January 24

Data Dictionary
Post Graduate
Student Profile 2012
Breakdown of the individual items used in the report and the detailed defintions
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Data Dictionary Sheets

DD ID: RKE003 – Research – KA3 Post Graduate Student Profile

Report Dashboard to inform progress towards Key Ambition 3 (Increasing the number of postgraduate taught and research students)

Time Series To run over the academic year, reported monthly to monitor progress towards agreed targets.
This report will look at the applications for PGR research studentships, the take up rate, supervisor:student ratio, dropout rate and reason and proportion of the group as a percentage of
Criteria the total student body.

Relationships This data dictionary sheet defines a number of items which will be required to make up the overall report and should be agreed by all parties prior to commencement.

Date This report will be reviewed regularly for the purpose of the MI pilot grouping.

Record Definition
Record Name Synonyms Description Target/Benchmark Summary Method Missing/Invalid Source/
item method and Source Quality
A PG student is defined by the level of course they Proportion of post • Count of each SPIDER
1
1 Post Graduate are undertaking. There are two types of graduate students to group
Student postgraduate students marked in Spider as follows: reach 20% of student • Percentage
body by 2013-14. as proportion
• PT (Post Graduate Taught) (PGT) Profile of target of whole
• PR (Post Graduate Research) (PGR provided by David student body
Blackmore please
see appendix 1 of this
In particular students counted on this report will have document.
a registration status of RE, PN , AW, CO, SE, EC but
exclude students with Rate Codes of ER, GP, HP,
SP, SU, X, ZP, ZM, N (unless for campus of Carmel,
Birkenhead, UCLAN and Lancaster) and (blank).
When using codes AW, CO, SE and EC specific rule
sets will apply see Appendix XX

Other students to be excluded:

• Student Major Codes commencing with EX
(exchange students)
• Student Program Codes beginning with the

1
NB when counting students a student on multiple courses can be counted multiple times. A student will be included in the count for each course that they are undertaking unless that course has been specifically
excluded.
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characters GEN, CPD and CPS
• Student Program codes D/ED and DBA/DIST
(these will be excluded by the Laureate
exclusion)
• Student Level Code of CE
• Pre sessional English Language courses,
identified through Student Program Code
beginning ENGLANG. Best method of exclusion
through Degree Level Code of CEFR

See appendix 2 of this document for breakdown of

exclusions.
Total student population to be defined as: Proportion of post Total count of SPIDER
2 Student Body graduate students to those identified as
All undergraduate (UG), plus all postgraduate (PGT reach 20% of student being included in
and PGR). body by 2013-12 student body.

Registration Status Codes of RE and PN plus See Appendix I of this

AW,CO, SE amd EC minus Rate codes ER, GP, HP, document for forecast
SP, SU, X, ZP, ZM, N (unless for campus of Carmel, targets.
Birkenhead, UCLAN and Lancaster) and (blank).
When using codes AW, CO, SE and EC please see See Appendix 2 of
appendix XX for guidelines. this document for
details of exclusions.
The student body excludes CE (Student Level Code),
CPD (first 3 letters of Student Program Code) and
CPS (first 3 letters of Student Program Code), D/ED,
DBA/DIST, ENGLANG (first 7 characters of Student
Program Code) and GEN (first 3 characters of
Student Program Code) students.

Some specific courses or programs are also

excluded. Please see Appendix 2 of this document
for details.

Include students on the following campus’

• Main (M)
• Leahurst (V)
• Carmel
• Birkenhead
• UCLAN
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• Lancaster
• Off campus (O)

For the purpose of this dashboard, postgraduate No of successful Count of SPIDER

3 Post Graduate courses have been specified as follows: registrations applications by
Courses necessary to meet course type.
Both taught and research based target for 20% of
student population by
See specific exceptions outlined in Appendix 2 of this 2013-14
document.

The following Taught Doctorates should be included

in the report but shown as an identifiable portion of
the PGR population with the option of viewing by
exclusion or inclusion. Student Program Codes are:

• D/DSC (Doctor of Dental Science)

• D/ENG (Doctor of Engineering)
• D/LITT (Doctor of Literature)
• DOC/CNPSY (Doctor of Clinical
Psychology)
• DOCMED/HL (Doctor of Medicine)
• DSC/HL (Doctor of Science)
• MRES (first 4 characters of Master of
Research Student Program Code)

A quick way to identify the “Doctor of” programs

in aggregate is all Student Program Codes starting
with “D” other than those starting with “DIP”.
Submitted application for a postgraduate course, both Count of SPIDER
4 Application research and taught. Only applications recorded applications on a
electronically will be counted. monthly basis
The decision on the application: Count of SPIDER
5 Application applications by
Outcome For the purpose of this report we have grouped outcome type
decisions to a higher level in order to be able to
report more effectively. See Appendix 5 for details of
this grouping.
Academic staff member who is responsible for Targets set at Count of students SPIDER
6 Supervisor supervising a postgraduate research student. Only University level (not by Supervisor to
those academic staff counted as ‘Research Active’ cascaded down by monitor target
will be counted for this purpose. The definition of Levels 3, 2 or 1).
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‘Research Active’ is outlined in Appendix 3 of this
document. Provided to team by
David Blackmore in
When comparing actual supervision against target we Planning &
will take the FTE of the staff member as determined Development:
in Appendix 3 of this document, and the FTE of the
student which will be either 1 or .5 for part time i.e. for 2011-12 1 : 1.50
PGR students there can be multiple supervisors split 2012-13 1 : 1.67
by a percentage. 2013-14 1 : 1.83
2014-15 1 : 2.00
st st
Academic year 1 August – 31 July Count of SPIDER
7 Reporting Year applications,
Although the academic year is specified as in students and
Benchmark column, for the purpose of this report it is comparison of
recognized that student data is in transition during FTE target per
some of August and September. The report will month.
st st
therefore run from 1 October through to 31 July
each academic year.

When a student fails to complete the course Count of students SPIDER

8 Drop Out (although they may receive an exit award). dropping out per
month/period/year
Such students will be identified by a status of WD for
2
withdrawn or EX (Exit Award)

A student with a status of DE (deceased) will also be

included in this grouping.
Recorded reason for leaving. Count of number Default to Not SPIDER
9 Reason for Leaving by reason for Known?
EX student reason for leaving can be recorded as leaving (grouped)
follows:

• C – Completed Course

2
Type of exit award entered in to SWASTDT in SPIDER. Can include the following:
A – Awarded UG Cert.HE (unlikely for PT/PR students)
B – Awarded UG Dip.HE (as above)
C – Awarded PG Cert
D – Awarded PG Dip
E – Awarded UG Bachelor Degree
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• D – Deceased
• B – Deemed Withdrawn
• V – Studies Terminated
• W – Withdrawn
• E – Unsuitable program
• H – Health reasons
• J – Studies terminated for disciplinary
• L – Written off after time lapse
• M – To take up employment
• R – Withdrawn for academic reasons
• T – Transferred to another university
• U – Unsatisfactory
• Z – Financial reasons
Funder For Post Graduate Research students the sponsor Count of students AGRESSO(first
10 Sponsor which covers the project on which they are working. funded by Funder set of data
Currently held on an access database but to be pulled into
transferred into Agresso. AGRESSO)

This is the figure for expected number of students to Targets specified in 6 Comparison of SPIDER
11 Target be supervised by staff member above. actual to target
For the purpose of this report the department of the SPIDER (fed by
12 Faculty, school or student will always mirror the department of the post HR primary
department to which of the Supervisor. In this way a student may have appointment
student is attached more than one supervisor, and may have their FTE dept)
split over two or more departments.

If there is no supervisor then 100% of the students

FTE, or the remaining proportion will be given to their
home Department as determined by their course of
study.
University The overall University top level reporting. Targets specified at Counts by
13 Institution Institution level and Institution
cascaded down.
Faculty level as defined in the University structure. First drill down level Count of n/a HR System
14 Level 3 Three faculties: applications and Reliable
• Health & Life Sciences (pilot area) awards by Level 3
• Science & Engineering
• Humanities and Social Sciences

Students are to be mapped to their supervisors’

faculties using a headcount split. This means that for
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both full-time and part-time students, the total
supervisor headcount will be 1.00. Where a student
does not have supervisors, the student is to be
mapped to his registered (home) faculty.

Arrange to flag PGR students who do not have

supervisors with a total headcount of 1.00

NB where mapping to faculty can not be achieved the

student will be shown at institutional level
School or Institute as defined in the University Second drill down Count of n/a HR System via
15 Level 2 structure according to the Supervisor’s primary level applications and SPIDER
department in the HR system. Each school or awards by Level 2
institute should belong to a Faculty. Where a staff
member is not assigned to a school or institute there
will be a ‘school or institute’ named at faculty level for
the purpose of consistency in reporting.

Students are to be mapped to their supervisors’

schools or institutes using a headcount split. This
means that for both full-time and part-time students,
the total supervisor headcount will be 1.00. Where a
student does not have supervisors, the student is to
be mapped to his registered (home) school or
institute.
Department as defined in the University structure. Third drill down level Count of n/a HR System via
16 Level 1 Each department should belong to an associated applications and SPIDER
School or Institute. Where a member of staff does awards by Level 1
not belong to a department they will be assigned to a
Department named after the lowest level to which
they are attached, i.e. faculty or school/institute for
consistence in reporting.

Students are to be mapped to their supervisors’

departments using a headcount split. This means
that for both full-time and part-time students, the total
supervisor headcount will be 1.00. Where a student
does not have supervisors, the student is to be
mapped to his registered (home) department.
Supervisor as defined in 6 above. Need to show link Lowest level drill SPIDER table
17 Students from all supervisors to show who have students down SWASUPS
attached and who don’t.
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At headcount level, if for example a student is
Supervisors supervised 70% by one supervisor and 30% by a
second supervisor:
• For students, supervisors to be split by
proportion of supervision, e.g. 0.70 and
0.30, always totaling 1.00 for the student.
• For supervisors, share of student to be
multiplied by 1.0 for full-time students and
0.5 for part-time students, e.g. 0.70 and 0.30
for a full-time student and 0.35 and 0.15 for
a part-time student (because part-time
students are only half the work for
supervisors of full-time students).

At FTE level, using the same example of a 70:30

supervisor split:
• For students, supervisors to be split by
proportion of supervision and multiplied by
FTE of student, e.g. 0.70:0.30 for a full-time
student and 0.35:0.15 for a part-time
student.
• For supervisors, share of student to be
multiplied by 1.0 for full-time students and
0.5 for part-time students as before, but then
divided by FTE of the staff member if the
supervision ratio is required. For example a
supervisor on a part-time contract of 0.40
FTE supervises 0.7 of a part-time student
and 0.3 of a full-time student. Then the
supervisor’s student share is (0.7 x 0.5) +
(0.3 x 1.0) = 0.65. The supervision ratio is
0.65 / 0.40 = 1.625.
The gender of the Post Graduate Student Breakdown of SPIDER
18 Gender above counts by
Gender of
students
Age range of the Post Graduate Student to be Standard age ranges Breakdown of SPIDER
19 Age range determined. Age to be defined as rounded down used are: above counts by
st
number of years between date of birth and 1 Age range of
st
September of the academic year Term Code, e.g. 1 • Up to and Incl 20 students
September 2009 for data relating to 2009-10. • 21-24
• 25-29
Age is deemed to be Age on Entry.
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• 30 plus
This is actually a combination of student status and SPIDER
20 Student Status rate code. The student status will be RE.

See Appendix 2 for rate codes excluded.

An indicator of the region which a student lived prior 1- Home Breakdown of SPIDER
21 Residency Code to coming to University of Liverpool. 2- Overseas above counts by
3- EU residential status
4- Refugee (not used
Generally we will report on Home and EU and
as this should map
Overseas to home)
5- Islands

1 and 3 = Home/EU
2 and 5 = Overseas/Islands
(OSI)
The nationality of the student. Breakdown of SPIDER
22 Nationality above counts by
NB a student may be one nationality and have a country of origin
residence code which differs from the expected one (grouped by
for that nationality e.g. ex Pats region?)
Details of whether the student is full or part time on To be determined SPIDER
23 Part-Time/Full Time the project. All Postgraduate Research students who
indicator are part time are deemed to be .5 FTE. Where a
student is on two course they will count once for
headcount and once for each FTE calculation by
course.

Undergraduate students and PGT students FTE is

calculated in a number of ways:

• Most commonly students are on

modularized courses and their FTE is
calculated based on the proportion of these
to a full time course.
• Where courses are not modularized these
are to be treated as direct designation
groups as follows:
o Full Time Marker = 1
o UG Part Time Marker = .4
o PGR Part Time Marker = .5
o PGT Part Time Marker = .4
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A marker of whether a student is disabled: this will be Count of students SPIDER
24 Disability a count by disability not by nature of disability. There by disability
will be three categories:
1. Not disabled
2. Disabled
3. Disability status unknown (includes
information refused, and blank field)
The ethnic origin of the student. There will be four Count of students SPIDER
25 Ethnicity categories: by ethnic origin
1. White
2. BME (everyone not covered by white,
Chinese or unknown categories)
3. Chinese
4. Ethnicity unknown (includes information
refused, and blank field)
An attribute as recorded in Spider indicates an
26 Attribute Agency through which the student has made an
application. Each attribute is linked directly to the
relevant application. Only one attribute should apply
to any one application.

For the purpose of this level of reporting we have

added a grouping to the agencies and an agency
type (see appendix 5).
A break down on the number of days between the
27 Period till Decision date of application and the date of the decision. This
will be displayed as an average.

For this purpose days will include Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday only

Quality measures:
1. Reliable - verified as consistent, complete and unique or calculated from such a source data set.
2. Validated – has a valid coded value and is mandatory
3. Valid/missing - has a valid coded value, but can be missing (null).
4. Unreliable - cannot be verified, may contain missing, duplicate, inconsistent or invalid values
5. Unknown - reliability cannot be ascertained because it is externally sourced or calculated via undocumented rules.