1. Information, Information, Information
Paul Travill
Academic Registrar
University of Wolverhampton

2. Good Afternoon
• Students at the heart of the system
• What’s wrong with the present information
• KIS
• QAA Institutional Audit
• Using our current information differently
• Driving change and improvement from data

3. Well-informed students driving teaching
excellence
• All students able to make more informed choices about the courses
and institutions which best meet their needs.
• HEI’s to provide a standard set of information about courses, make
it easier for applicants to find & compare this information.
• HEFCE to improve Unistats, so prospective students can make more
useful comparisons between subjects at different institutions
• UCAS to make available, course by course, data showing type and
subjects of actual qualifications held by previously successful
applicants. This should help young people choose which subjects
and qualifications to study at school
• Organisations that hold student data to make detailed data
available, including on employment and earnings

4. • ‘I am committed to improving the information
available to prospective students and their parents… it
is in everyone's interest that students make well-
informed decisions about what and where to study…we
need to do better on careers advice and information’
• David Willets, September 2010
• ‘The relationship between the student and the
institution will be at the heart of the system….There will
be improvements in the information and guidance
given to students when they are choosing courses’
• Browne Review, October 2010

5. Well-informed students driving teaching
excellence
• So what is wrong with our current data?
• Where do applicants currently get their data?

6. Applicant Information
• UCAS
• SLC
• Institution website
• Prospectus
• Open Days
• School, College
• Unistats
• Programme Specifications

7. KIS
• The KIS will contain areas of information that
students have identified as useful.
- student satisfaction
- course information
- employment and salary data
- accommodation costs and bed availability
- financial information, such as fees and NSP
- students' union information
- Accreditation by PSRB
- Programme Specification link

8. Data management
• For 2012 only: have choice of using actual
11/12 or estimated 12/13 data
• Future years should be based on retrospective
actual, unless a new, or substantially changed
course
• Has over 75 data fields to be returned for each
KIS (and this doesn’t include the DLHE or NSS results – which
will be added later by HEFCE)

11. Website wigets

12. What data is in the KIS

13. Timescales to KIS
• October 2011 – HEFCE/ HESA documentation released
• February 2012 – validation kit released
• March 2012 – HEFCE system opens for data submission
• July 2012 – NSS and DLHE 2011 data added to KIS
submissions
• August 2012 – final deadline for submission and sign-
off of KIS data
• September 2012 – official website and widgets go live
• October 2012 – system re-opens for updates to
September 2012 KIS

14. Who publishes a KIS and for what
• Mandatory for institutions in England, Northern
Ireland and Wales, optional for Scotland…
• ….covering (FT & PT) undergraduate courses
starting within the period 1 August 2013 and 31
July 2014
• KIS records for franchise courses must be
provided by the franchising institution that is
responsible for registering students and returning
them to HESA

15. What is a course?
• Is defined as a programme of study that a
student can apply to either through UCAS.
• HESA currently undertaking a study on the
different definitions of course across the UK
• What is a course at your Institution?

16. A KIS Course
• if students can apply separately to courses in
Physics, Chemistry and Biology each would require a
separate KIS, whereas if students could only apply to a
course in Science and later choose to specialise, then
only a single KIS needs to be produced.
• If a student can apply for either MEng and BEng then
two separate KIS are needed. If all apply for MEng with
a possibility of leaving with a BEng then only one KIS is
needed
• Separate KIS must be produced for two presentations
of a course if the fees differ

17. The KIS – bit by bit

18. NSS Data – from 2012 NSS
• Staff are good at explaining things
• Staff have made the subject interesting
• Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of my course
• I have received sufficient advice and support with my
studies
• Feedback on my work has been prompt
• Feedback on my work has helped me clarify things I did
not understand
• The library resources are good enough for my needs
• I have been able to access general IT resources when I
needed to

19. What does the course cost?
• Where the course contains optional components
that reduce the fee, it should be assumed that
the student does not take these components
when determining the fee level
• The value should not be reduced to reflect any
fee waivers or discounts that are offered – shown
separately on a URL back to the HEI website
• For courses that recruit through UCAS this data
will be supplied by UCAS and not collected as
part of the KIS record

20. Accommodation
• Institution owned/sponsored accommodation:
– average annual costs - upper and lower quartiles,
– number of units (to which students can reasonably expect to have access)
• Private rental accommodation:
– average annual costs - upper and lower quartiles

21. Employment
• The destinations of graduates six months after
completing their course – comprising working,
studying, working and studying, unemployed,
and not available for work
• Salary data:
– For 2011/12 this is being added to Unistats

22. Teaching and Assessment
• Proportion of time spent in various learning
and teaching activities – by year/stage of
study, with a link to further detail
• Mix of summative assessment methods – by
year/stage of study
• Professional bodies that recognise this course,
with a link to further detail
• Link to “reality” or what is validated

23. Categories of learning

24. What is a Typical Student
• 1. Determine the modules that are available to
a KIS Course
• 2. Rank in order of number of students taking
the module in the relevant year
• 3. Determine the modules that contribute to 1
FTE/120 credits
• 4. Use the modules with the most students
enrolled on them, until the credit sum = 120

25. A simple example
For scheduled teaching and learning:
((30*60)+(30*50)+(20*30)+(10*30)+(30*40))/120 = 45

26. Does it all matter
• We already produce lots of information
• It’s on the web
• It’s
– mainly up to date?
– Accurate?
– A whole new source of league table data!
• New commercial “Go compare” sites

27. Other information requirements
• HEAR, Higher Education Achievement Report
– Incorporates transcript, European Diploma
Supplement, award detail of the student, prizes,
medals, membership of clubs and societies
• Student Charter
– To cover every student UGPT > PG(R)FT
• Internal demands on data use

28. QAA Institutional Audit
• From 2012-13, one of the judgments will be on
the quality of information universities and other
institutions publish.
• Including that produced for students and
applicants, the institution's enhancement of
students' learning opportunities.
• This is to provide assurance to students and
prospective students that the information they
use to make decisions is accurate and useful.

29. Using our current data
as information sources
• Using the current systems to drive information
demands
• Student records > management information
• Different demands on the same data