Key Information Sets Data

Andrew Oakley, Head of Software Development

Key Information Sets (KIS)

• Information for prospective undergraduate students; applicants; e.g. sixth-formers

• To help them choose a course and an institution• Throughout the UK

• Comparable information• Standard widgets• Standard reports

Screenshot – portrait (vertical) widget

• Widget will be available in landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical)

• As an HTML5 Snippet or an HTML iFrame• Sample code provided – see links on last

page of this slideshow

• Mandatory from September 2012 according to every funding council (Scotland, NI, Wales, England – all mandatory)

• Also available in Welsh for Welsh institutions

Screenshot – landscape (horizontal) widget

• Both vertical and horizontal widgets will be animated

• Will scroll through around 10 data items• Users may pause the carousel

Sample report

• Widget links to report hosted on Unistats

• You can also link to the report directly

• Also in Welsh

Sample report – in full

This KIS sample report dates from July 2011. The final design has changed to incorporate tabbed sections and other design changes, but the content remains virtually the same. Design provided by:• Chris Lorensson http://chrislorensson.com/• Pure Usability http://www.pureusability.co.uk/

Where does the data come from?

• National Student Survey (NSS)Student opinion poll, e.g. "Staff are good at explaining things – 87% agree"

• UCASCourse fees (for non-UCAS institutions, this is provided direct by the institution instead)

Where does the data come from? (cont'd)

• HESA Destination of Leavers in HE survey (DLHE)– Percentage in employment, average salary,

percentage in graduate-level jobs– Six months after graduating– So it really matters that your institution gets their

alumni to complete the DLHE survey!– Next year HESA plans to also include the percentage

employed in the subject area they studied in• Did a B.A. Basketweaver get a job in Basketweaving?• Using SIC/SOC codes

Where does the data come from? (cont'd)

• HEFCE/HESA Cyy061 data collection (e.g. C12061)– XML file provided direct by each institution– E.g. "Coursework assessment percentage", "Upper

and lower quartile accommodation costs", "Professional accreditation"

– Data is provided to HEFCE in first year; to HESA in subsequent years. Other national funding councils have asked HEFCE/HESA to provide this service on their behalf. More on that later…

What is a course?

• Every course has a KIS. So it matters that you have one widget per course on your institution's website.

• A course is "something you can apply to study"• If applicants apply to study "Natural Sciences" and

then choose to specialise in Biology or Chemistry in their 2nd or 3rd year, then "Natural Sciences" is one course

• If applicants apply to study "Biology" whilst others apply to study "Chemistry", then those are two separate courses

What about new, small or modular courses?

• Where a course is new, or the intake is too small to be statistically valid, data will be aggregated

• This will be clearly labelled, where it happens• There are three levels of aggregation for a course, called

KISTYPE. In general:– KISTYPE 1: Any course with 20+ students.– KISTYPE 2: Placeholders for joint courses with less than 20

students – links to the individual KIS records for the individual subjects provided they all have 20+ students

– KISTYPE 3: Subject-level KIS.E.g. a rare language course might be aggregated up to a generic European Languages And Area Studies KIS.Or where KISTYPE 2 has <20 students.

– This is just a summary. It can get more complicated.

Timeline

• 22 Aug 2012– Final deadline for submission of KIS XML data by

institutions

• 30 Sept 2012– Widgets available for institutions' websites– Reports will be available on Unistats website– UCAS will include KIS data in course searches

• 31 Oct 2012– All institutions' websites must have KIS widgets– KIS data collection re-opens for updates

Frequently asked questions about time travel

• HEFCE and HESA number their data collections as CyyNNN where yy is a two-digit year and NNN identifies the collection such as staff data (025), student data (051), DLHE (018), KIS (061)

• C12061 is the KIS data which institutions are submitting now– Applicants will see widgets/reports from Sept/Oct 2012– So it applies to courses starting Sept/Oct 2013– Institutions will be able to update it throughout the year (e.g. they decide not to

run a course)

• C13061 is the KIS data which institutions will submit next spring/summer– Applicants will see widgets/reports from Sept/Oct 2013– So it applies to courses starting Sept/Oct 2014– There will be a few months of data collection overlap when both C12061

updates will still be allowed and when C13061 data collection starts

What is HESA & HEFCE's role?

• HEFCE is running the C12061 data collection– The first year of KIS, goes live Sept 2012– Using rapid development tools– On behalf of all UK national funding councils– With lots of input from various bodies including the

NUS and national governments– HESA is providing the XML validation framework

• HESA will take on KIS from C13061– Second and subsequent years, goes live Sept 2013– Using the established HESA Submission system

How is the data updated?

• Institutions will be able to re-submit their XML files throughout the year

• You'll have to resubmit the whole XML file, for all your courses– This may (or may not) change when HESA take it over next

year; we usually allow partial data inserts

• Updates to the widgets/reports will happen on a regular interval yet to be agreed, most likely once per week

• For seriously misleading information, your funding council will be able to request an emergency immediate update

What about Alternative Providers?

• "Alternative" includes non-funding-council institutions who may be for-profit, charitable etc.

• A handful of APs are taking part from day one, e.g. Buckingham

• Some data items may be missing (optional) for those APs

• The number of APs included, and the completeness of their data, is expected to increase in subsequent years

• Also possibly some FE colleges, but there's a grey area if they're just providing venues/resources for another "normal" institution's courses.

Can I re-use the data?

• Yes. Exact terms are still being agreed.• Most likely:

– The whole dataset will be available to download in a variety of formats including XML and popular spreadsheets

– For no cost, for both commercial and non-commercial purposes– To anyone who signs up to the licence agreement, e.g. you

must agree not to misrepresent the data– You can use the data as-is and call it official data– You can remix / mash-up the data (e.g. aggregate it, slice it up,

overlay it on a map) and state that KIS was the source, but you will no longer be able to call it official data

– Hopefully one of the standard open licences such as the Open Government Licence

Any Questions?Links, contact details & credits

• The author of this presentationAndrew Oakley, Head of Software Development, HESA, 95 Promenade, Cheltenham GL50 1HZEmail: andrew.oakley@hesa.ac.uk (preferred method of contact)Twitter: @aroakley (usually only monitored during events, conferences etc.)

• HESA’s KIS data collection pagesIncludes field-by-field summary of data collection, XML/XSDs, FAQ, guidancehttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_studrec&Itemid=232&mnl=12061

• Unistats widget user guideCode snippets for embedding the widget in your course web pageshttp://www.hesa.ac.uk/includes/C12061_resources/Unistats_widget_user_guide.pdf

• Funding council KIS pageshttp://www.hefce.ac.uk/whatwedo/lt/publicinfo/kis/http://www.hefcw.ac.uk/documents/publications/circulars/circulars_2011/w11%2015he%20key%20information%20sets.pdfhttp://www.delni.gov.uk/index/further-and-higher-education/higher-education/role-structure-he-division/he-policy/he-teaching-and-learning.htm

• KIS report provided by the designers & usability experts who created the KIS widget & reportsChris Lorensson http://chrislorensson.com/Pure Usability http://www.pureusability.co.uk/

• KIS screenshots provided by Jenni Rogers & Julia Moss of HEFCE

• The Open Government Licence – not yet confirmed to be the KIS licence, but to give you an ideahttp://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/