time course to determining STULOAD. For example, where a full-time undergraduate degree comprises 120 credits in each year of study and the part-time equivalent comprises 90 credits then STULOAD for students studying for the whole year should be 100% (100.0) for the full-time students and 75% (075.0) for the part-time students.

Where providers do not use credits, the expected time taken to complete the course in comparison to an equivalent full-time course can be used to determine STULOAD. For example, if there is a course leading to a certain qualification which normally requires three years of study for a conventional full-time student, and if that same qualification can be gained by part-time students in five years, the STULOAD returned for part-time students on the course would generally be 60% (060.0) each year.

Flexible provision

For students who study at their own pace rather than during a set timeframe or structure and therefore determine their own intensity of study it is not appropriate to assume that all students on the same course have the same STULOAD. Instead the STULOAD should be determined based on the number of credits studied within the reporting period in comparison to a full-time course. For providers operating a credit-based system we would expect this to be in comparison to 120 credits in a year for undergraduates or 180 credits for postgraduate masters.

Other scenarios

All students following a course would initially be assumed to have the same STULOAD, with the exception of students on flexible provision. An adjustment should be made at individual student level if a student did not actually follow the whole course academic year, e.g. because they left half-way through. We would typically expect that this adjustment reflects the number of weeks of activity undertaken in comparison to the number expected for the reporting year. A more precise calculation is not required. For example, a full-time student who withdraws having studied for 12 weeks when 24 weeks of activity were planned should be returned with a STULOAD of 50% (050.0). If a student left shortly after registering but was confirmed to the SLC, STULOAD will need to be returned capturing the proportion of activity undertaken.

Students who have no activity to return during the entire year, for example because they were dormant, taking a leave of absence or resitting elements of assessment without attendance, would have a STULOAD of 0.

STULOAD should be returned as 10 for both full-time and part-time students who have been writing-up for the full reporting year. Where a student has only been writing up for part of the year STULOAD should be adjusted to reflect the amount of time spent writing up, and other activity in the year. For example, a student who studies part-time at a 50% intensity for six months of the year and is then writing up for the other six months of the year, should have a STULOAD of 30 (50*6/12 + 10*6/12) returned.

For students coded ‘S - Studying abroad and included in the Student Alternative record as student has spent or will spend more than 8 weeks in the UK’ in InstancePeriod.LOCSDY, InstancePeriod.STULOAD must reflect only that part of the course undertaken in the UK.

STULOAD should not be reduced for students on placements. For thick sandwich students out on a year's placement (code 23 in InstancePeriod.MODE) a Student FTE of 100.0 should be returned although Office for Students will assume an FTE of 050.0 in funding calculations. For certain analyses, however, the load on the provider for these students will be taken as either 050.0 or 000.0.

STULOAD of students who are taught under a collaborative or franchising arrangement should not be reduced to take account of this arrangement. For example, a full-time student franchised out for the whole year will (if within the scope of the return) be returned as 100.0 in this field.

The FTE should not be reduced for either incoming or outgoing exchange students. For example, a full-time outgoing exchange student would typically have a STULOAD of 100, as would a full-time incoming exchange student. To avoid overstating the STULOAD the FTE for incoming exchange students will typically be discounted in analysis, however by collecting the FTE for exchange students it will be possible to identify any imbalance.

For research postgraduates where there is no teaching input and unspecified time for completion, comparison should be made with the provider's norms for the full-time course, ignoring any extended writing-up period: for example, a PhD student with three years full-time study with a STULOAD of 100.0 and an additional writing-up year with a STULOAD of 010.0. The STULOAD of part-time PhD students should be determined with reference to the formal three years full-time study, ignoring the writing-up year. Hence a PhD student with six years part-time study would have a STULOAD of 050.0.

As STULOAD captures the activity for an InstancePeriod in the reporting year (1 August – 31 July), where InstancePeriods cross reporting years, the proportion of the InstancePeriod’s activity undertaken within the reporting period needs to be returned. This does not have to be an exact pro-rata split: a reasonable approximation is sufficient.

Example 1

In this example, the student is active for the duration of each term (September-June). They are studying on a full-time mode and therefore their STULOAD is returned as 100.

stuload1

In the Student Alternative record the data would be returned as follows:

HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod. PERIODSTART InstancePeriod. PERIODEND InstancePeriod. STULOAD
2017/18 1 2017-09-10 2018-06-01 100
2018/19 2 2018-09-10 2019-06-01 100
2019/20 3 2019-09-10 2020-06-01 100

Example 2

In this second example, a student commences a two-year programme on a full-time mode. In the second year they decide to reduce the intensity of their study and instead elect to continue on a part-time mode. The change in intensity means that their STULOAD will reduce and in this case they will need to study for an additional year in order to complete the course requirements.

stuload2

In the Student Alternative record the data would be returned as follows:

HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod. PERIODSTART InstancePeriod. PERIODEND InstancePeriod. STULOAD
2017/18 1 2017-09-10 2018-06-01 100
2018/19 2 2018-09-10 2019-06-01 50
2019/20 3 2019-09-10 2020-06-01 50

The STULOAD for a part-time student will vary depending on the intensity at which they are studying and the point in the year at which they change mode.

Example 3

In this third example, the years of study are not contained within the HESA reporting period of 01 August-31 July.

stuload3

In the Student Alternative record the data would be returned as follows:

HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod. PERIODSTART InstancePeriod. PERIODEND InstancePeriod. STULOAD
2017/18 1 2017-10-01 2018-09-30 85
2018/19 1 2017-10-01 2018-09-30 15
2018/19 2 2018-10-01 2019-09-30 85
2019/20 2 2018-09-10 2019-09-30 15

In the second HESA reporting year two instance periods would be reported to HESA and the STULOAD for the reporting year would be apportioned between the two instance periods. It is important to remember that you are reporting on the STULOAD contained within the HESA reporting year and that the load for an instance period should not be double counted.

Across the whole of this two-year programme the STULOAD will sum to 200, but this will be split across three reporting periods and two instance periods.

Example 4

Where a programme is studied at an accelerated rate the STULOAD reported in each year will be greater than for an equivalent ‘non-accelerated’ programme.

For example, if a 3 year degree programme is condensed into two instance periods, both of which are contained within HESA reporting years the STULOAD returned in each year would be 150. Summed across the two years this would give 300 which would be equivalent to a standard 3 year programme.

stuload4
HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod. PERIODSTART InstancePeriod. PERIODEND InstancePeriod. STULOAD
2018/19 1 2018-09-10 2019-06-01 150
2019/20 2 2019-09-10 2020-06-01 150

Example 5

In this example, a student studies in a full-time mode for their first two years, before switching to writing-up in their third year. Where students are writing up, providers are advised that the FTE allocated to writing-up students should be 10% for both full and part-time students (10.0).

HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod. PERIODSTART InstancePeriod. PERIODEND InstancePeriod. STULOAD
2017/18 1 2017-09-10 2018-06-01 100
2018/19 2 2018-09-10 2019-06-01 100
2019/20 3 2019-09-10 2020-06-01 10

Example 6

In this example, a student changes from studying part-time to writing-up within the reporting year. As the mode changes, a new instance period will be required. In addition, the STULOAD will need to reflect the time period of the InstancePeriod.MODE. For example, InstancePeriod.STULOAD for the first six months will be 25.0, as the student has been studying part-time for 6 months ((50FTE x 6 months)/12 months). Likewise, the student will only have been writing up for 6 months, so InstancePeriod.STULOAD will equal 5 ((10FTE x 6 months)/12 months).

HESA reporting year Instance period InstancePeriod.PERIODSTART InstancePeriod.PERIODEND InstancePeriod.STULOAD InstancePeriod.STULOAD
2019/20 1 2019-08-01 2020-01-31 25
2019/20 2 2020-02-01 2020-07-31 5
Examples

Example A student studying the equivalent of a three year course over five years would be returned as 60.

A student studying 30 credits in the current year, in the case where 120 credits is the norm for a full-time student, would be returned as 25.

Quality rules
Quality rules relating to this entity are displayed here.
Reason required To allow analysis by FTE, representing student load, rather than by headcount or apportioned numbers.
Part of
Field length5
Minimum occurrences1
Maximum occurrences1
Schema components
Element: STULOAD
Data type: FTEType
OwnerHESA
Version1.1
Date modified2020-05-19
Change management notesGuidance has been expanded to replace the 'Further detailed notes' document and dates within the examples have been updated.

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