We are in receipt of the latest request for information to inform
the Sunday Times University Guide and its accompanying League
Table. At first glance it appears that we are required to
provide data only on the sections that will not already have been
answered by reference to HESA data, which the ST will be getting
direct from them.
However, the covering notes for guidance encourage us to provide
them with that information ALSO - I quote:
"Please answer all questions in bold type. We are happy to
collect the information centrally for those questions in ordinary
print [my comment: presumably from HESA although it is not made
clear]. However, the data we use from central sources will be a
year out of date. Filling in these sections gives you the
opportunity to use data from the 1998 entry cohort, rather than
1997, which is the most up-to-date information currently held
centrally by HESA etc."
I would suggest that this makes a nonsense of ANY attempts we, as
a sector, and HESA have made to standardise on data collection
and data consistency (not withstanding other concerns about the
playing field not being level anyway!), and should be positively
discouraged. Any league Tables generated using data sets across
years would be nonsensical. I would welcome other institutions'
views on this, as well as HESA's.
In addition, we are asked to provide then with information from
the HEFCE Performance Indicators tables, despite the fact that
these are still subject to consultation, and are not due for
publication in any form until later in the summer after
consultation has confirmed acceptance of them as appropriate
measures.
Thus, in Section IV of the questionnaire we are asked to quote
the "percentage of all young and mature students progressing at
your institution following year of entry drawn from the bottom
line of Table 3 of the forthcoming HEFCE PIs". However, to do so
ignores both the diversity of the intake as illustrated in the
analysis breakdowns in the lines above, and will also undoubtedly
lead to a single ranking league table which takes no account of
different institutional types and missions.
Comments please!
----------------------
Judy Evans
Head of Management Information
University of North London
166-221 Holloway Road
London N7 8DB
tel : 0171 753 5146
fax : 0171 753 5049
email : [log in to unmask]
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