Introduction
It’s your first day at the University, and you’re trying to find out more about the student population and you need some data.
Having spoken to a few colleagues, you know that this data is really important and underpins university planning, Education Annual Review and Enhancement, accreditation, statutory returns and the overall running of teaching activity. It’s more than just numbers in classrooms!
Academic Registry
Your line manager tells you that, at Bath, the student record is the single source of truth, and Academic Registry are the key to unlocking it. This is because their staff are dedicated to maintaining the core student dataset, keeping it accurate, timely and high quality (amongst many, many other things). And with definitions written by their Data Stewards you can’t go wrong.
The student record, held in a system called SAMIS (or SITS!), contains:
- Student demographics: bursary status, free school meals, domicile, fee status
- Protected characteristic data: gender, ethnicity, disability and so on
- Enrolment and registration: who has enrolled, is in suspense or has withdrawn
- Units and assessments: unit mark, units taken and credits
- Graduation and award: degree classifications, award dates
Having one centralised source managed by Academic Registry means fewer conflicts over numbers, fewer duplicated requests, and clearer conversations about what the data shows.
What the data can and can’t tell you
“That’s amazing!” you think, but you don’t have the skills or time to learn how to use SAMIS well. Fear not, you don’t need to; you head over to Academic Registry’s SharePoint site. You are amazed at the wealth of data captured there, and with a few clicks and some careful reading you include the following in your report:
- Registration updates
- Enrolment patterns over time
- Degree outcomes, completion and continuation rates
- Demographic trends and participation gaps
- Differences between departments and faculties
This tells you what happened, when it happened, and how much of it happened in the student body. You’re a curious cat though, and you want to know more. But there are some things data from the student record can’t tell you:
- Why students chose a particular course or unit
- What personal circumstances shaped their progress
- Why one course outcomes are different to another’s
- How they experienced their course
For this, you need qualitative insights, results from things like surveys, focus groups and interviews. The Student Engagement team could help you with that, but you decide that’s for another day.
Best practice
What a job well done! You recognise this as a valuable resource, and you want to make the most of what’s already available whilst avoiding duplication. You reach out to Academic Registry to thank them for their dashboard, and they give you some more handy tips:
- A surprising number of data requests can be met using existing dashboards, please check those before asking for something new
- New or bespoke requests often require new definitions, updated data fields, or data quality checks, so get in touch with us early (weeks rather than days!) so we have enough time to give you what you need
- Please do this via TopDesk
- There are points during the year (September to December) where turnaround times are longer because of annual updates and the HESA return
- Use the University glossary for definitions and terminology, so we’re talking the same language, and we can get you the data you need first time
Respond
