[Unistats] Commencement date for RTS students who have transferred.

[Andrea Matulick]

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