KIS 2012-13 review
2012/13 collection feedback
2012/13 was the first collection of KIS so there were
teething problems…
Key milestones:
System opened
End of March 2012
NSS/DLHE data available
July 2012
Last submission and sign-off
August 22 2012
Submission stats
HE
FECs
Average iterations
14
9
Most iterations
84
34
One-hit wonders
0
3 (2%)
Last submission after 22 August
9%
13%
Date of first submission:
March
March
April
April
HEIs
May
June
July
August
FECs
May
June
July
August
Common issues
How was it for you?
• In your groups discuss and list the key areas that
proved problematic and any areas that you feel went
well.
• For example….
–
–
–
–
Evolving guidance
Communication (both internal and external)
Collation of information
Particular fields/concepts
Audit
Background and process
• For 2012/13 HEFCE are undertaking pilot audits at 10 HEIs and
2 FECs chosen at random.
Pre-visit
High level data review testing
whether eligible courses have
been returned
On-site
Two day visit with detailed
review of a sample of courses
focussing on Accreditation data,
LTA data, KISTYPE, JACS codes,
URLs, links to HESA/ILR courses
Post-visit
Formal report issued within a month
of completion
Summary of findings
• At the majority of institutions HEFCE found a well
managed process
• Generally good quality systems and processes,
especially given this is the first time institutions
prepared the KIS
• Some issues around interpreting guidance and
maintenance of an adequate audit trail to the data
returned were identified…
Coverage
KIS or no KIS?
1. A graduate entry medical programme

2. A 3 year full-time BA hons in Sociology

3. A HNC in English literature

4. A new undergraduate degree programme in French

5. A course available in 11/12 but no longer recruiting

KIS types
How well do the KISTYPE definitions
and rules work for your institution?
(%)
1. Full course level KIS
60
2. Multiple subject
ss ‘placeholder’ KIS
50
40
30
3. Subject level KIS
20
10
0
Well
Not well
OK
Type one or type two?
Does the course have more than 1 JACS code?
Yes – continue to next question
If no – type 1 required
Does the course recruit 20 or more students?
If yes – type 1 required
If no – continue to next question
Does the course have a single programme specification?
If no – type 2 required
If yes – type 1 required
Type 3 – subject level KIS
• Institutions should produce 1 type 3 KIS for every
applicable JACS L2/LDCS subject
– e.g. ‘other languages and area based studies’
• Learning & teaching calculation based on 60 credit
split (50:50)
– Ideally using only students on multiple subject courses
unless this is unrepresentative
• How many stages should a type 3 have?
– Depends on level and the norm for the course
Type 2 – ‘placeholder’ KIS
• Type 2 records are used for multiple subject courses that
don’t meet the criteria for a type 1.
• Type 2 records were used for approximately 20% of all
courses in 2012/13
• This type of record (currently) contains limited
information in its own right and instead directs users to
the related KIS records which can be used to give a broad
picture.
More burdensome?
Directly and indirectly funded numbers
• ‘…where the funding for a long established aim has
moved from the franchising arrangement to be
directly funded the NSS history etc is lost. Again, this
is highly artificial as the aim is the same, the students
are recruited in the same way with the same ultimate
outcome. The lack of NSS data is not helpful to the
student and maybe harmful to our recruitment’.
Feedback from the EEK survey (139/300 – 46.3%)
Part-time courses (guidance for 2012/13)
• Separate KIS records are not required for part-time
courses where a full-time version is available
• Return information based on a full-time version of
the course (total for 120 credits)
• Even if the course is only available part-time
• Calculating LTA methods
• Same number of stages as a FT course
This is changing for 2013/14….
Audit findings
Coverage
1.
New courses or courses being subject to validation incorrectly not included in
the KIS
2.
Top-up courses incorrectly included in the KIS
3.
Potentially KISable courses incorrectly not linked to the courses in the KIS – exist
in HESA and in KIS, but no link between the two!
4.
Sandwich courses incorrectly linked to HESACOURSEs that are their FT versions
Field requirements and concepts
Calculating learning, teaching and assessment
methods
• Non-credit bearing activity – add to the numerator and
denominator in the calculation:
Module
Credit
Value
No.
Students
Scheduled
Teaching and
Learning
Scheduled
Independent
Teaching and
Study
learning hours
Placement
Business analysis
Marketing
essentials
International
business
Online retail
EU policy
20
40
100
100
60
65
120
260
40
35
0
0
30
75
70
210
30
0
30
20
70
49
50
60
150
200
50
40
0
0
In this year there is also a 2 hour careers talk aimed at business
students which all are expected to attend.
(740+2)/(1200+2)*100
Total spent on Scheduled Learning and teaching is 61.8%
Calculation steps
1. Determine the modules that are available
2. Rank in order of number of students taking the
module as part of the course in the relevant year.
3. Determine the modules that contribute to 1 FTE/120
credits.
4. Calculate an average value from these modules:
Overall proportion in scheduled teaching and learning =
Hours in scheduled/total hours
Calculating learning, teaching and assessment
methods continued…
• Additional placement hours can be a problem as they
should be capped at 10 per credit…But where
external requirements dictate that students spend
significantly more than 10 hours per credit, follow
the same treatment as non-credit bearing hours.
Test your knowledge!
• In your groups work through ‘Calculating learning,
teaching and assessment methods’ tasks 1-4
Task one
Using the information in the table below indicate which modules would be
used to calculate the learning and teaching methods for the first stage of the
BA Hons Business Studies degree. Each stage of this course is 120 credits.
Module
Credit
Value
No. Students
Module
status
Used for
learning
and
teaching
calculation?
Yes
Used for
assessment
calculation?
Business analysis
Market testing
Managing
people
International
business
Online retail
Marketing
essentials
EU policy
20
20
30
100
40
30
Core
Optional
Optional
30
75
Optional
Yes
Yes
30
40
70
100
Optional
Core
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
20
49
Optional
Yes
Task two
Using the table below select which modules would be used for calculating the
learning teaching and assessment methods for the 120 credit stage of a BA Hons
History degree:
Module
Credit
Value
Russian
revolution
Medicine and
disease in
Britain
The politics of
protest
Cultural history
of modern war
Globalisation
Reformation
20
No.
Scheduled
Students Teaching
and
Learning %
100
60
Scheduled
Independe
Teaching
nt Study
and learning
hours
120
40
Placeme
nt
40
100
30
75
40
70
50
150
50
0
10
20
49
40
60
50
200
100
40
50
0
0
0
The sum of the credit values is 130
260
0
not 120 35
In the calculation you would need to
70 scale back
210the last module
30 by ¼ to0
make the calculation 120 credits
65
Does this module selection pose any problems? (I.e. is it in line with
the guidance/will the calculation work)
Task three
Poppleton have used the modules below to calculate the learning and
teaching methods for the KIS type 3 for Sociology. The last two modules in the
list have been discounted because they have fewer students enrolled.
Do you think their approach correct and why?
Type 3 – Sociology
Module
Religion
Gender and Society
Intro to social analysis
Crime and deviance
Research methods
Sociology of education
Social theory of law
Credit value
30
20
30
20
20
20
20
Students on module
70
68
68
50
45
40
38
Type 3s should be based on 60 credits or ½ FTE
Task four
• In your groups match the activities to the categories
Scheduled
Written
3 hour written examination
Seminar
‘Take home’ exam
Tutorial
Coursework
Field trip to a gallery as part of an art course
Subject specific careers talk
Dissertation
Webinars
Field work report
Placement
Language study year in France
Teaching placement on a veterinary course
Report on lab work
Portfolio of art work
Performance in a theatre production
Practical
Independent
Time spent reading course texts
German oral examination
One-to-one feedback on assessments
Debate
WBL or placement?
Work-based learning (scheduled)
Placement (placement)
Structured learning that occurs in the
work place.
Learning away from the institution that is
neither a year abroad nor WBL.
Work-based learning is a structured
academic programme, controlled by the
higher or further education institution,
and delivered in the workplace by
academic staff of the institution, staff of
the employer, or both.
The term covers any learning, other than
years abroad and work-based learning,
that takes place through an organised
work opportunity, rather than in a
university or college setting, and includes
managed placements.
For 2013/14 both appear under PLACEMENT
Estimate or accurate?
• 40% LTACT and ASSACT marked as estimates for
2012/13– expected to decrease for 2013/14
• When can ‘estimates’ be used?
– The course is new
– The course has been redesigned
– If you are using data from a partner institution?
Non-credit assessment
• Indicates whether the course includes required
assessments that cannot be associated with the award of
credit, yet are nonetheless a requirement of successful
completion of the course.
• Examples:
– Placements and observations
– Class tests
• What about CRB checks etc. that are required for entry to
the programme?
– These should not be included as they are on entry not during
the course.
Audit findings
Learning, teaching and assessment
Incorrect blanket labelling of LTA data as
estimate
Incorrect classification of L&T elements and
assessment components, either due to errors
or misunderstanding of guidance (in
particular coursework often incorrectly
treated as practical assessment)
Different modules used for L&T than for
Assessment percentages calculations
LTA calculations incorrectly based on 120
credits for KISTYPE=3
More than 120 credits per stage
included in the calculations where it was
not appropriate
LTA percentages incorrectly weighted not only
by module credit values but also by the
number of students on the module
Core modules incorrectly not included in
the LTA calculations
UCAS feed
KISCOURSE.UCASCOURSEID1:
Warning: UCASCourseids are not on the current list of courses
supplied by UCAS. This was last updated on the XX-XX-XXXX
The UCAS feed to KIS only includes courses for which all
of the KIS specific fields have been completed so if a
course is missing support information it will not be
included in the file.
Fees
• How do I report zero fees?
If the students on a particular course would never pay fees a
zero fee is needed. In 2012/13 this wasn’t possible so a fee
of £1 had to be reported through UCAS or a switch
requested through HESA/HEFCE.
For 2013/14 you are able to report zero fees through UCAS
and HESA/HEFCE (but may need a switch)!
Fees for years out
• How do I report fees for sandwich years?
Compulsory sandwich years should be reflected in the
learning and teaching methods (via a year with 100%
placement) and in the fee data. For example:
Year 1 = £9000
Year 2 = £9000
Year 3 = £1000 (sandwich year)
Year 4 = £9000
The average maximum is therefore
(9000+9000+1000+9000)/4 = £7,000
Fees continued…
Where any of the fields KISCourse.ENGFEE, KISCourse.SCOTFEE,
KISCourse.WAFEE, KISCourse.NIFEE, KISCourse.WAIVER, KISCourse.MEANSSUP,
KISCourse.VARFEE or KISCourse.OTHSUP exist then all must exist
KISCourse.FEETBC must equal 1 when any of the following exist:
KISCourse.ENGFEE, KISCourse.NIFEE, KISCourse.WAFEE, KISCourse.SCOTFEE,
KISCourse.VARFEE , KISCourse.WAIVER, KISCourse.MEANSSUP,
KISCourse.OTHSUP
…Or in other words if you return one you must return them all!
For 2013/14 the link between fees and support is being broken so you can
return partial information initially.
Audit findings – fields and concepts
Accreditation
Miscellaneous
Incorrectly claiming accreditation
where it has only been applied for
Incorrect reporting of average fee for
courses including placement years
(HEFCE e-mailed the sector on
15.01.13)
Recording things as accreditation that
do not meet the definition
Incorrect use of JACS codes (reflecting
the subject of the department where
the courses are taught and not the
area of study)
DLHE data (for 2012/13)
DLHE data includes:
• Responses from full-time
graduates unless the KIS
course is Part-time only
• Responses from those in
both full and part-time
employment
Salary data includes:
• Responses from those in
full-time employment
(unless the KIS course is
part-time only)
• Self-employed leavers but
not voluntary
This is changing for 2013/14….
Post-collection issues
• UNISTATS
– Search facility
– Data download
• Updates & sign off
– The 12061 record is currently open for updates to be made
– Updates need to be signed-off before they can be
published
Audit findings: Process and publication
Process
Widget
Data not signed off by the Head of
Institution (only appropriate in
exceptional circumstances)
Widgets not clearly visible on the
course websites
Poor audit trail to data, because
programme and/or module
specifications were not maintained
up to date or are not detailed
enough
Widgets not showing on the
websites for PT versions of the
courses
Unistats
User experiences
Who is using unistats
Domicile of Unistats website users (based on Google Analytics data for number of
visits, launch to 9 January 2013 inclusive)
000 visits % of visits
England
171
83.6
N Ireland
3
1.7
Scotland
8
3.9
Wales
6
2.7
Other
16
8.1
• Much lower use at weekends- consistent with a substantial
proportion of use by professionals or employees during
their working day
• Suggests a substantial proportion of usage to date has
been by careers professionals, others in advisory roles and
HE staff
Awareness
• There is both awareness and usage of the Unistats
site across all four nations of the UK, although
dominantly in England (and across all its regions)
• However, 8% of visits were from outside the UK (and
15% within the last 2 months)
• Participants in the evaluation survey and user testing
fieldwork did not identify any of Unistats’ direct
competitors as having a higher level of brand
recognition than Unistats
Unistats
Used site Heard of but Not aware
(%) not used (%) of site (%)
59
15
26
How are they getting there
• Web analytics reveal that most users to date have
come to the site directly by typing in the URL (73%),
rather than following a link from another website
(‘referrals’, 10%) or from a search engine (18%)
• Of those using a search engine, the majority (over
60%) searched for the term “Unistats”
• At this early stage, most (68%) of referrals to the site
have been from the widgets on HEI sites
• Social media currently account for very few referrals
to the site
How are they using the site
• The analytics data show that use of the site to date has
been substantial, with the average length of visit over 8
minutes
• Analysis of user behavior suggests that 38% of visits
involve use of the search function on the site
• Of these in-site searches, 21% of the 200 most commonly
searched terms have been HE institutions (compared
with 73% course subjects)
• This pattern of behavior is significant as the current
search functionality does not produce results for
institutions or locations (or information other than
course titles)
What are their thoughts
Useful facts and figures.
Well summarized and
presented. Important
data has been
considered and well
presented. (Parent)
Subject categories should
be explained better e.g.
Social Science included
Economics
(Sixth Form Student)
Needs to be more
clear where info
comes from, brand
of site
(Parent)
Comparison page is
very easy to read.
Shortlist option is
useful
(Sixth Form Student)
You can see the differences in
the levels of employment after
the course which is useful in
decision which course to pick. I
also like how you can know
how different courses are
taught in different ways
(Sixth form student)
I liked the clear layout of the
site and how easily you can
get around it, I think the
shortlist and comparison
button are very clever and
useful rather than having 5
windows open and having to
click back and forth to
compare statistics
(Sixth Form Student)
Search by institution
is ‘bizarre’. A-Z is not
easy to use. For
example City of
Westminster is not
under C but other
City institutions are.
(Careers Adviser)
Next steps
• Unistats search facility
- Improvements and optimisation of searches on current
site expected post-September 2013
• Mobile phone app
- Unistats mobile site is expected for this calendar year
• Promotional activity
- To take place this year and designed to raise Unistats
profile
• Revisions to the widget
- Changes based on user feedback are expected
• Presentation of data not meeting thresholds
- A group is discussing the issue in March
KIS 2013/14
The context – EEK!
• A survey of providers was undertaken following their
completion of data submission for year 1
• Designed to understand the issues and difficulties
institutions had experienced
• 40% of providers responded to the survey (85 HEIs,
42 FECs and 3 alternative providers)
• Suggestions for change to the technical specification
were encouraged…
• …much of the change for 2013/14 aligns with user
requirements (both institutional and student)
Coverage
KISCourse.KISTYPE
NEW!
• Institutions are now able to return KISTYPE 1s for all
of their provision irrespective of cohort sizes
• KISTYPE 2s and 3s will still exist as concepts in the
record specification for those institutions who find
them useful
• This will allow teaching & learning methods etc to be
returned for all courses
• KISTYPE 2s now have additional information returned
for them e.g. fee information
Coverage for franchise arrangements
• In general the KIS for franchised provision should be returned
by the teaching institution…
• …even where the course contains students registered at
different institutions (for example where an FEC has both
direct and indirect funding)
• The exceptions to this rule are:
- Where the entirety of an institution's provision is franchised
out from a single institution i.e. everything delivered at
Poppleton College is from Poppleton University so that the
college does not do a KIS – in such cases the registering
institution (University) would return the KIS
- Where the course is delivered at two or more institutions as
part of the same course – in such cases the registering
institution would return the KIS
Example 1 and 2
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
NF – not directly funded
• Washington University franchise out a course to
Adams College (NF) and have no other franchise
partners
- Washington University would do the KIS as the
teaching institution is not able to submit KIS data
• Washington University (MF) franchise out a course to
Jefferson College (MF)
- Jefferson College, as the teaching institution, would
do the KIS
Example 3 and 4
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
NF – not directly funded
• Franklin College (MF) (only) teaches a course with
students from Washington Uni (MF) and Jefferson
College (MF)
- In such cases the teaching institution, Franklin
College, would do the KIS
• Washington (MF) franchise out a course to Franklin
(MF) and Adams (NF) – a student will only study at
one college
- Franklin return the KIS, as do Washington (on behalf
of Adams)
Example 5
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
NF – not directly funded
• Washington University (MF) franchises out to
Jefferson College (MF) and Franklin College (DF)
- Jefferson College and Franklin College will do a KIS as
teaching institutions
Full-time versus part-time
NEW!
• A new mode field allows institutions to display parttime courses separately from their full-time
equivalent within KIS (previously where full-time
existed the distinction could not be made)
• This will mean students can see where the course is
offered in a full-time and part-time mode
KISCourse.KISMODE
NEW!
• New field replacing KISCourse.PTONLY
• Valid entries 1 Full-time, 2 Part-time or 3 Both
• ‘Both’ should be used where the same course is offered
in both a full-time and part-time route
• If the institution advertises the course as both full and
part-time, then code 3 'Both’ should be returned. This
will produce two KIS in the output file, each with linked
student data (NSS, DLHE, entry, continuation) from the
correct mode…
• …i.e. the two outputs will have differing student data
• FT = FT data only, PT = PT data only
Optional components
NEW!
• In 2012/13 KIS return additional components were either
included or excluded from course stages within the KIS
based on whether students were ‘expected’ to take them
• For 2013/14 the three main additional components will
be captured through 3 new fields:
- KISCourse.FOUNDATION
- KISCourse.SANDWICH
- KISCourse.YEARABROAD
• Where the components are optional the year should
not be reflected as a course stage or in fees
• The new fields will facilitate searching and filtering on
Unistats
KISCourse.FOUNDATION
NEW!
• The FOUNDATION field (returned for KISTYPE 1 or 2)
should be completed to reflect the availability of an
integrated foundation year:
• 0 ‘Not available’ 1 ‘Optional’ 2 ‘Compulsory’
• If an institution advertises the course as having an
integrated foundation year and again separately as
having no foundation year, then two KIS must be
returned
KISCourse.SANDWICH
NEW!
• The SANDWICH field (returned for KISTYPE 1 or 2) should
be completed to reflect the availability of a sandwich
placement:
• 0 ‘Not available’ 1 ‘Optional’ 2 ‘Compulsory’
• Sandwich components involve work placements only.
Work placements abroad should be returned in this field,
and not in KISCourse.YEARABROAD
• Where KISCOURSE.SANDWICH = 2 then the sum of all
KISCourse.CourseStage.PLACEMENT must be greater
than 75
• Where SANDWICH=2, VARFEE must equal 11 or 21
KISCourse.YEARABROAD
NEW!
• The YEARABROAD field (returned for KISTYPE 1 or 2)
should be completed to reflect the availability of a
study year abroad:
• 0 ‘Not available’ 1 ‘Optional’ 2 ‘Compulsory’
• Study years abroad relate only to years of study
abroad and not to work placements (which should
be reflected in the SANDWICH field)
• Where YEARABROAD=2, VARFEE must equal 11 or 21
Multiple options
• If two industry placements, or study times abroad equate to 100%
of a single course stage, then KISCourse.SANDWICH and
KISCourse.YEARABROAD should be coded as either 1 ’Optional’ or 2
‘Compulsory’…
• …however if these two industry placements, or study times abroad
do not equate to an entire course stage, then the fields should be
coded as 0 ‘Not available’, however appropriate information should
be included in the course stage information
• In the second stage of a course, the student can choose to complete
a 3 month placement in industry. The course stage is 9 months long
in total, and so the placement is 33% of the entire stage. This would
mean that KISCourse.SANDWICH would be coded 0 ‘Not available’
as it does not total an entire course stage, however, the course
stage information would reflect 33% of stage being undertaken as a
placement.
Y
2
Submitted would be 1!
3
0
2
1
Y
1 - HND
2
Y
2
0 – not a year!
0
0
Course title
The issue!
• Course titles in KIS 2012/13 were determined through
the free text field TITLE
• This process resulted in
misspelling of subjects and
qualifications…
• …as well as a myriad of
approaches to what should
be included
The solution
• KISCourse.HONOURS
- Records whether the course aim (on successful
completion) would result in honours degree
- 0 ‘not an honours’
1 ‘is an honours’
• KISCourse.KISAIM
- Records the course qualification e.g. 00 for BA
- Field uses a lookup table
• KISCourse.TITLE
- Records the title of the course e.g. History
- Use natural capitalisation only
NEW!
Location information
Location, location, location
• It was established that users of KIS would like to
know the location of courses that they are applying
to…
• …particularly important where a course is offered in
multiple locations, and potentially a significant
distance away from the providers main campus
• This could potentially result in misleading
information about accommodation costs provided
through KIS
• For 2013/14 the KIS record will include location
information linked to by each individual KIS course
Location entity
NEW!
• The entity belongs to the institution rather than to
individual KIS courses and is used as meta data that
is linked to
• Any given institution can have up to 50 locations to
reflect where the course is taught
• A location is determined by the institution…
• …however each must be at least 1km away from
each other
• Every KIS course must be linked to a location through
the same LOCID being returned in both
Defining a location
• Each location must have a unique LOCID (a two
character alpha-numeric field)...
• …given a name within LOCNAME…
• …and positioned using LONGTITUDE and LATITUDE
(returned as decimal degrees, to 6 decimal places i.e.
Latitude: 51.898517, Longitude: -2.078651)…
• …and identified where it is being taught at a
different institution (e.g. partner/franchise) through
LOCUKPRN
Linking a course to a location
• KIS courses are linked to locations by returning the
relevant Location.LOCID within the KISCourse.LOCID
• The location should reflect where the student will
spend the majority of their first year
• If the course location will change after the first year
then the KISCourse.LOCCHANGE field must be set to
‘1 The course does change location’
• Where it is possible to take the course at different
locations then the KISCourse.LOCID field should be
repeated within KISCourse to reflect each of them
Example
BA (Hons) History
LOCID = GL
BSc (Hons) Physics
LOCID = GL
BA (Hons) Business Studies
LOCID = GL
LOCID = CH
LOCID = WR
HND Event Planning
LOCID = WR
Accommodation
NEW!
• Accommodation information now relates to a
location as opposed to the institution as a whole…
• …thus accommodation information (for example the
number of beds, the lower and upper costs of
institutional and private accommodation) will differ
depending on the location
• Where two separate courses have different locations
but utilise the same accommodation – the latter will
need to be returned in both locations
A1 00999999
A2
”
A3
”
B%
”
00000123
C1
*and has to
be to
account for
location
change
2*
A2
B%
1
Accreditation
Recording accreditation
• In 2012/13 KIS accreditation information was displayed
through completing a free text field (ACCTYPE) to
describe the type and an ID to identify the accrediting
body ID (ACCBODYID)
• This process has now changed with ACCBODYID removed
from the record for 2013/14 and ACCTYPE changed
• It remains the case that if accreditation is at institution
level rather than course level and provided it applies to
all courses offered by the institution, the information
should be returned on every KIS
• Accreditation can now be recorded against KISTYPE 2s
Accreditation fields
NEW!
• ACCTYPE is now a 5-character composite code
incorporating both the body (as the prefix) and type of
accreditation (as a suffix)
• ACCDEPEND captures where accreditation is dependent
on student choice e.g. module selection
- 1 dependent on choice 0 not dependent on choice
Contact the accrediting body
ACCDEPEND = 1, however if core then 0
Fee information
Fee data
• Fee data is still either provided directly by the institution or by
UCAS (through returning KISCourse.UCASCOURSEID)…
• …and provides the average maximum fee (excluding any fee
waivers or discounts offered) for the course for England,
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales domiciled students
• Where a fee waiver is available this should be identified by
setting KISCourse.WAIVER to 1
• Courses for which fees will vary between years should be
flagged within KISCourse.VARFEE
• Where fees are yet to be confirmed then KISCourse.FEETBC
should be set to 0
• KIS 2013/14 will require fee information to be provided for
KISTYPE 2s as well NEW!
Support data
NEW!
• Support data such as WAIVER, MEANSSUP and
OTHSUP are now required for KISTYPE 1 or (new for
this year) 2, and are no longer allowed for KISTYPE 3
• Validation link between fees and support data has
been broken…
• …allowing institutions to return support information
for a course despite not knowing fee levels
Aggregation
2012/13 KIS principles
• Student, DLHE and NSS data added to KIS records at
either a course level (where the thresholds allowed) or at
subject level (where thresholds not met)
• Data added by either linking directly to a HESA/ILR
course or using JACS and LEVEL fields for new courses
• KIS courses linked to two years worth of HESA/ILR
• HEIs not able to link to ILR courses
• FECs not able to link to HESA course
• Where a single KIS course is linked to multiple HESA/ILR
courses then, when mapped to JACS level 3, the set of
JACS codes for each HESA/ILR course must be the same
2013/14 KIS principles
• Student, DLHE and NSS data added to KIS records at either a course
level (where the thresholds allowed) or at subject level (where
thresholds not met)
• Data was added by either linking directly to a HESA/ILR course or
using JACS and LEVEL fields for new courses
• KIS courses now linked to three years worth of HESA/ILR
NEW! • HEIs now able to link to ILR courses
NEW! • FECs now able to link to HESA course
NEW! • Where a single KIS course is linked to multiple HESA/ILR courses
then, when mapped to JACS level 3, the set of JACS codes for each
HESA/ILR course must be the same…
NEW! • …switch can now be requested in exceptional cases
NEW! • When linked to HESA or ILR data KISCourse.KISAIM must be at the
same level e.g. first degree
HESACourse and ILRAim
NEW!
• Student, DLHE and NSS data is still linked through
returning a HESACourse, ILRAim or (new for this
year) both…
• …however the HESAYEAR and ILRYEAR fields now
reflect 3 years worth of data…
- 2009, 2010, 2011
• …with the ‘BOTH’ option removed
• This means that the HESACourse or ILRAims entities
must be repeated to reflect each year the course
existed
How it works – in its simplest form
HESA/ILR data linked to by specifying the unique ID (COURSEID or ILRAIMID), the
number of years (HESAYEAR or ILRYEAR)
OR
Where the course is new, the LEVEL and JACS fields must be completed allowing the
linking to return any relevant data from that subject area for the specified level
The aggregation
The issues
• The number of courses not meeting the threshold is
an issue that will not go away – thresholds are there
to protect institutions and users of unistats
• Institutions involved in collaborative arrangements
and where the NSS/DLHE data of such students
appears…
• …with FECs wanting to be able to include NSS/DLHE
results from students taught at their institution…
• …as well as institutions who wish to exclude those
students not taught at their institution
Student allocation for NSS/DLHE 2012/13
HEI
FEC
Student allocation for NSS/DLHE 2013/14
HEI
FEC
How it will work
NEW!
• Institution.OTHERINST – identifies those institutions who
are partners of the returning institution that has
provision franchised in from
• A number of other fields then determine where the
students are allocated:
- KISCourse.TEACHUKPRN – indicates the institution
undertaking the teaching for new courses only
- HESACourse/ILRAims.TEACHUKPRN – indicates the
institution undertaking the teaching where a HESA or ILR
course exist
- HESACourse/ILRAims.REGUKPRN – indicates the
registering institution for the HESA or ILR course
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
Example 1
NF – not directly funded
• Washington University franchise out a course to
Adams College (NF) and have no other franchise
partners
- Washington University would do the KIS as the
teaching institution is not able to submit KIS data
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
NO
YES
NO
YES
NO
Adams
College
Their own
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
Example 2
NF – not directly funded
• Washington University (MF) franchise out a course to
Jefferson College (MF)
- Jefferson College, as the teaching institution, would
do the KIS
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
Washington’s
Washington’s
Their own
Washington’s
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
Example 3
NF – not directly funded
• Franklin College (MF) (only) teaches a course with
students from Washington Uni (MF) and Jefferson
College (MF)
- In such cases the teaching institution, Franklin
College, would do the KIS
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
Washington’s
(HESA)
Jefferson’s
(ILR)
Washington’s
Their own
Jefferson’s
Washington’s
Jefferson’s
MF – directly funded or mix of indirect funding partners
Example 4
NF – not directly funded
• Washington (MF) franchise out a course to Franklin (MF) and
Adams (NF) – a student will only study at one college
- Franklin return the KIS, as do Washington (on behalf of
Adams)
FRANKLIN’S RETURN:
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
Washington’s
Washington’s
Their own
Washington’s
WASHINGTON’S RETURN:
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
NO
YES
NO
YES
NO
Adams’
Their own
DF – directly funded
NF – not directly funded
Example 5
• Washington University (MF) franchises out to Jefferson
College (MF) and Franklin College (MF)
- Jefferson College and Franklin College will do a KIS as teaching
institutions
JEFFERSON’S RETURN:
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
Washington’s
Washington’s
Their own
Washington’s
FRANKLIN’S RETURN:
OTHERINST
TEACHUKPRN
REGUKPRN
HESACOURSEID
ILRAIMID
YES
NO
YES
YES
YES
Washington’s
Washington’s
Their own
Washington’s
A few principles
• The data field Module.TINST from the HESA Student
record will be used to allocate the correct students to
franchised institutions…
• …thus ensuring that they are only allocated students
they have taught
• Where an institution A teaches a course and also
franchises out the same course to institution B (thus
there are two KIS’), then it is possible there will be
slight duplication if institution B claim their students
as institution A will have all of those registered with
them.
Y
87654321
87654321
HNDBUS
-
YES
99999999
99999999
FILPRO
-
YES
87654321
87654321
FILPRO
-
YES
ENVIRO
-
YES
87654321
87654321
ENVIRO
PUENV
Course stages
Course stages recap!
• Each course stage within a KIS should be separately
identified and defined (through CourseStage.STAGE)
i.e. 1, 2 or 3…
• …and then by determining the percentage of the
stage that is delivered through scheduled teaching
and learning (CourseStage.SCHEDULED),
independent study (CourseStage.INDEPENDENT), and
placement study (CourseStage.PLACEMENT)…
• …and the percentage split of how the stage is
assessed – COURSEWORK, WRITTEN, PRACTICAL
How are stages defined?
• The stage should be based on typical module selections of
students on the course
• Thus all modules available to the course should be ranked in
relation to the number of students who took the module. The
credit values for these modules should then be summed to 1
FTE (120 credits) with all those after this point disregarded
• The 1 FTE worth of modules should then be used to
determine the split between assessment and teaching and
learning methods
• Where the process above leads to the inclusion of modules on
which less than 10% of students are registered, institutions
should make a reasonable judgement as to whether the
selection of modules is representative
Changes
NEW!
• If in an hour timetable slot the teaching typically lasts
50 minutes, with 10 minutes scheduled to move
between buildings, this pattern should be recorded
as 1 hour
• Work based learning has been moved out of
scheduled learning, and into placements
Course lengths for KIS type 2s
• Currently this is not possible and the length of study
is determined through course stages returned for the
type 3s it is linked to…
• …therefore the type 2 course might be 4 years in
length but it is displayed as 3 years because it is
linking to type 3s
KISCourse.NUMSTAGE
NEW!
• New field which identifies the total number of stages
for a KISTYPE 2…
• …and should only be returned where both a linked
KISCourse.KISTYPE = 3 and KISCourse.KISTYPE = 2
exist
• The information will indicate where a KISTYPE 3 may
not have the same number of stages as a KISTYPE 2
1 – would be 2 if compulsory
3
Other new fields
NEW!
• KISCourse.NHS - required to ensure that NHS
placement questions are only displayed for courses
that are funded by the NHS
• Institution.SUURL – required to link to student union
from Unistats
• Location.SUURL has also been added to the data
specification and is designed to be able to display the
student union that belongs to a particular location
• Remember that all url fields have a Welsh
equivalent!
Data collection
C13061
Data collection
• From 2013/14 HEIs will submit data to HESA via the
data collection system (https://submit.hesa.ac.uk)
– FECs will continue submitting to HEFCE
• Timescales remain relatively unchanged:
First release of validation kit
March 2013
System opens
29 May 2013
DLHE & NSS data added
June/July 2013
Last submission & sign-off deadline August 2013
Preview of UNISTATS and widgets
August/September 2013
System re-opens for updates
End of September 2013
Overlapping timescales
• Systems will need to be able to store different course
• Institutions will potentially be updating two separate records at the same
time on two systems
• Need to maintain two years worth of data separately – take care which KIS
is being updated!
Submitting data to HESA
• Data is submitted to HESA through the ‘Aardvark’
data collection system
• The ‘INSERT’ transaction allows the user to send data
files to Aardvark
• Once data has been sent to HESA the validation
process begins…
Submission process
• UCAS, DLHE and NSS
data will be added
when it becomes
available
• When a new UCAS file is
available the UCAS Fees
report will be updated
Validation Kit
• The first stage validation checks carried out in the
HESA and HEFCE systems are available within the
validation kit that HESA provides for users to
download
• Available to download from the HESA website
• After validation checks are complete, the user is able
to switch off validation rules that need further
investigation
• To be released March 2013
Stages of validation
Schema
Business
Exception
• Schema rules look at the structure of the file and check that the submission conforms to the
data type
• Error: The ‘STAGE’ element is invalid – the value ‘0’ is invalid according to its datatype
‘STAGEType’
• Business rules look at each KIS Course in turn and apply a level of logic – if X = Y then Z must
equal S
• Accreditation.ACCDEPENDURL must exist where Accreditation.ACCDEPEND = 1
• Exception rules look at the file as a whole and then apply logic. This stage also includes look-ups to
static data held behind the scenes.
• Institution.PRIVATEUPPER.1 Error
Must exist unless KISCourse.DISTANCE = 1 for all
KISCourse.KISTYPE = 1 or KISCourse.KISTYPE = 3 KISCourses without KISCourse.ILRAIMS or
KISCourse.HESACOURSE entities and all linked courses are distance learning.
Reports
• Raw data files
– Once the data has been submitted HESA will save a copy of
the raw data for institutions to download and also an
‘enhanced’ raw data file which includes the relevant UCAS
data
• UCAS Fees report
– The UCAS file contains information on fees and a new full
file will be available every day
– This data will be incorporated into the ‘Enhanced’ file
• UNISTATS file
– This is the output xml file for your institution
Check Documentation
• The check documentation is the most substantial of
the reports generated
• In 2012/13 HEFCE produced a large Excel workbook
which presented back the raw data and also the
supplied/calculated data
• HESA are splitting this into two outputs – one with
the input data and one with the additional UNISTATS
outputs
Reports on the data collection system
Validation
Raw data
UCAS data
NSS/DLHE/Student data
Verification
Post sign-off/go-live updates
• Following initial closure at the end of August, the
system will re-open in September for updates to be
made
• These will be published on a weekly basis, but a new
sign-off will be required following each update
• For HEIs the sign-off will be handled through a paper
form which can be returned electronically by email
to Institutional Liaison
• Sign-off should be by the head or acting head of the
institution
The HESA website
• We are currently reviewing the coding manual and
additional support sections of our website
• Your views are sought on the usability of these pages
• If you have any specific comments you would like to
share please email liaison@hesa.ac.uk
• http://www.hesa.ac.uk/c13061
Data collection and submission
The Institutional Liaison team are there to help with all
aspects of the return from local collection of data items
through to final submission and sign-off
Contact the team
liaison@hesa.ac.uk
01242 211144
HESA-KIS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
HESA information and discussion forum for staff
involved in preparing and submitting the KIS
These lists are used to circulate email news alerts from
HESA regarding data requirements, coding manuals and
validation kit releases
Want to join?
email liaison@hesa.ac.uk
or visit www.jiscmail.ac.uk
Preparing for KIS
Using the downloadable files
• HESA generate a number of downloadable files from
Student and DLHE submissions that can be used…
• …POPDLHE, UNISTATS (continuation rates), NSS from
Student…
• …UNISTATS (employment data) from DLHE
• Recommendation to ensure you have access to these
files…
• …and use them to understand potential issues with
your KIS submission
Keep in touch
If you require additional training help, including
bespoke visits to your institution, get in touch
with the training department…
w: www.hesa.ac.uk/training
e: training@hesa.ac.uk
t:
01242 211472
Follow us on Twitter: @HESATraining