20 July 2018 
Pam Macpherson Barrett, Head of Policy, Funding and Regulation
The Story So Far
We have been thinking about Data Futures for while now at Leeds, attending conferences and seminars, responding to consultations as opportunities have arisen.
We started our own preparations in early 2017 by undertaking a baselining exercise of our current return processes. This confirmed our understanding of the nature of data collection and storage in the University; which, of course, is representative of the complexity of a large comprehensive institution. Added to this we are also upgrading Banner, our student records system. We knew that moving to a new collection schedule plus in year returns and a systems upgrade was going to be a big job and have been putting a team together to help us get there. Because of the scale of change required we chose not to volunteer to participate in the alpha or beta pilots but to engage with HESA in other ways.
The release of the coding manual, although incomplete, has been a huge help. We have mapped the data items onto functional areas and identified where we collect the data centrally, and where it is held in ancillary systems. All this is starting to give us a sense of how and where we need to focus our preparation efforts. We are working closely with colleagues involved in the broader work of upgrading our processes and systems to ensure the University can provide the optimal educational experience for students and staff now and in the future. Data Futures is one of the earliest beneficiaries of this work, but we also need to deliver other business critical processes such as annual UCAS and Student Loan Company updates.
Where are we now?
In some ways we are still waiting. Ellucian, which provides Banner, is still developing the Data Futures module, HESA has not released full guidance, quality rules, in-scope dates, etc. and we need to complete delivery of the Banner upgrade. None of these is a small task and requires commitment not only from the Data Futures team but across the University.
We are getting on with detailed analysis and understanding pain points in the data collection and return to HESA processes. We want to ensure that as much quality assurance happens at the point of data collection as possible with the HESA Student Record returns team providing a second line of assurance and greater insight into what the data can tell Leeds and HESA about our activity.
Our Executive Team and Audit & Risk Committee understand the importance of readiness for Data Futures and are supportive of our activity. Their commitment is reflected by the investment being made by the University of Leeds to support preparations activity.
What’s next?
Because Data Futures requires change across the University we are planning to increase our communications to a wider range of colleagues. We want to help them understand what is changing and why. This will help to develop buy-in for changing the way we work to make it easier to get data right at source and then use it for a range of onward purposes (including for HESA and the OfS).
We are working closely with our IT department to understand the impact that moving to an upgraded student record system and a new HESA data specification will have. Over the next year we will need to develop and test this ready for deployment next summer. After all the new spec is live from 1 August 2019 and that’s not far away.
As HESA releases more information we will incorporate this into our planning and delivery. It feels uncomfortable not to have all the information we need now, but we will do our best to manage this. There will come a time when we have to make a best guess and take it from there.
2018/19 is going to be a busy year.
July 2018
Pam Macpherson Barrett
Head of Policy, Funding and Regulation
University of Leeds
