Provider support manual:

Section 15 Additional guidance for recording Higher Education Data

Contents

Types of Engagement

Several of the fields in the ILR HE entity refers to instance which is linked with the HE concept of an ‘engagement’ or ‘year of engagement’ which are defined as follows:

Engagement

For HE, an ‘engagement’ is a student's commitment to an educational aim (qualification or credit) and its realisation over time. In previous years guidance on HE data, including the HESES guidance produced by the Office for Students, has referred to ‘instance’ rather than engagement. The concepts are very similar and this change in terminology should not require significant changes in practices for collecting and maintaining HE data for the ILR.

Students may progress from their original educational aim within the broad level descriptions (Undergraduate, Postgraduate Taught and Postgraduate Research) to a higher qualification level (e.g. progressing from level 5 to 6).

In these cases, the activity can be considered part of the same Engagement where the student continues studying on the new educational aim within a year of the end date of the previous educational aim. Alternatively, if the provider does not consider the activity to be a coherent progression, a new engagement can be returned.

Exceptionally, a student may be on two courses at the same time, aiming for two independent HE qualifications. In this case, there are two engagements and fields such as MODESTUD and STULOAD should be determined independently for each qualification.

Students on higher apprenticeships will typically be working towards more than one learning aim. These are not independent and the apprenticeship as a whole should be treated as one engagement.

Year of Engagement

An engagement can be split into one or more ‘years of engagement’. The first year of engagement begins when the student starts studying towards the qualification(s); subsequent years start on or near the anniversary of this date (allowing for minor variations in term dates).

Mode of Study Definitions

Full-Time

A year of engagement is counted as full-time if it meets all of the following criteria:

• The student is normally required to attend the provider, or elsewhere, for periods amounting to at least 24 weeks within the year of engagement, within that time they are expected to undertake periods of study, tuition, learning in the workplace, or sandwich work placement that does not meet the criteria to be sandwich year out, which amount to an average of at least 21 hours per week. (‘Guided learning hours’ should not be used in isolation to determine how many hours each week a student spends studying. All guided learning hours count towards this total, but it is expected that higher education students will spend a significant amount of time each week in self-led individual learning, and an estimate of this time should also be included.)

• Full-time fees are chargeable for the course for the year. Exceptionally, all or part of the fee may be waived for individual students based on their particular personal - rather than course-related-circumstances. This does not include cases where fees are reduced because students are studying less intensively than is normally expected for a full-time student. It should not be waived for all students on a course, and the criteria that determine if fees may be waived should not be tantamount to waiving them for all students.

We recognise that the concept of a full-time fee may not be meaningful for some higher education provision. Further guidance on determining mode of study for learning aims as part of a higher level apprenticeship is provided below. For other higher education learning aims we would expect that full-time students are charged a higher level of fee than part-time students on a similar course. Providers should also be mindful that generally where a student is charged a lower fee than a full-time student with the same learning aim, other than cases where all or part of the fee is waived for individual students based on their particular personal circumstances, we would expect mode of study to be part-time.

Sandwich year out

A year of engagement is counted as a ‘sandwich year out’ if it includes a period of work-based experience and meets all the following criteria:

• The course falls within the definition of a ‘sandwich course’ in Regulation 2(10) of the Education(Student Support) Regulations 2011 (Statutory Instrument 2011 No. 1986) as amended, or theyear of engagement is an Erasmus+/Turing Scheme year abroad spent working

• It is a year of engagement that fulfills one of the following: Any periods of full-time study within the year of engagement are in aggregate less than 10 weeks or In respect of that year of engagement and any previous years of engagement, the aggregate of any one or more periods of attendance which are not periods of full-time study (disregarding intervening vacations) exceeds 30 weeks.

• A reduced fee is chargeable for the course for the year, compared with what would be chargeable if the student were studying full-time in the year.

Part Time

A year of engagement is counted as part-time if it does not meet the requirements to be either full-time or a sandwich year out.

Determining the mode of study when multiple aims are taken concurrently

Where a student is on two courses at the same time, aiming for two independent HE qualifications, the mode of each year of engagement is determined independently.

Where instead a student is aiming for two (or more) HE qualifications concurrently that are not independent of each other and are therefore part of the same engagement (e.g. as part of an Apprenticeship) care will need to be taken to ensure that there is no double counting of activity when determining the mode of each aim. Where learning counts towards more than one aim it should be wholly attributed to one of those aims, normally the one at the highest academic level.

Student Engagement FTE

Student engagement FTE represents the institution's best academic judgement of the full-time equivalence of the learner (for this record) during the reporting year 01 August to 31 July.

Calculating FTE

Full-time, full year students would normally be returned as 100 and part-time students returned as a proportion of an equivalent full-time course. Comparisons and weightings of different full-time, full year courses are not expected. The proportion of part-time study can be estimated on either a 'time' or a 'credit' basis. The FTE should not be weighted to take account of any resourcing implications of different courses.

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.

All students following a course with the same planned pattern of study would initially be assumed to have the same FTE. 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 15 weeks when 30 weeks of activity were planned should be returned with a STULOAD of 50% (050.0).

The calculation of FTE therefore becomes a function of proportion (that the course represents of a full-time benchmark course) x time (amount of the course that the student followed in the reporting year 01 August to 31 July). 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).

A foundation degree bridging course should be returned with a STULOAD of 030.0, except where one of the following occurs:

• The course spans two academic years, when the load should be proportionally split between them.

• Where an Apprenticeship component aim is required to be recorded in academic years following the end date of the component, STULOAD must be set as 0
  
  Examples

1. A student commences a one year long HNC in September 2022, studying it full-time (MODESTUD = 1) and ending in July 2023. The STULOAD returned in 2022-23 would be 100% (100.0).

2. A student commences a two year long HND in January 2023, studying it full-time (MODESTUD = 1) and ending in December 2024. Assuming two terms are studied in 2022-23 and one term is studied in 2024-25, STULOAD would be returned as follows:
a. 2022-23: 67% (067.0)
b. 2023-24: 100% (100.0)
c. 2024-25: 33% (033.0)

3. A student commences a two year long Foundation Degree in September 2022, studying it full-time (MODESTUD = 1) with a planned end date of July 2024. However, they withdraw half way through the second year. STULOAD would be returned as follows:
a. 2022-23: 100% (100.0)
b. 2023-24: 50% (050.0)

Determining FTE when multiple aims are taken concurrently

Where a student is on two courses at the same time, aiming for two independent HE qualifications, the FTE of each year of engagement must be determined independently.

Where instead a student is aiming for two (or more) HE qualifications concurrently that are not independent of each other and are therefore part of the same engagement (e.g. as part of an Apprenticeship) care must be taken to ensure that there is no double counting of activity when determining the FTE of each aim. Where activity counts towards more than one aim it should be wholly attributed to one of those aims, normally the one at the highest academic level. Where one aim is full-time all learning that could be associated with that aim must be associated with that aim and FTE only associated with other aims where it reflects additional learning and study effort. When determining FTE for part-time study the comparison must be a normal full-time course and should not be the minimum level of activity considered full-time.

A total FTE greater than 100 across all HE aims that are part of the same engagement is not generally expected unless the student is studying at an accelerated rate (for example studying a full honours degree over less than 3 years).

Calculation of Checksum for Student Support Number

The algorithm for calculating the checksum is as follows:

For positions 1 to 4 of the SSN:

• Convert each character to a number using the following values: A=0, B=1, C=2, D=3, E=4, F=5, G=6, H=7, J=8, K=9, L=10, M=11, N=12, P=13, R=14, S=15, T=16, U=17, V=18, W=19, X=20, Y=21

• Multiply each number by the weighting factor, which is 14 minus the position (i.e. 13 for position 1, 12 for position 2 etc)

For positions 5 to 12 of the SSN:

• Multiply each value for positions 5 to 12 by the weighting factor, which is 14 minus the position (i.e. 9 for position 5, 8 for position 6 etc)

Calculate the check character:

• Divide the sum of the calculated values for positions 1 to 12 by 23 to get a remainder (i.e. if summed value was 475 then the remainder would be 15)

• Subtract this remainder from 23 and convert this value to a character using the following values: 1=A, 2=B, 3=C, 4=D, 5=E, 6=F, 7=G, 8=H, 9=J, 10=K, 11=L, 12=M, 13=N, 14=P, 15=R, 16=S, 17=T, 18=U, 19=V, 20=W, 21=X, 22=Y, 23=Z

• This is the check character, so if validating a captured SSN this should match position 13 of the SSN.

Characters I, O, Q are not valid characters in the SSN. Z is only valid in position 13.

Worked example

When the Student Support Number = WADM46891352A

• Convert the characters to numbers using the values, so W=19, A=0, D=3, M=11.

• Multiply each number by the weighting factor.

Positions: 1 2 3 4

Weighting factor: 13 12 11 10

(W=19*13=247), (A=0*12=0), (D=3*11=33), (M=11*10=110)

• For positions 5 to 12 (46891352) multiply the number by the weighting factor.

Positions: 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Weighting factor: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

(4*9=36), (6*8=48), (8*7=56), (9*6=54), (1*5=5), (3*4=12), (5*3=15), (2*2=4)

• Sum the calculated values for positions 1 to 12.

(247+0+33+110+36+48+56+54+5+12+15+4=620)

• Divide this number by 23 to get a remainder.

(620/23=26 with a remainder of 22)

• Subtract the remainder from 23 and convert this value to a character.

(23-22=1=A)

• This is the check character and this matches position 13 of the SSN.