Purpose

To create the Past Course Completions file (PS) for submission to DEST

SubSystem

Statistics

The job is run to create an extract file, containing details about Award Courses completed by students in the year prior to the Collection Year.

This function includes students who have completed a course for which ALL units of study were completed either solely through Open Universities Australia (OUA) or through OUA and another university. For these students, the following values must be set in the Past Course Completions file:

• Element 329 (Mode of attendance code) is set to 4
• Element 385 (Total exemption granted) is set to 99.

Special Notes:

The Attendance Type in the Past Course Completions file needs to be derived from the previously reported government values rather than being taken from the nominated Attendance Type held against the Student Course Attempt.

If the commencement date of a course is after 31/12/2007, the value of Element 385 is 00. If the commencement date is before 01/01/ 2008 and there is Advanced Standing granted for the course attempt, then this Advanced Standing is used to determine the percentage of the course's requirements for which exemption was granted (Element 385).

The following codes for DEST element 487 Scholarship type are reported as '00':

• 03 - Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarships (CECS)
• 04 - Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships (CAS)
• 05 - Both Commonwealth Educations Costs Scholarships (CECS) and Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarships (CAS)

For insights into Statistics see Understanding HE Statistics (STAINTR3).

This job is accessed via the main menu.

The Create Past Course Completions File block contains:

Tab

Parameters

• Past Academic Period
• Submission Year

Rules/Notes:

The Past Academic Period parameter is used to specify the previous Academic Period. The Course Completion Cutoff Date assigned to this Calendar is used to determine which completed Student Course Attempts to include in the extract file.

The Submission Year parameter is used to determine which of each student's person Statistics Records (prior to the Submission Year) should be used as the source of statistical data extracted by this job.

The Submission Year must either have a submission 1 or 2 defined in STAF1350 or it must be the current year.  

Create Past Course Completions File process

The job is run to create an extract file, containing details about Award Courses completed by students in the year prior to the Collection Year. The file also reports certain characteristics of those students (such as Scholarship Type Code, Location Code of Permanent Home Residence, CHESSN, Course of Study Commencement Date, etc.). The file is created in accordance with the DEST file specification.

The majority of this data is sourced from the main database tables (i.e. not from the Enrolment or Government Submission Snapshots). The exception is the derived Attendance Mode which is sourced from the Government Submission.

The Specialisation Code in each record is derived in the following way:

• For each student/course combination, up to three specialisations can be reported
• If a Student Course Attempt has either Candidature Fields of Education or Unit Set Fields of Education recorded, these are used. If the Student Course Attempt has neither recorded, the major field of education for the Course Version is used.

Records are selected where a Student Course Attempt's 'Course Requirements Complete' check box (PRGF4170) is set to 'yes', the Course Type of the course has its Award Course check box set to 'yes' (CRSF1210 & CRSF1110) and the Course Attempt's Requirements Complete Date (PRGF4170) is in the 12 month period ending on the Course Completion Cutoff Date Alias Instance (ENRF01F0, CALF0511).

The process then determines whether or not a Course Attempt record is reportable using the logic which determines if records are Government Reportable in the Enrolment Statistics Snapshot process.

These records are stored in the institution specific PS file (with which statistics specialists will be familiar), in a directory specified by the 'KEEP' environment variable. This is a secure directory which users cannot (and do not need to) access.

The process 'Copy Extract Files From Secure Area' (STAJ0120) allows the PS file to be copied from the 'KEEP' directory to an accessible directory, specified by the 'USER' environment variable (refer to your System Administrator).

Rules/Notes:

Output is in the DEST file specification format.

The process 'Copy Extract Files From Secure Area' (STAJ0120) allows the PS file to be copied from the 'KEEP' directory to an accessible directory, specified by the 'USER' environment variable (refer to your system administrator).