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(Q) CIRCULARS
HIGHER
EDUCATION MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM
CIRCULAR
3: MAY 2003
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1
Credit values for masters and doctoral courses in technikons 2
Report 151 and credit
values for technikon courses 3 Further clarification of directive on
coding of courses offered at different levels 4 Reporting “active” students only 5 FTE students in institutional housing |
1 CREDIT
VALUES FOR MASTERS AND DOCTORAL COURSES IN TECHNIKONS
HEMIS Circulars 1 and 2 (dated August and
October 2002) referred to problems experienced with the ways in which technikons are calculating FTE masters
and doctoral students, and to the need for new guidelines on the calculation of
credit values to be issued to technikons.
The Department has decided that technikons must begin to calculate credit values for masters and doctoral degrees in ways similar to the
procedures laid down for universities. These credit values will, from the 2003
reporting year, have to be determined in these ways:
1.1
Masters degree by
research only
¨ These degrees may be
clustered in ways deemed most appropriate by an institution. For example, all MTechs by research only could, if the total numbers of
graduates are small, be placed in a single cluster. If the institution produces
a reasonable spread of graduates, it could use a cluster for science and
technology, a cluster for business and management and a cluster for humanities.
¨ The credit value for
year n for any cluster must be the approved total formal time for the degree (=
1 for all MTech degrees) divided by the average
number of years for which the cluster’s graduates of the previous 3 years (n-1,
n-2, n-3) were registered. For example, if the average number of years for
which these graduates were registered was 3.3 years, then the credit value for
masters degrees in this cluster would be 1/3.3 = 0.303. If the cluster concerned had (say) 133 head
count enrolled MTechs in year n, then their FTE total
would be 133 x 0.303 = 40.3.
1.2
Masters degree by
research and course work
¨ These degrees must
also be placed into one or more clusters.
¨ The formal time value
of 1 year must be divided into research and non-research fractions.
¨ The credit value for
the research component for year n for any cluster must be determined in the way
described in 1.1 above. It will be (1 x
research fraction) divided by the average years for which the cluster’s graduates
of the previous 3 years (n-1, n-2, n-3) were registered.
¨ The credit value for
the nonresearch component for year n for any cluster
must be determined by dividing the nonresearch
fraction by the number of nonresearch masters courses
for which students register. If the nonresearch
fraction is (say) 50% and students register for 5 nonresearch
courses, then the credit value of each course will be 0.5/5 = 0.1.
1.3
Doctoral degrees
¨ Credit values for
doctoral degrees must be calculated in accordance with the principles described
for masters degrees by research only.
¨ In the case of
doctoral degrees, the total formal time for any cluster of doctoral degrees is
2 years. The credit value for year n will therefore be 2 divided by the average
number of years for which the cluster’s graduates of the previous 3 years (n-1,
n-2, n-3) were registered. For example, if the average
number of years for doctoral graduates in the cluster were registered was 5.6
years, then the credit value would be 2/5.6 = 0.357. If there were (say) 26
head count doctoral students in the cluster in year n, then the FTE total would
be 26 x 0.357 = 9.3
2 REPORT 151 AND CREDIT VALUES FOR
TECHNIKON COURSES
Technikons are advised that a new
edition of Report 151: Formal Technikon
Instructional Programmes in the RSA is being prepared and
will be released within the next few months. This revised report must be used
for determining the credit values for technikon
courses, in all but the following cases:
¨
the
calculation of masters and doctoral credit values
(see paragraph 1 above);
¨
when the programmes offered by a technikon involve (a) the dividing of courses in the set
curricula into separately coded modules, or (b) allowing students to register
for additional courses which are not included in the set curricula.
If any one of a technikon’s
programmes deviates from the curricula set out in
Report 151, then the Department may require credit values used in the programme to be subjected to the “2% test” used in the case
of all university qualifications. This test involves an institution assigning
credit values to all the courses passed by the graduates/diplomates
of a qualification in a given year and then determining whether the total of
credits divided by the total of graduates/diplomates
= approved formal time for the qualification.
For example, if the result of this calculation for a three-year national
diploma is 3.25, then the technikon concerned will
have to adjust individual credit values downwards
until the average of credits per diplomate is no
more than 3.06 (ie 2% above
the approval formal total of 3).
3 FURTHER
CLARIFICATION OF DIRECTIVE ON CODING OF COURSES OFFERED AT DIFFERENT LEVELS
In paragraph 7 of HEMIS Circular 2 (dated
October 2002) the Department laid down this directive:
If a course is offered at a number of levels, then it
must be coded at the lowest level at which it may be taken.
The example used in Circular 2 in explaining
the new directive was that of courses appearing in both postgraduate diploma
and masters programmes and being coded at masters-level
only. The effect of the new directive is
that if a set of courses appears in both postgraduate diploma and masters
curricula, then these courses must be coded at preparatory postgraduate level,
which has a weighting for subsidy purposes of 1.
A different example of how the directive
should be implemented has been drawn to the attention of the Department. Cases
do occur in which course material is offered in the third year of the
curriculum of one undergraduate degree and in the fourth year of another, and
is given an institutional code of (say) X300 in the first degree and X400 in
the second. The institution then codes the 300-level course as intermediate
undergraduate (subsidy weighting = 1) and the 400-level course as higher
undergraduate (subsidy weighting = 2). In circumstances such as these, the
coding of course X400 as higher undergraduate is wrong, on two counts:
¨ Even though the codes
for the courses differ, given that the same material is offered in both, the
directive in Circular 2 must be applied, making intermediate undergraduate the
correct coding for both courses.
¨ Even if the directive
were not in place, X400 should not have been coded as higher undergraduate. The
use of a 400-level code is not in itself evidence that a course is a higher
undergraduate one. To be coded as higher undergraduate, a course must be a
fourth year level one in a strict hierarchical sense, having lower level
courses at 100, 200 and 300-levels as pre-requisites. Given that the same
material is offered at 300-level, course X400 is clearly not a fourth year one
in the required hierarchical sense.
4 REPORTING “ACTIVE” STUDENTS ONLY
HEMIS Circular 1 (August 2002) and Circular 2
(October 2002) dealt with various aspects of the definition of a
“student”. The key directives in these
circulars were:
¨ In the case of
registrations which extend across more than one academic year, a student can be
reported as registered in reporting year n only if she/he is registered for a
course whose census date falls into the calendar year n (Circular 1: paragraph
2).
¨ In the case of
“rolling” or “continuous” registrations, a student must not be included in an
institution’s HEMIS submission for a given year unless she/he has duly
completed all institutional registration formalities for that year. If formal
registrations are not completed in a given year, then the student concerned
must be considered to have dropped out of the institution (Circular 2:
paragraph 6).
It is important to stress that as far as
“rolling” or “continuous” registrations are concerned, the completion of an
annual registration form in year n does not in itself imply that the person
concerned can be recorded as a student in the HEMIS submissions of year n. To
be recorded as a student in year n, she/he must have been registered for at
least one course whose census date fall in year n.
Census dates for a course have to be set
between 33% and 67% of the time span of a course, measured from the first
teaching day. The use of a census date in determining registrations for a
course can be taken to be a signal to effect that state subsidies are intended
only for students who are active members
of the course; ie students to whom the
institution is delivering an instruction service. Those who drop out in the
early weeks before the census date are deemed not to be active members of the
course, and are therefore not counted as registrations for that course.
The Department has given notice in its May
2003 directives to external auditors that it is not prepared to accept registration
on census day as sufficient evidence of student activity in a course. These
audit directives have to be applied for the first time to student data for
2002.
This audit directive has these main
implications for institutions:
¨ Students may be left
on the census day file of a course only if the institution has direct evidence
that the student was active during the period before census day. This could
include evidence that the student had attended lectures, seminars, tutorials or
practicals, had submitted required assignment, had written class tests.
¨ The practice of
assuming, particularly in the case of distance programmes,
that students must have been active in a course because they wrote the final
examinations in that course will no longer be acceptable. If the only evidence
of activity available to an institution is the writing of the final
examinations, then it clearly cannot show that it has delivered an
instructional service to students throughout the duration of the course.
5
FTE STUDENTS IN
INSTITUTIONAL HOUSING
The definitions of a student used in
paragraph 3 must be applied in the calculations of FTE students using
institutional housing. This has three main implications:
¨ A person who is not
enrolled for at least one formal course cannot be included in the count of FTE
students in institutional housing.
¨ A person who does not
qualify for admission to higher education studies cannot be included in the
count of FTE students in institutional housing.
¨ A person can be considered
to be a student for student housing purposes in year n only if she/he is
registered for a course whose census day falls in year n. If any one drops
out of all formal courses before census dates but remains in student housing,
then she/he must not be reported in HEMIS as a student using institutional
housing.