AP student 2016/17: Notification of changes
This document summarises the changes to the AP student record that will be implemented for 2016/17. The full technical specification will be published in September 2016.
Item to be removed
1. Valid entry 33 ‘BIS’ will be removed from InstancePeriod.MSTUFEE since the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills do not directly fund students
Changes to valid entries
2. Valid entry 05 ‘Provider waiver of support costs’ in InstancePeriod.MSTUFEE will be removed. A new valid entry, entitled ‘Provider own funds’ will be introduced with a new code, to take its place. The guidance will also be re-framed to include the statement: "includes scholarships, bursaries and fee waivers funded from the HE provider's own funds".
Changes relating to maximum occurrences of fields
3. The maximum occurrences of Course.REGBODY will be increased to two, to accommodate cases where courses have two regulatory bodies from the list of valid entries.
New valid entries
4. A new (generic) valid entry ‘Other UK training providers’ will be added to the EntryProfile.PREVINST field. This field will not distinguish between ‘private’ and ‘public’ training providers, but will assist in returning data where the information is known, but none of the other UK generic codes apply. It therefore assists providers in reducing their total number of ‘unknown’ responses.
5. A new Course.COURSEAIM code will be added for new a valid entry ‘Level 5 Diploma in Education and Training (DET)’. This is likely to receive a code in the range beginning with “I”.
6. A new Course.COURSEAIM code will be added for a new valid entry 'Postgraduate Diploma in Education' to distinguish these ITT qualifications from other postgraduate diplomas, and to resolve the anomalous position of their being returned as PGCEs.
New Fields
7. A free-text field on the Qualifications on Entry entity will be added. This will be an entirely optional free field, for providers to use if they wish to associate that entity with a locally held identifier. The new field name will be OWNQUAL, similarly to OWNINST and OWNSTU.
GROSSFEE and NETFEE fields moving entity
8. It is intended that InstancePeriod.GROSSFEE and InstancePeriod.NETFEE will be moved from the Instance Period entity to the Instance entity.
Change to the coverage statement
HEFCE and BIS are currently working to finalise changes to the coverage statement for the AP student record. Further details of these changes will be published shortly.
Supplementary notifications
April 2016
Change to the coverage statement
The coverage of the AP student record for 2016/17 will expand for providers with degree awarding powers to cover students studying towards postgraduate taught qualifications which are designated for student support purposes. This extension has been requested by BIS and HEFCE in light of the introduction of postgraduate masters loans in order to provide information for students on these courses that is broadly equivalent to that available for publicly funded institutions. The valid entries and coverage statements of existing fields will be amended to accept these additional students. Further details of these changes to the specification will be published shortly.
BIS and HEFCE have notified HESA of the likelihood of extending coverage statement further in 2017/18 to require all providers with specific course designation to return all students on all courses that lead to qualifications or credit. This would align the coverage of the AP student record with that for the full Student record and therefore ensure that the data is fully comparable. Formal notification will be provided during summer 2016. Providers are being given advance notice of the extension to provide an opportunity for comments to be addressed prior to implementation. Any comments about this approach should be addressed to the Institutional Liaison team ([email protected]), who will share them with BIS and HEFCE.
July 2016
The changes to the specification detailed below are required to identify who is receiving a Postgraduate Loan for Masters study (via the Student Loans Company) at providers with degree awarding powers as well as changes to the monitoring of health specialisms.
Changes to the coverage statement
1. The coverage of the record will be expanded to incorporate all students on Masters courses that are designated for postgraduate loans by the Secretary of State for The Department for Education (DfE) at Providers with degree awarding powers.
New fields
2. The INITIATIVES field will be added to the Instance Period entity. This field will contain one valid entry, which will be T – Postgraduate Loan, to identify students who are receiving a Postgraduate Loan for Masters study.
In the longer-term, HEFCE aim to derive this information directly from Student Loans Company (SLC) data, rather than collecting it from providers. In order to prepare for this, HEFCE will compare the information submitted by providers with the data on postgraduate loans held by the SLC. HEFCE may contact providers to discuss apparent inconsistencies. We welcome comments about this approach.
New valid entries
4. Valid entries M00, M01, M02, M10, M11, M16 will be added to Course.COURSEAIM, to capture students on Master’s courses.
5. Valid entries M00, M01, M10, M11, M16, M41, M42, M44 will be added to QualificationsAwarded.QUAL
6. Valid entries 43, 44, will be added to InstancePeriod.MODE to capture where a student is writing-up.
Changes to REGBODY
7. The funding councils have identified a change required to REGBODY in order to identify the full range of specialisms funded by the NHS. This requirement is due to a change in policy, which has implications on funding for 2017/18. HESA acknowledge that this change is being made at a late stage, however if this data was not collected through the Alternative Provider student record, separate data collection would be required.
The following changes will be required to REGBODY valid entries:
Changes to valid entry coverage
06 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) - Not returnable for HEPs in England or Wales.
Removed codes
32 GDC: Dental hygienist or Dental therapist
53 HCPC: Radiographers
New codes
36 GDC: Dental therapist
37 GDC: Dental hygienist
56 HCPC: Therapeutic radiographers
57 HCPC: Diagnostic radiographers
58 HCPC: Radiographers (post-registration specialisms and CPD)
60 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) (post-registration specialisms and CPD)
61 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC): Adult nursing
62 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC): Childrens nursing
63 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC): Learning Disability nursing
64 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC): Mental Health nursing
65 The Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC): Midwifery
November 2016
We have published a change in the guidance to INITIATIVES for postgraduate loans. Details of the change can be found here.