HEP bulletin – February 2022
Last updated: 25 Feb 2022
Registration and attendance
Please check and clear your registration, attendance and Change of Circumstance (CoC) worklists.
This will help to maintain accurate information on student accounts. It will also help us to minimise overpayments to students and recover any tuition fee overpayments.
We're sorry for the issues some users have had with uploading attendance confirmations recently. We've resolved most of the issues related to this and are continuing to work on some more localised ones. We'll send a further update to SIS administrators shortly, but if you have any remaining difficulty with uploading ACR files, please contact your HEP Account Manager.
Registration but no attendance confirmation
If you've confirmed a student's registration, you should also follow up with an appropriate attendance confirmation. You should have no students who are registered but have terms without an attendance code.
Occasionally the attendance confirmation may be delayed because a CoC has been submitted but not processed. There are negative codes you can use in this scenario. You can find a list of attendance confirmation codes, what they mean and when to use them in the attendance confirmation section of the SIS user guide.
You should also check your worklists for any attendance confirmations that have come back onto the list. This can happen after we reassess a student. If you accept the change, you should confirm these with an A code ('in attendance') to confirm the student is in attendance and the course and fee information are correct. Otherwise, you can follow up with a further CoC if needed.
Course collection for academic year 2022/23
Full-time undergraduate courses
The last deadline for full-time undergraduate course submission was 18 February.
Our course validation has found approximately 3,000 confirmed errors to date. These are mostly caused by course start and end dates entered as falling on bank holidays or weekends.
If our CMS validation team or your HEP Account Manager has been in touch with you about your courses, please respond as soon as possible.
If you're still awaiting information before you can submit your courses, please let your HEP Account Manager know. You should also email our Partners Support Desk to confirm once you've finished your submission.
You can find more information on how to submit your courses in our CMS user guide.
Part-time undergraduate courses
All part-time undergraduate courses that were in CMS for academic year 2021/22 have been rolled over for academic year 2022/23. These are now ready for you to review and save. The deadline for submitting these courses is 15 April. You can now choose a duration of up to 8 years full time equivalent (FTE) for your part-time undergraduate courses.
This applies to courses for students domiciled in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. If you have part-time courses that are only available to Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) students, you do not need to add these to CMS. SAAS gets the part-time study mode information from the student's SAAS application.
Postgraduate master's courses for Northern Irish students
You can now also submit your postgraduate master's courses for students domiciled in Northern Ireland. The submission deadline is 15 April.
New qualification in CMS
We've added a new qualification option to CMS for academic year 2022/23. It is an Undergraduate Diploma, FHEQ level 6 at 120 credits.
You can find more information about qualifications in the CMS user guide.
DSA only course
If you have a DSA only course in academic year 2021/22, you do not need to save this course for academic year 2022/23. A DSA only course will be automatically created for you, and this will happen every year when courses are rolled over. You will not see this DSA course in your course listing. It will sit in the background, available for DSA only applications to be linked to.
Bursary Administration Service invoices
For those of you who subscribe to the Bursary Administration Service (BAS), we'll issue your annual invoices in the coming weeks. If you pay by Direct Debit, the payment will be taken approximately 30 days after the date of the invoice.
If you do not pay by Direct Debit, please arrange to pay within 30 days of the invoice date. Our bank details will be included on the invoice for ease of reference.
You will not be able to access academic year 2022/23 student information until you've completed your payment.
New self service functionality for students
From 14 February, Student Finance England undergraduate students will have new functions available in their online account. These will let them:
- track the progress of their application
- receive emails and text messages about the progress of their application
- upload and track the status of their evidence
- update their personal details
- view their correspondence
- view their payments
- contact us by digital communication channels
Students can access their account through GOV.UK. They'll need their Customer Reference Number (CRN) or email, password and secret answer.