From djohnsto@scu.edu.au Thu Jun 6 04:34:28 2002 From: djohnsto@scu.edu.au (Don Johnston) Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 14:34:28 +1000 Subject: [Unistats] Data Management Officer Position Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020606142528.0194cbe8@pophost.scu.edu.au> --=====================_20313379==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Dear Colleagues, For your information. Data Management Officer Position Salary Range: $43,966 - $48,299 (HEW 6) Applications are invited for the position of Data Management Officer in the Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Quality). The successful appointee will manage the conduct of student surveys at Southern Cross University, undertake analysis of survey data and other University statistical data and provide reports for the University and external parties. A full advertisement and position description are available from our website below: http://www.scu.edu.au/jobs Further details are available from Don Johnston on 02 6620 3176. Email - djohnsto@scu.edu.au Applications close: 14 June 2002. Regards, Don Johnston ********************************************************************* Don Johnston Phone : (02) 6620 3176 Institutional Research Officer Fax : (02) 6622 0203 Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Academic and Quality) Southern Cross University PO Box 157 Lismore NSW 2480 Email : djohnsto@scu.edu.au ********************************************************************** --=====================_20313379==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Dear Colleagues,

For your information. 

Data Management Officer Position
Salary Range: $43,966 - $48,299 (HEW 6)

Applications are invited for the position of Data Management Officer
in the Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic and Quality).
The successful appointee will manage the conduct of student
surveys at Southern Cross University, undertake analysis
of survey data and other University statistical data and provide
reports for the University and external parties.

A full advertisement and position description are available from
our website below:

http://www.scu.edu.au/jobs

Further details are available from Don Johnston on 02 6620 3176.
Email - djohnsto@scu.edu.au

Applications close: 14 June 2002.

Regards,
Don Johnston

*********************************************************************
Don Johnston                                 Phone : (02) 6620 3176
Institutional Research Officer           Fax     : (02) 6622 0203
Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor and
Vice-President (Academic and Quality)
Southern Cross University
PO Box 157
Lismore   NSW   2480

                   Email : djohnsto@scu.edu.au
********************************************************************** --=====================_20313379==_.ALT-- From andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au Mon Jun 17 03:07:39 2002 From: andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au (Andrea Matulick) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 12:37:39 +0930 Subject: [Unistats] Commencement date for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded Message-ID: <3D0D527B.8B21B482@adelaide.edu.au> Hi all, We are curious what commencement date other institutions have reported for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded their enrolment (Masters to PhD or vice versa). DEST's documentation on commencing students (and commencing RTS students) has been re-written. It is not specific, but seems to suggest the date of the transfer should be reported as the commencement date. Our student records system is currently set to give us the original commencement date for these students. Does anyone else see this as a problem? -- ************************************************* Andrea Matulick Management Information Analyst Office of Planning and Development The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph : +61 8 8303 7570 Fax : +61 8 8303 4873 e-mail: andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au ************************************************** This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information which may be confidential and/or copyright. If you are not the intended recipient please do not read, save, forward, disclose, or copy the contents of this email. If this email has been sent to you in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete this email and any copies or links to this email completely and immediately from your system. No representation is made that this email is free of viruses. Virus scanning is recommended and is the responsibility of the recipient. From roni.mcdowell@rmit.edu.au Mon Jun 17 03:59:19 2002 From: roni.mcdowell@rmit.edu.au (Roni McDowell) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 13:59:19 +1000 Subject: [Unistats] Commencement date for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded Message-ID: Dear Andrea, My understanding is as follows: For students upgrading from a Masters to a PHD (same project) the commence date will be the date you determine the student commences the PHD. These students will have a separation status code of 2 - upgrading. A student transferring from a Phd to a Masters (same project) will have the commence date of the PhD and a separation status code of 3 - downgrading. Students moving from one program to another at the same level will have a new commence date only if it is a new project. If this is a new project they will have a separation status of 1 - transfer. In this way the integrity of the commence date rules is maintained and DEST can track students who are moving between programs in the RTS and not count students with a separation status of 2 in the calculation of separations. I hope this helps. Roni Roni McDowell Head, Statistics and Reporting Unit Planning Group RMIT Collection Coordinator RMIT University Phone: 03 9925 4077 Mobile: 0417554033 Fax: 03 9639 1941 >>> Andrea Matulick 17/06/2002 1:07:39 pm >>> Hi all, We are curious what commencement date other institutions have reported for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded their enrolment (Masters to PhD or vice versa). DEST's documentation on commencing students (and commencing RTS students) has been re-written. It is not specific, but seems to suggest the date of the transfer should be reported as the commencement date. Our student records system is currently set to give us the original commencement date for these students. Does anyone else see this as a problem? -- ************************************************* Andrea Matulick Management Information Analyst Office of Planning and Development The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 Ph : +61 8 8303 7570 Fax : +61 8 8303 4873 e-mail: andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au ************************************************** This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) and contains information which may be confidential and/or copyright. If you are not the intended recipient please do not read, save, forward, disclose, or copy the contents of this email. If this email has been sent to you in error, please notify the sender by reply email and delete this email and any copies or links to this email completely and immediately from your system. No representation is made that this email is free of viruses. Virus scanning is recommended and is the responsibility of the recipient. _______________________________________________ Unistats mailing list Unistats@central.murdoch.edu.au http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/unistats From Susan.Clark@jcu.edu.au Mon Jun 17 04:54:23 2002 From: Susan.Clark@jcu.edu.au (Sue Clark) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 14:54:23 +1000 Subject: [Unistats] Commencement date for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded In-Reply-To: <3D0D527B.8B21B482@adelaide.edu.au> Message-ID: <4.3.2.7.1.20020617141753.00cb1100@pop.jcu.edu.au> Andrea, Yes, I have battled with this upgrade problem too. Under the DEST "commencing student" definition, a student who upgrades from a Masters Research to a PhD is a commencing student, and the commencement date should therefore be for the PhD. However, under the RTS guidelines, the same student is only entitled to a total of 4 years RTS funding. This could be interpreted to mean the commencement date should be at the start of the Masters Research degree. If you use the Masters Research commencing date, then you do NOT meet the DEST student collection requirements but you do meet the RTS guidelines and you can track the eftsu used under RTS correctly and easily. If you use the PhD commencement date, then you meet the DEST student collection requirements but the RTS eftsu requirements need to be tracked individually student-by-student otherwise the RTS guidelines will be breached. I have interpreted this differently for different students depending on whether there was an interval between candidature for the degrees and whether the thesis title appeared to be the same/similar for both degrees. There are no easy answers and I imagine that all universities interpreted this in varying ways. There does not seem to be the same problem for downgrades because neither the DEST student collection nor the RTS guidelines considers them to be commencing students. Therefore you use the original start date and track the eftsu from there. Sue Clark. At 12:37 PM 17-06-2002 +0930, Andrea Matulick wrote: >Hi all, > >We are curious what commencement date other institutions have reported >for RTS students who have upgraded or downgraded their enrolment >(Masters to PhD or vice versa). DEST's documentation on commencing >students (and commencing RTS students) has been re-written. It is not >specific, but seems to suggest the date of the transfer should be >reported as the commencement date. Our student records system is >currently set to give us the original commencement date for these >students. > >Does anyone else see this as a problem? > > >-- >************************************************* >Andrea Matulick >Management Information Analyst >Office of Planning and Development >The University of Adelaide, AUSTRALIA 5005 >Ph : +61 8 8303 7570 >Fax : +61 8 8303 4873 >e-mail: andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au >************************************************** > >This email message is intended only for the addressee(s) >and contains information which may be confidential and/or >copyright. If you are not the intended recipient please >do not read, save, forward, disclose, or copy the contents >of this email. If this email has been sent to you in error, >please notify the sender by reply email and delete this >email and any copies or links to this email completely and >immediately from your system. No representation is made >that this email is free of viruses. Virus scanning is >recommended and is the responsibility of the recipient. >_______________________________________________ >Unistats mailing list >Unistats@central.murdoch.edu.au >http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/unistats _____________________________________________________ Susan Clark Manager, Statistics Resources Office James Cook University Townsville QLD 4811 Phone: 07 4781 5954 Fax: 07 4781 4035 Email: Susan.Clark@jcu.edu.au http://www.jcu.edu.au/office/Planning_and_Statistics/index.html From andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au Tue Jun 18 01:22:01 2002 From: andrea.matulick@adelaide.edu.au (Andrea Matulick) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 10:52:01 +0930 Subject: [Unistats] Commencement date for RTS students who have transferred. Message-ID: <3D0E8B39.91C20C4F@adelaide.edu.au> I have received a number of replies on this matter with different views. DEST has confirmed that the commencement date reported should be the transfer date in all cases. The separation status code (E465) is then used to exclude these students from being counted as 'commencing' for RTS funding calculations. These students will need to be treated carefully for other reporting or we may see some strange commencing stats for HDR students. I am assuming the admission basis code (E327) should be consistent with the commencement date reported. I am also assuming that the most 'recent' commencement date should be reported when a completion occurs. Calculations on load consumption and remaining entitlement for these students will need to refer to the 'original' commencement date, if necessary. Andrea The commencement date to be reported for these students is as per our specifications (that is the date they commence the new course). Element 465 is used to identify research students who are commencing by the student specifications but are upgrading, downgrading or transferring. cheers Wayne Shippley Assistant Director Statistics Unit Higher Education Division Hi Andrea, When I revisited the commencement date issues using DEST collection guidelines. This is what I found: The commencement date is when the student first consumes load in the course. The commencing student exclusion list does not include upgrades or downgrades. Taking these two into consideration then the first time the student consumes load in the new course they have upgraded or downgraded into then that will become the commencement date for the new course. I believe this is why the separation code becomes important for these upgrades and downgrades so that the student is recognised as a continuing RTS student and will not be considered a separation. Andrea, Yes, I have battled with this upgrade problem too. Under the DEST "commencing student" definition, a student who upgrades from a Masters Research to a PhD is a commencing student, and the commencement date should therefore be for the PhD. However, under the RTS guidelines, the same student is only entitled to a total of 4 years RTS funding. This could be interpreted to mean the commencement date should be at the start of the Masters Research degree. If you use the Masters Research commencing date, then you do NOT meet the DEST student collection requirements but you do meet the RTS guidelines and you can track the eftsu used under RTS correctly and easily. If you use the PhD commencement date, then you meet the DEST student collection requirements but the RTS eftsu requirements need to be tracked individually student-by-student otherwise the RTS guidelines will be breached. I have interpreted this differently for different students depending on whether there was an interval between candidature for the degrees and whether the thesis title appeared to be the same/similar for both degrees. There are no easy answers and I imagine that all universities interpreted this in varying ways. There does not seem to be the same problem for downgrades because neither the DEST student collection nor the RTS guidelines considers them to be commencing students. Therefore you use the original start date and track the eftsu from there. Sue Clark. Dear Andrea, Our interpretation of the 2002 guidelines (based on Section 6. Period of RTS Support) is that the commencement date does not change on transfer, downgrade, or upgrade. Given your question and Roni's response I will give further thought to the matter. I know that commencement date is a concept that DEST has had trouble pinning down and I know of at least three different definitions that have been used from time to time. Certainly before RTS we would have shown a research student whose transfer took them from one field of education to another as commencing in the new field but in most cases this would not have restarted the entitlement clock. I look forward to hearing further views on this matter. Allen Dr Allen Muscio Planning Support Office, A14 University of Sydney Tel: 9351 3335 Fax: 9351 7301 Dear Andrea, My understanding is as follows: For students upgrading from a Masters to a PHD (same project) the commence date will be the date you determine the student commences the PHD. These students will have a separation status code of 2 - upgrading. A student transferring from a Phd to a Masters (same project) will have the commence date of the PhD and a separation status code of 3 - downgrading. Students moving from one program to another at the same level will have a new commence date only if it is a new project. If this is a new project they will have a separation status of 1 - transfer. In this way the integrity of the commence date rules is maintained and DEST can track students who are moving between programs in the RTS and not count students with a separation status of 2 in the calculation of separations. I hope this helps. Roni Roni McDowell Head, Statistics and Reporting Unit Planning Group RMIT Collection Coordinator RMIT University Phone: 03 9925 4077 Mobile: 0417554033 Fax: 03 9639 1941