We’re aiming to give you details of the timestamp (for those who receive it through odbc-link or xml-link) and how to access the data w/c 15 November.
You will also be able to access StarJ through the export data function in web-link. We’ll provide further information of how to do this once it’s available.
As a reminder, the data forms part of the Student Record required by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Some providers in England also use the data to support Office for Student (OfS) returns.
HESA has confirmed there are no changes for UCAS to apply to StarJ for 2021. They have previously confirmed they do not require the HECoS codes added to the data we make available to you for their verification purposes.
For courses rolled over in 2019 in our collection tool, we brought over the JACS codes as read-only and HECoS codes became mandatory for these. New courses added for 2019 and subsequent years will only have HECoS codes, so it’s possible for reduced coverage of JACS for applicants associated with these courses.
At this time, while we understand the possible value of adding HECoS codes to this data for 2021, it felt more prudent to wait until HECoS can be incorporated into a fuller set of changes to the specification in support of HESA Data Futures.
StarJ Training Module
Our online training module explains what the STAR(*) J data is and how to access the data, as well as answering some of the frequently asked questions we receive from you.
Archiving 2020 StarJ data
On Monday 8 November we will be archiving the 2020 cycle Star J data. This work is expected to be complete by 16:30 and after that time you will no longer be able to view 2020 cycle Star J data via link products. Please ensure that you have imported the data via XML-Link or ODBC-Link or downloaded it from web-link before this date. If you need to request archived data after this date you can do so via the self-service support portal.
Autumn Series – the addition of an autumn sitting
As previously detailed in Bulletin 613, in order to process results via ABL as ‘previous autumn results’ for 2021 cycle applicants it was necessary to add a new sitting for Autumn to the link products.
It was also necessary to roll over the subject data for all examination types associated with the following 5 JCQ boards:
- AQA
- OCR
- PEARSON
- WJEC
- EDUQAS
No new subject codes were added, but a new sitting was added, and all of the summer subject codes were associated to this sitting. These results were processed in the same way as other ‘Previous’ results. More information can be found in our technical briefing document.
For the purpose of the UCAS data for HESA Transaction this will mean the field QualificationsOnEntry.QUALSIT will have the addition of code 'A' for Autumn.
If you’ve requested a StarJ flat file, this will be available through MOVEit, the secure file transfer service. You can find more details about this in the MOVEit user guide.
You can read about the ‘Specification of the UCAS data for HESA (*J) 2021’ on our HESA return page.
If you had some placed 2021 applicants in the HEP1 and HEP2 test environments, StarJ test data is set up for you. You can access this by visiting our test and training environments page.