We are delighted to announce that our HESPA Showcasing Good Practice Week 2025 sessions are open for bookings.
The aim of this week long event is to provide a space for our members to share with each other the work they have done which they feel has been a particular success, and to celebrate and promote the hard work of planners in the HE sector.
Thank you to all our wonderful members who have volunteered to lead a session. We know the rest of the HESPA community will be looking forward to hearing what you have been working on. The full programme is below, and you can book on using the links for each session.
All sessions will be held on MS Teams. After booking you will receive an automated booking confirmation email. You will then be sent a Teams invite to the session, which will contain the joining instructions (these are not automated, but we will add new bookings every couple of days).
Speakers:
Dan Swain, Head of Planning
Iwi Ugiagbe-Green, Reader
Institution: Manchester Metropolitan University
The session will reflect on how Manchester Met uses data insight to inform education praxis and through our evaluation model reflects on the impact of activities that are tackling differential gaps.
The initial part of the session will discuss how we have developed a high-quality portfolio of data products that provides an in-depth view of the complex issue linked to differential gaps. The session will discuss our approach to insight and how the data is used to tell stories regarding the student experience, as degree outcome is used as a proxy of experience. A key theme of our approach is meeting the needs of different audiences through providing multiple views of the data from Institutional through to unit level. The insight drives how we develop our approaches to enhancing the student experience and supports how we review and continuously improve our education praxis.
The second part of the session will detail our approach to evaluation and how this feeds back into delivery of our activities. Manchester Met has developed an evaluation model that allows us to reflect on the impact of projects, services and education praxis. Our approach is based on transparency, and this enables us to understand and share different approaches to bringing about positive change and improving the student experience.
Speakers:
Rayees Saidalavi, Assistant Planning and Data Analyst
Niklas Jakobsen, Data Analyst
Institution: University of Roehampton
This session will explore the integration of the HESA Engagement dataset into internal reporting, focusing on the data modeling techniques used to structure the data effectively. It will provide an overview of how the dataset has been incorporated into institutional reporting frameworks and explain the rationale behind employing a Many-to-One relationship approach to link engagement records with HESA’s valid entries.
Attendees will gain an understanding of the HESA Engagement dataset, including its structure, purpose, and reporting implications. The session will delve into the data modeling approach, highlighting how separating the dataset into distinct entities and establishing Many-to-One relationships improves data integrity and usability. In addition, the session will address technical and practical challenges encountered during implementation and share insights into how these were resolved. The discussion will also extend to the strategic benefits of this integration, demonstrating how a well-structured data model can enhance institutional reporting, analysis, and decision-making. This session will be particularly relevant for data professionals, planners, and analysts who work with HESA data and are looking to improve the efficiency and accuracy of their internal reporting processes.
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Speakers:
Stephen Turner, Data and Analytics Engagement Manager
Guy Pattison, Senior Data Developer
Institution: Nottingham Trent University
NTU encountered a challenge in helping staff locate, interpret, understand, and report on their performance data. The numerous metrics generated to assess course performance made it difficult for users to get a comprehensive overview. These metrics were spread across various reports for applications, enrolment, Graduate Outcomes, NSS results, Success 4 All, and more. The vision was to create a unified view where all these metrics, or a selected subset, could be viewed across multiple years. This unified view would allow users to slice and dice the data by various student characteristics and generate charts, thereby reducing the need to export data to Excel. Consequently, the team developed 'School Insights,' a Power BI app accessible to all staff at the University.
The session will include a demo of the app, details of how it was designed and subsequently promoted via a dedicated engagement role.
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Speakers:
Sam Kirk-Jones, Head of Planning
Darius Austin, Senior Planning Officer
Institution: University of Chester
This session will provide an overview of the University of Chester’s underlying theory, principles and approach to model Portfolio cost and efficiency.
Whilst we are still trying to fully answer the question posed by the majority of senior academic leaders; through our approach, we have aligned principles and datasets to create a simple solution to model whether a course or portfolio costs too much.
For Chester, this approach is redefining portfolio planning and we will demonstrate how this has been translated into a self-service tool for Faculty to cost and explore options for delivery.
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Speakers:
Al Carlile, Director of Strategic Planning and Change
Alix Morgan, Director of Strategic Change
Institution: The University of Sheffield
This session will provide insight into how the University of Sheffield went about an academic restructure (45 departments into 21 schools) and the lessons learned.
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Speakers:
Dr Pam Macpherson Barrett, Head of Policy and Regulation
Sharon Keegan, Policy and Regulation Manager
Institution: University of Leeds
We will provide an overview of the approach taken by the University of Leeds to enhancing our understanding of the breadth of regulatory matters to which HEIs must attend. From this, we will set out the specific steps taken to manage our regulatory risks.
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Speakers: Michael Cummings, Head of Business Insight & Analysis
Institution: York St John University (YSJ)
In 2023, the Strategy & Planning Team at YSJ led the development and release of a new risk management annual planning cycle for our portfolio of courses. Our previous process needed considerable overhaul in light of the recent (at that time) sector regulatory changes (OfS B3) and in terms of existing disconnected and inefficient data and administrative processes and the additional burden this placed on staff. In collaboration with Registry, Senior Management, and our Academic Schools, we designed a new process which would reduce overall burden while focussing effort on risk assessment and actions in relation to regulatory frameworks and institutional strategic objectives.
We achieved this via a simultaneous overhaul of our strategic data infrastructure and our portfolio risk planning documentation, which led to the creation of new Portfolio Risk Profiles and an underlying Portfolio Performance Dataset. The clarity and focus on this new approach allowed us to reduce burden while at the same time empowering Senior Management and Schools to align risk identification and opportunity planning to our strategic priorities. The new process was very positively received and deemed a success, but as is natural in such an undertaking, there was plenty of feedback on things that could be improved. We gathered and acted upon feedback to make further improvements for the 2024 cycle.
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Speakers: Dan Isaac, Data Literacy & Training Lead
Institution: University of Exeter
The University of Exeter established a Data Community in Oct-2023. This community now boasts nearly 200 members from across all University departments. The purpose of our community is to share knowledge, discuss best practice and to form meaningful connections across the silos in which we work.
During this session, we will discuss the evolution of our Data Community, celebrating the events and activities that have had a positive impact, while reflecting on the challenges that we’ve faced. The primary aim of the session is to explore the extent to which bottom-up, community-led initiatives can successfully transform the way a university works with its data.
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Speakers:
Thomas Loya, Director of Planning and Performance (Interim)
Suzanne Constance, Head of Portfolio Performance
Leonard Teehan, Business Intelligence Consultant
Institution: Kingston University
Student intake target planning is a complex process typically involving large volumes of data, sustained dialogue across many stakeholders, and iterative challenges of both feasibility and ambition of targets before targets are agreed. In this session we share how we used Microsoft Power Apps and strong engagement across academic units to iteratively develop a bespoke student intake planning app that streamlined and greatly improved the quality, efficiency, end user engagement, and outputs and outcomes of student intake planning. The ‘Target Intake Planner (TIP) tool replaced emailed spreadsheets and manual aggregation of files and additionally has full audit control, integrated market insight and alignment challenges and many other features that have transformed our approach to target intake planning and greatly improved the end user experience of faculty colleagues.
Showcasing Good Practice Week 2023 Recordings
Showcasing Good Practice Week 2022 Recordings
