HESA student data for 2023/24 will be published in spring 2025
More detailed publication timescales will depend on analysis of data quality.
This year marks the second year of a new data model for higher education student data introduced for the 2022/23 academic year. Last year’s data collection saw challenges for Jisc, HE providers, and their software suppliers, in implementing the new arrangements. While many of the challenges have been overcome this year, a few providers continue to face difficulties getting to a point where they can sign off their data for use by Jisc.
Once data has been received and signed off, Jisc’s first responsibility is to prepare that data for delivery to its statutory customers – the regulators and funding bodies for each nation of the UK. These organisations undertake their own data quality checks to ensure that the data is fit for their purposes. Those findings are fed back to Jisc along with any decisions they may make on data use.
Meanwhile Jisc takes the raw data and simultaneously undertakes two essential jobs. The data quality is assessed in detail by Jisc statisticians looking for any changes or anomalies that might indicate issues. At the same time Jisc analysts prepare the raw data into a form suitable for publication as HESA official statistics, and for dissemination through tailored datasets, reports, and business intelligence tools.
These processes inevitably discover issues which require further investigation, iterations of the quality assurance work, and assessment of their impact by both Jisc and its statutory customers. The time required to complete this work between closure of the data collection system and publication of official statistics therefore depends on a range of factors including the number and character of quality issues discovered. When issues are fully understood these may feed into the quality report, notes to tables, or even changes to the format of published tables. In each case the goal is to provide users with the best possible data quality, along with information to support analysis and use of the data.
With these things in mind, Jisc is planning to publish HESA student data in the spring, earlier than last year’s August publication but later than the January release date achieved in previous years.
Modernising the process of data collection and dissemination across a sector as complex and diverse as UK higher education is a significant challenge. Jisc appreciates the patience of data users as we work with the sector, including statutory customers, towards our goal of supplying data faster.