Notes on completing the departmental spreadsheets

The University department primarily responsible for the event. This is entered once only per spreadsheet by choosing from the drop-down list in row 5. This will already have been done for you and you should not need to change it.

"Department/Unit" here means "whatever subdivision of a given Planning Unit can conveniently supply the HESA data". Such subdivisions vary in size and name from one PU to another. In some cases, it is necessary to break down Planning Units into cost centres specified by HESA but not normally recognised by the University. This may result in the same individual being asked to complete several spreadsheets.

The division into departments is an administrative convenience and is not reflected in the data returned by SCU to HESA.

The starting-date of the course. No indication of the ending date is required. This allows us to check that the course falls in the correct academic year (1 August 20100 - 31 July 2011); it is not returned to HESA.

The name of the course. This need not be unique, and is not returned to HESA.

The number of students or participants enrolled on the course. Please exclude speakers, tutors, helpers etc from this figure.

The duration of the course in contact hours, not in calendar time. For example, if a course takes place for two hours each Monday evening and lasts for ten weeks, the figure entered in this column should be 20.

Please do not multiply this figure by the number of students.

For open/distance learning, give the contact hours of the equivalent taught course if there is one. Otherwise, give the contact hours of a similar taught course requiring a similar amount of study, if possible. Otherwise, calculate the 'contact hours' by dividing the number of individual study hours by four, then adding any direct contact time (eg day schools or tutorials)

When a course "straddles" the cut-off date, for example by starting in July and ending in August, all the contact hours should be reported as if they took place in the academic year in which the course began.