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Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats)

The Discover Uni website provides comparable sets of information about full- and part-time undergraduate courses. It is run by the Office for Students and is designed to meet the information needs of prospective students.

National Student Survey 2023

  • The National Student Survey was updated in 2023 following a major review and consultation. As a result, the survey questions and response scales have changed for NSS 2023. The updated survey asks students in the UK questions about a range of factors related to their academic experience, including the teaching on their course, assessment and feedback, and how well courses are organised. The 2023 survey also asked students about mental wellbeing services and, in England, about freedom of expression for the first time. New direct questions with item-specific response scales have been introduced to improve students’ understanding and to enhance the accuracy of results.
     
  • As the 2023 survey has been updated, it is not valid to either compare question responses or combine data from the NSS 2023 with those from previous years. Therefore, the NSS data displayed in the Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats) is for a single year, taken from students who were in their final year of their higher education course during the academic year 2022-2023.
     
  • Glasgow Caledonian University:  Due to a survey administration error in NSS 2023, question 28 ('Overall Satisfaction') was not asked of the majority of survey respondents from Glasgow Caledonian University. We have therefore replaced the Glasgow Caledonian results for this question with the results for the Overall Student Satisfaction question in the 2022 survey. All other NSS results we publish for courses at Glasgow Caledonian University are from the 2023 NSS survey. The error was not the fault of the provider and does not reflect on the quality of the provider. No other providers or questions were affected by this error.
     
  • For more information on the use of NSS data see National Student Survey - NSS on the Office for Students website.

Teaching Excellence Framework 2023 (TEF)

  • From October 11th, the TEF ratings for participation providers will be included in the Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats).  The TEF is a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS) that aims to encourage higher education providers to improve and deliver excellence in the areas that students care about the most: teaching, learning and achieving positive outcomes from their studies.  The TEF does this by assessing and rating universities and colleges for excellence above a set of minimum requirements for quality and standards. Providers that take part in the TEF receive an overall rating as well as two underpinning ratings – one for the student experience and one for student outcomes. 

Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)

  • From October 4th, the QAA information for providers in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland that are subject to a QAA review by their respective regulatory body will be included in the Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats).  The (QAA) is the designated quality body in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  The QAA monitors the quality and standards of the teaching in universities and colleges on behalf of the funding and regulatory bodies in each nation. The QAA completes quality assurance reviews and publishes a report to summarise their findings.

Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats)

As an additional technical resource for analysts and developers, we have made the raw dataset that underlies the Discover Uni website available for download. This incorporates information from the Unistats record. The download is presented as a *.zip file containing the data in both XML format and multiple *.csv files.

Supporting files, documents and information about updates to the data are provided below.

Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data

Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data is available in the LEO3.csv and LEO5.csv files, and also between the GOSalary and Tariff entities in the XML Discover Uni dataset, as well as the LEO3SEC.csv and LEO5SEC.csv files, which exist within the SectorSal entity in the XML Discover Uni dataset.

The LEO data in the Discover Uni dataset is derived from data extracts owned by the Department for Education (DfE). The DfE do not accept responsibility for any inferences or conclusions derived from the LEO data by third parties.

Further information can be found on the OfS website, where you can also provide feedback on this data.

Onward use of Discover Uni (formerly Unistats) data

We are keen to ensure that any end users of Discover Uni data are given sufficient information to allow correct use of the data which has been made available to them.

Several of the courses featured in the Discover Uni dataset have very small numbers. As a result, a change of only one student can make a substantial difference to reported numbers; we would advise caution when reporting on courses with small numbers of students, particularly when making comparisons between courses.

The Discover Uni dataset contains many datapoints about courses offered by UK providers. In some cases the course is too small, or the response rates to surveys are too low, for the data to be published about the course specifically. In such cases, data describing the course is aggregated either across multiple years, or with other similar courses at the same provider.

Some courses in the Discover Uni dataset cover more than one subject area – this may be because it is a joint honours course, or the course covers a diverse subject. When the data for these courses is published at subject level, the course will appear several times in each Discover Uni table: once for each subject.

As a result of the above, we would advise anyone wishing to make onward use of the Discover Uni data to get in contact, to understand how this is reflected in the dataset, and how to highlight the considerations outlined above. We aim to ensure that there is minimal risk of onward misinterpretation of the Discover Uni data.

Terms and conditions

The Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats) is free to copy, use, share, and adapt for any purpose. The Discover Uni dataset is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You must give appropriate credit (HESA, www.hesa.ac.uk), provide a link to the licence, and indicate if any changes have been made.

Download the Discover Uni dataset (formerly Unistats)

When you click the button above, the download will begin. The file is delivered as a compressed archive (*.zip) containing a single XML file, a readme.txt file, and a number of *.csv files.

Supporting files and documents

Unistats record 2023/24: Coding manual for the 2023/24 data collection.

XSD schema file: Unistats output schema - Provides detail of the structure of the data file.

Overview of the dataset: Unistats dataset file structure and description.

Subject codesLookup table for CAH 1.3.4 (applicable to latest data)

Lookup table for CAH 1.3.3 (applicable to data from 25 February 2020 to 14 April 2021)

Lookup table for CAH 1.2 (applicable to data from 18/19 to 25 February 2020)

Lookup table for JACS 3.0 (applicable to data from 12/13 to 17/18.

Lookup table for JACS 2.0 (applicable to data from 09/10 to 11/12).

KISAIM codes: List of KISCourse.KISAIM valid entries.

Data updates

Updates to the Discover Uni dataset will be made as required, and in parallel with the Discover Uni website, when contributing higher and further education providers wish to update their information, or when HESA or the Office for Students (OfS) make changes to the underlying data. These updates occur weekly on Wednesday mornings. The file name of the *.zip file includes the date and time.

For more information about the Unistats dataset and Discover Uni please Discover Uni and Unistats on the Office for Students' website.

If you have any questions on the dataset, please email HESA’s Official Statistics team, or call +44 (0)1242 388 513

Older Unistats data

If you are using an older version of the Unistats dataset please use the supporting files for the relevant collection year. These are available via the 'collection' links below.

Please note that Unistats data may not be comparable across years.

Methodologies and source data used to compile the Unistats dataset have been updated and improved over time. Individual courses are also subject to changes in student numbers and survey responses. This means data for a course may be aggregated in some years but not others.

Download Unistats dataset 2021/22

Unistats Collection 2021/22 for dataset downloaded 2021-09-29 to 2022-09-27

Note: Percentage values displayed in the columns ‘study’ and ‘both’ were incorrectly switched for some HE courses in 2020/21 and 2021/22. For access to time series data on Graduate Outcomes, please visit our HE Graduate Outcomes Data pages.

Download Unistats dataset 2020/21

Unistats Collection 2020/21 for dataset downloaded 2020-10-13 to 2021-09-29

Note: Percentage values displayed in the columns ‘study’ and ‘both’ were incorrectly switched for some HE courses in 2020/21 and 2021/22. For access to time series data on Graduate Outcomes, please visit our HE Graduate Outcomes Data pages.

Download Unistats dataset 2019/20

Unistats Collection 2019/20 for dataset downloaded 2019-09-11 to 2020-10-13 [Please note, due to updates to the Common Aggregation Hierarchy, there are two versions of the Unistats output schema - one for use prior to 26 February 2020, and one for use from 26 February onwards]

Download Unistats dataset 2017/18

Unistats Collection 2017/18 for dataset downloaded 2017-09-04 to 2018-08-29 [Please note, due to the inclusion of LEO data, there are two versions of the Unistats output schema - one for use prior to 5 July 2018, and one for use from 5 July to 29 August 2018]

Download Unistats dataset 2016/17

KIS Collection 2016/17 for dataset downloaded 2016-09-01 to 2017-09-03 [Please note, due to changes in the TEF, there are two versions of the Unistats output schema - one for use prior to 22 June 2017, and one for use from 22 June to 3 September 2017].