HEP bulletin- December 2023

Outstanding registration and attendance confirmations

It's important you clear down any outstanding registration confirmations, with an ‘N’ code, if appropriate. This lets us know to not reserve loan funding for any students who are not in attendance and will not be registering this academic year.

You must submit all autumn attendance confirmations before the end of the year.

Please complete any outstanding Change of Circumstance (CoC) notifications from your worklist to ensure students accounts are up to date and accurate.

SIS performance issues update

We recently provided you with an update on the ongoing issues you’ve experienced with our Student Information Service (SIS).
While the daily system restarts have been successful in the short term, we can confirm that the schedule for longer term improvements remains on track. System enhancements are being installed gradually which will help to reduce the number of required system restarts.

Robust testing is underway, and we’ll update you further in the new year.

Courses collection for academic year 2024/25

Course collection for academic year 2024/25 opened for all full-time undergraduate and Scottish postgraduate courses on 20 November. The deadline for updating these courses is 31 January 2024.
Please review our CMS guidance before you start submitting your courses. You can also view our Courses Management Service webinar on our HEP Services website.

Throughout December we’ll continue to progress with course validation for full-time undergraduate courses. We check for any anomalies in fees, courses length and term dates by comparing courses against those submitted last year. Please reply to any emails about course collection as soon as possible.

Early reviews have highlighted a common error with Easter bank holiday Monday (21 April) as a term start date. Please double check term dates before submission and make sure the term start date aligns with your published academic schedule of when self or guided learning resumes.

The next group of courses to update will be undergraduate part-time courses. These will be available from February 2024 and the deadline is likely to be April 2024.

Part-Year Repeat Study

We recently clarified that we will not be applying the minimum 8 weeks attendance rule to Part-Year Repeat Study. This means we can now confirm that our review of previously rejected cases has concluded with the correct status on the student’s account and within the HE Gateway.

Should you wish to highlight any further examples for us to review, please contact your Account Manager directly with the details.

Previous study on postgraduate courses which attract undergraduate funding (academic year 2022/23 onwards)

Students who receive undergraduate loans support towards any of the following Postgraduate Masters course types are ineligible for a postgraduate loan. This follows recent clarification on how the relevant regulations are to be interpreted.

• pre-registration PG master’s healthcare courses
• Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses – only the ones leading to the award of a master’s qualification
• Master of Architecture courses
• integrated master’s courses

This is subject to normal rules around compelling personal reasons (CPR).

BAS payments

If you do not use direct debit to pay your annual subscription invoice, we'll soon send a request for you to make payment. This means you'll pay in line with your contractual obligations and allows you to access your academic year 2024/25 student data.

Should you wish to set up a direct debit, you can find the mandate on the BAS portal front page. Alternatively, let your HEP Account Manager know if you need a purchase order.

Festive opening hours

Over the festive period, our opening hours are:

• Friday 22 December to Tuesday 26 December – closed
• Wednesday 27 December to Thursday 28 December – open 9am to 5pm
• Friday 29 December to Tuesday 2 January – closed

We return to business as usual on 3 January 2024.