The HESA Data Collection Process

Nicola Jewer, Institutional Liaison Manager, HESAUSHA Conference, 24 April 2013

Objectives

• Introduction to HESA• Data to be collected – what, when and how?• Overview of the heidi benchmarking tool

Introduction to HESA

HESA the Agency

• HESA is a Company Limited by Guarantee• Whose Members are Universities UK and Guild HE,

who appoint Board• HESA is a sector-owned agency• Whose relationship to government departments and

funding bodies (whom we call Statutory Customers) is governed by formal agreements or contracts

HESA as an organisationHESA’s mission

To support the advancement of UK higher education by

collecting, analysing and disseminating accurate and

comprehensive statistical information in response to the needs

of all those with an interest in its characteristics and a stake in its

future.

Who does HESA collect data for?Statutory customers• Higher Education Funding Council for

England (HEFCE)• Department for Business Innovation & Skills

(BIS)• Higher Education Funding Council for Wales

(HEFCW)• Welsh Government (WG)• Scottish Government (SG)• Scottish Funding Council (SFC)• Research Councils (RCs)• Training and Development Agency (TA)• Department for Employment and Learning

(Northern Ireland) (DEL(NI))

Who does HESA collect data for?HE providers and agencies

• The HE sector in the UK⁻ 165 institutions

What HESA does

• Annual data collections from institutions • Creation of databases from collections• Supply of data to Statutory Customers• Regular publications, including some National

Statistics output• Information provision service• Higher Education Information Database for

Institutions (heidi)

Why do we collect data?

• The data is required by one of HESA’s Statutory Customer

Or • The data is required by the HE sector for its own

purposes

But not at the behest of anyone elseAnd not on the off-chance that it might be useful

HESA Data Streams

How does HESA provide access to data? Different routes to the data

• Regular paper and electronic publications, some National Statistics output

• Bespoke Data Service

• Higher Education Information Database for Institutions (heidi)

• Free statistics online

How does HESA collect data?Engagement with HE institutions

• Operational documentation on the web• HESA operates a helpdesk - telephone and email• Comprehensive programme of training seminars• Training materials on the web• Post-implementation reviews after significant change• Each institution nominates a record contact for each of the

HESA data streams• National HESA User Group with representatives of

professional associations

The HESA Estates record

HESA Estates record

• Became part of the HESA portfolio in 2009• The Estates Management Statistics collection (EMS)

is a data collection initiative which began within the sector through AUDE

• The main objective of EMS is to give the sector access to relevant information to enable better strategy and decision making

• EMS is about improving estate management performance through facilitating access to relevant information

Estates data collected

Buildings and functionality

Environment, energy, emissions

and wasteFinance

Space measurement

Staff and student counts

USHA data

Data to be collected by HESA from 2012/13

Health & Safety

Dangerous occurrences

Incidents involving injury

Occupational diseases reportable under RIDDOR

Occupational injuries reportable under RIDDOR

Fire

Number of fires by type

Directly exposed to fire or smoke

Number of alarm activations

Injuries as a result of fire

Change to reporting practice

• Move in the collection year to HESA Standard Reporting Year

1 August – 31 July (academic year)• Implication for 2012:

1. Report calendar data 1 January – 31 December 2012 to USHA

2. Report academic data 1 August 2012-31 July 2013 to HESA

How is the data returned?

• Data is submitted to HESA retrospectively each Spring

• HESA has a bespoke data collection website submit.hesa.ac.uk

• Data must be returned using the web form provided by HESA

• Both numbers and, where applicable, contextual information will be collected

Data Quality Checking

• HESA makes use of both automated and manual quality assurance checks

• Automated checks:– Validation is in-built into the web form to ensure data

items are completed as expected• Manual checks:– Data reviewed by our Quality Assurance team to ensure

credibility– Unusual fluctuations are queried and the explanations

recorded alongside the dataset

Timeframe of HESA Estates collection*

Submission system opens January 2014Return date 2 March 2014Data quality checking period 2 – 22 March 2014Last submission 22 March 2014Sign-off 24 March 2014

* Exact dates to be confirmed nearer the time

heidi

Benchmarking requirement

• USHA working party from 2008 had the aim to update the data collection process to allow better benchmarking

• HESA provides this facility through its heidi service

heidi

• heidi - the Higher Education Information Database for Institutions. heidi.hesa.ac.uk

• All HEIs have a subscription to this service • Bespoke comparison reports• Contains a very broad range of data about HE• Data is added through scheduled releases• Allows dynamic extraction and manipulation of data

Data available in heidi

HESA data Student Staff DLHE Finance HE Business and

Community Interaction Estates management Student staff ratios

Other data Applications data – CUKAS, GTTR,

NMAS, UCAS Funders Forum Metrics SCONUL Library management

statistics Teaching Quality Information (TQI) National Student Survey (NSS) Training Development Agency data Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) Performance Indicators UUK Pattern data Equality

What heidi enables you to do

• Benchmark against similar institutions; be that the Russell Group, those with forensic science departments or those with +20k students– You can set your own perimeters

• Compare information between datasets – E.g. Health & Safety Vs. Building condition (collected in the

Estates record)• Produce management statistics for local use

Benefits of using heidi – local promotion

http://www.kent.ac.uk/estates/sustainability/emissions.html

What to do next?

• Familiarise yourself with the data requirements– Coding manual available on HESA website details all data

fields for a collection – www.hesa.ac.uk/C12042 • Find out who your local Estates record contact is– Contact liaison@hesa.ac.uk

• Join the HESA-Estates JISCMail group to keep up-to-date on the data collection, data requirements and discussion topics – email liaison@hesa.ac.uk or visit www.jiscmail.ac.uk

Any questions?

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 teamliaison@hesa.ac.uk01242 211144