TCSI Newsletter December 2021

We at TCSI support would like to wish everyone a happy holiday and a safe New Year!

The department will observe a shutdown from 24 December 2021 and will return on 4 January 2022. Provider reporting and the TCSI Support mailbox will not be monitored during this period. Enquiries received during this time will be answered after our return.

The TCSI system will continue to operate and receive data over the holiday period.

 

The updated TCSI roadmap is now available from the TCSI Releases and upcoming development page on the TCSI Support website.

Planned releases for December will instead be released early in January. This will ensure the TCSI Support team is available to assist providers and vendors interacting with the new functionality.

TCSI will help providers to clear the backlog of unverified Unique Student Identifiers (USIs) and Tax File Numbers (TFNs) by triggering a once-off verification period.

The transition to TCSI meant that some records stopped verifying in TCSI before providers were able to follow up with affected students. Identified issues in production also made it difficult for providers to re trigger verification of USIs and TFNs using workaround solutions.

The bulk verification will be initiated in January so that the verification periods start running when providers return from shutdowns. The bulk verification will initiate a further 12 weeks period for TFN checks and a 42 day period for USI checks.

USI and TFN verification will occur nightly until those periods end, after which providers or their systems will need to re trigger verification by re submitting affected student records.

Further information for students and providers on creating, searching, or verifying a USI is available from www.usi.gov.au.

Higher education providers may also consult the USI in higher education page. 

The TCSI monthly webinar will recommence on 2 February 2022.

However, the TCSI Support team will resume optional fortnightly drop-in training sessions from 12 January 2022.

We look forward to seeing you all at a drop-in session or a monthly webinar when you return.

Amendments to TCSI higher degree by research (HDR) end-user engagement packet

On 15 December 2021, the amended Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (Research) 2017 will implement the 2021-22 Budget measure Growing industry internships for research PhD students through the Research Training Program.

This measure adds a new Research Training Program (RTP) weighting of 2.0 for each research doctorate student that is reported as having completed their HDR from 1 January 2022, having also completed an eligible industry internship during their course. 

TCSI is changing to allow the collection of data required to determine eligibility for the RTP industry internship weighting.

TCSI element 593 is being streamlined and a new element 798, capturing ‘days of engagement with a research end-user’, is in development. From 1 January 2022, element 593 will be temporarily paused while the TCSI development team makes changes. The DVC(R) for each affected organisation was notified by email on 14 December 2021.

These changes are expected to be live for reporting by March 2022.

There will also be a minor amendment to the definition of a ‘research internship’ and two new definitions, ‘days of engagement with a research end-user’ and ‘full-time equivalent day’, will be introduced.

As reporting for the RTP internship weighting commences in 2022, higher education providers (HEPs) should collect end-user engagement information for HDR students completing their course from 1 January 2022, to report once elements 593 and 798 are live.

HEPs will have until January 2023 to report 2022 HDR end-user engagement data. 

More information on changes to HDR end-user engagement TCSI reporting will be available at 2022 Higher Education Data Collections reporting requirements.

A Ministerial Notice update will be issued detailing changes to data HEPs should collect and report.

Subject to the passage of legislation, the Government is further extending the FEE HELP loan fee exemption until 31 December 2022 to continue to encourage local students to study during 2022.

When the relevant legislation passes, the loan fee exemption will be applied automatically to applicable FEE HELP loans which were reported to TCSI with a Loan Fee (E529). TCSI validation 10847 will be updated at the same time to ensure newly reported loans have the correct loan fee. Providers should consider if their processes or software will require updating so that they can report zero-dollar loan fees when required.

Until then, providers should continue to report loan fees as per the current legislative requirements.

VET Student Loans are not included in the planned extension for 2022.

 

The TCSI Support team are busy finalising the second 2021 Higher Education reporting survey.

The self-assessment survey will be used to confirm the status of higher education reporting in TCSI and will be used to identify each Higher Education provider's overall compliance with the 2021 reporting requirements.

A provider specific hyperlink to the survey will be sent to the TCSI primary contact. The survey will be sent via Qualtrics and addressed from noreply@qemailserver.com. You may wish to update your email filter settings to receive correspondence from this email address.

If you need to update the primary contacts for your provider, please send the best primary and secondary contact details to TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au. You may wish to use a group mailbox as a primary contact email to ensure TCSI communications are not missed.

The survey response is due by 4 February 2022 and a reminder survey link will be sent to the TCSI primary contact closer to the due date.

A reminder that the TCSI Support team will be available in the new year to meet with you directly to discuss any issues relating to reporting in TCSI. Please contact TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au if you would like to schedule a meeting.