HESA Student Record 2013/14 - Student instance identifier
HESA Student Record 2013/14Fields required from institutions in EnglandStudent instance identifier | return to field list |
Type | field |
Short name | NUMHUS |
Description |
This field complements the HUSID field to identify the separate courses that individuals take. HUSID + Institution identifier + NUMHUS together form a unique identifier known as HIN. An identification of the basic unit of 'a coherent engagement with the institution aiming towards the award of a qualification(s) or credit' which is described in the Understanding HIN document. |
Applicable to | England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales |
Coverage | All instances |
Notes |
Field length 20 is to allow institutions to use an instance identifier already held internally. Where a instance identifier held internally is used, institutions must continue to use this number even when transfers or natural progressions occur. As a consequence of this institutions may find it easier to number student instances sequentially starting from 1 or A etc. A new instance number format can only be introduced for instances that have not been returned to HESA. This will be the case for new entrants and for continuing students commencing courses that have not previously been returned to HESA. Further guidance on the importance of maintaining the HIN link across years can be found in the Understanding HIN document. Valid characters The valid characterset available for this field follows the Data Standards in the HESA student record.
The character set chosen will support Welsh and Gaelic languages as well as all European and most other languages using a Latin-based character set. The Unicode charts that list each of the characters in this range can be found on the Unicode web site. The specific sets that are defined here are shown in the following PDF documents: Files must be encoded with UTF-8 and schema validation will be in place to ensure this. Institutions must specify the encoding used in their XML files in the first line of the file (i.e. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>) and to ensure that their files are actually saved with that encoding. If XML files are edited with some text editors and the encoding is not specified or does not match the actual file encoding, there may be problems when submitting these files for validation. Further guidance Further guidance is available from HEFCE on the reporting of multiple instances for students studying for credit. |
Examples |
Detailed examples of HIN linking can be found in the Understanding HIN document. |
Quality rules |
Quality rules relating to this field are displayed here.
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Reason required |
To distinguish - and between years, link - episodes of study by the same student at the same institution; a vital tool (through the generation of HIN) to support year-on-year linkage, for example to link entities in the HESA record and for Unistats. Used in the Higher Education Initial Participation Rate (HEIPR) calculation by BIS and funding calculations by HEFCE and HEFCW. |
Part of | |
Field length | 20 |
Minimum occurrences | 1 |
Maximum occurrences | 1 |
Schema components |
Element: NUMHUS
Data type: NUMHUSType |
Owner | HESA |
Version | 1.0 |
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