TCSI Newsletter June 2020

The reporting schedule for all 2020 data submissions is available at: Reporting 2020 higher education data deadlines.

You will be able to use HEPCAT to report all your 2020 data, using the existing 2019 structures and values*.

Please note that your submissions are required in an earlier timeframe. 2020 data must be reported by 31 January 2021, and verified no later than 31 March 2021. This should ensure the outcomes for all units of study and courses are determined and reported prior to data verification on 31 March.

This will be formalised in an update to the 2020 Ministerial Notice shortly.

Where new 2020 values have been captured these should be mapped to 2019 values using your best judgement to report in HEPCAT. To help you convert to 2019 values, we have published the "TCSI factsheet: TCSI mapping tables 2020 to 2019" available from the "fact sheets" tab on the TCSI resources page.

When can I start reporting 2020 higher education census dates?

You can start reporting your 2020 higher education Student submissions in HEPCAT at any time from Monday 15 June 2020.

The upgrades to HEIMS to include the renewable HELP balance and apply the upper HELP limits to higher education aviation courses for 2020 have now been completed. This will be in production from next Monday.

* If you are planning to be a TCSI early adopter we will work with you to determine a timeframe for you to cut over to TCSI. We expect this to be in December 2020.

Several providers have highlighted some of the challenges they are facing in reporting students' mode of attendance in this current COVID‑19 environment. There is ongoing uncertainty around study and course delivery and how this may continue to evolve over the coming months. We also recognise that some student management systems limit flexibility to update attendance data during a semester, and this will inevitably lead to some variability in reporting students' attendance in 2020.

To help us manage this information in the best way possible, we ask that as far as practicable you report the mode of attendance that most accurately reflects the student's circumstances on the census date.

There is no expectation that you will retrospectively revise data already reported if variations subsequently occur.

To minimise any additional reporting and reduce impacts on your administration systems, no new elements or codes will be introduced in HEIMS to collect data on the short online courses. Please use the following existing codes and elements in HEPCAT when you report these students.

1. Report the course type (Element 310 - Course of study type code) using the existing codes:
   • Undergraduate course - Code 22 Other undergraduate award course
   • Postgraduate course - Code 11 Graduate certificate.
2. Report the course name (Element 308) that matches a course on your list of short courses, as displayed on Course Seeker.
3. Report the value 8999 for the postcode on Element 477 - Postcode or overseas country code location of Higher Education/VET Provider campus/delivery location when you report the unit of study on the Higher Education Load Liability File.
4. Use code 7 on Element 392 Maximum Student Contribution Amount.
5. Use code 201 on Element 490 Student Status to indicate that students enrolled in short courses are supported through HECS‑HELP.

Program requirements for higher education certificates

The higher education funding team will be able to provide you with any further requirements and information you need to administer these courses.

You can contact the team at: CGS@dese.gov.au.

We want to extend our appreciation for your ongoing patience in these unprecedented times as we finalise the updated delivery and transition timeframes for TCSI.

As we have previously advised, the impact of COVID‑19, working from home arrangements and the resolution of some defects we have identified in our development of the new Student Entitlement Management System (StEME), have delayed our production release of TCSI into the second half of this year.

We expect to release an updated schedule and transition plan in the coming weeks. We will keep you updated on our progress on this.

What is ready to go in TCSI?

The TCSI capabilities for external developers page provides you with an overview of the functions that your systems will need to implement a TCSI API solution. The table sets out what functionality is currently available in our test environments, and which components are still in progress.

This information will help you to work with your software developers to plan your own testing and implementation for TCSI over the coming months.

We will update this page on an ongoing basis as each of the remaining components is delivered for testing.

From 30 June, you will be able to directly access all your HEIMS data that has been migrated to TCSI through the new TCSI Analytics site. This will provide you with the flexibility to check and download all the data migrated from HEIMS at your own convenience.

The first release of TCSI Analytics includes the following reports:

• Higher Education Reports
• VSL Reports

The rules for migrating data from HEIMS to TCSI are set out on the TCSI resources page on HEIMSHELP.

The reports are in a similar format to the existing HEIMS Online reports. TCSI Analytics webinar held on Wednesday 20 May provides details on how you can navigate through this new environment.

The webinar is available from the TCSI Webinar Gallery page of HEIMSHELP. The TCSI Analytics user guide is also under development and will be available shortly.

If you find you need to update or modify any records when you are checking your TCSI data, you can use the current standard revision processes in HEPCAT to make any changes you need.

To access TCSI Analytics you will need to have your PRODA set‑up completed.

The PRODA guides provides you with a step by step explanation on how to do this, from Phase 1 through to Phase 3.

It's great to see that most providers are almost there with their PRODA set‑up. The final step of linking to TCSI is quick and simple. You just need to log into your PRODA account, navigate to your Organisation and add "Tertiary Collection of Student Information" as a Service Provider.

To help walk you through this process please refer to the PRODA guide – Phase 3.

PRODA Roles

PRODA roles will help manage staff access to TCSI Services. These roles include:

• TCSI Analytics – Read: Provides read only access to TCSI Analytics
• TCSI Analytics – Signoff: Provides the ability to sign‑off a verified data set in TCSI Analytics
• TCSI Analytics – Verify: Provides the ability to verify a data set in TCSI Analytics
• TCSI myHELPbalance Portal: Provides access to the myHELPbalance portal
• TCSI Data Entry: Provides access to TCSI Data Entry

These roles are now visible and assignable. To assign these roles the director or delegated person will need to manually assign staff to a PRODA role by navigating to the Organisation Details screen and:

1. Clicking "Members"
2. Selecting the staff member to assign the attribute to
3. Scrolling down and clicking "Attribute Delegations"
4. Clicking "Delegate To This Member"

Selecting the desired attribute and delegating it to the staff member

Following our TCSI Roadshow in November last year, a number of providers expressed interest in having access to the TCSI video we shared with you. The video provides an insight on the delivery of the TCSI project and how we are working across agencies to improve the reporting experience for providers and students. You may find this a useful tool to share with staff at your institution, as part of your own resources to support staff transitioning to this new way of reporting.

To access the video it is a quick navigation over to the "What is TCSI?" tab under TCSI resources. If you would prefer a copy of the video, please contact us at TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

On 8 May 2020 our address for the TCSI Support Mailbox changed. For all TCSI related enquiries please send your enquiries to our new email address at TCSIsupport@dese.gov.au.

We have just released our new TCSI Support website to production.

Thank you to our co‑design team for their feedback on our beta version, to help us get this site ready for its production release. Thank you also to those who participated in the early site testing with Briarbird last year when we first started to develop a site to replace HEIMSHELP, when reporting moves to the new TCSI system.

There may be some information about TCSI that you can’t yet find on TCSI Support. We will be working hard over the coming months to add new content, including more FAQs and guides, as we strive to make TCSI Support a one‑stop shop for all your data reporting for higher education and VET Student Loans.

The collection of field of research data for Higher Degree Research students will be deferred until 2021. There will be no requirement to report the elements 594: Higher degree by research primary field of research code and 595: Higher degree by research secondary field of research until 2021, when all data for HDR students will be reported via TCSI.