Data Submissions

Regulatory PrinciplesDirective
RPDIR —2

Data Submissions

Awarding bodies are required to submit data for all their accredited qualifications which are considered to be ‘live’. Live qualifications are those for which candidates can still be certificated and as such have not yet passed their accreditation end date. This includes qualifications in their lapsing period.

SQA Accreditation expects all awarding bodies to be able to provide this data independently, on an on-going basis, without e-mail notification.

Each awarding body is responsible for tracking their accredited provision and submitting data relevant to those qualifications.

In addition, those awarding bodiesaccredited to award Work Place Core SkillsUnits, are requested to submit data pertaining to theseUnits.

Awarding bodies are expected to submit data which indicates the number of qualification registrations and certifications during the specified time period.

NB: We only require the overall group award details. SQA Accreditation does not request information on individual Unit or candidate achievement.

It is only where SQA Accreditation considers that there is evidence of malpractice or failure to comply with regulatory standards, that individual detail may be requested for audit purposes and awarding bodies should therefore continue to track this information within their own systems.

All data for the return should be aggregated by qualification.

Quarterly submissions

Data should be submitted on a quarterly basis for all accredited qualifications and should cover the following periods:

Quarter 1 = 1 April–30 June

Quarter 2 = 1 July–30 September

Quarter 3 = 1 October–31 December

Quarter 4 = 1 January–31 March

The submission dates and data return template can be found on the SQA Accreditation website:

Awarding bodies are expected to monitor these dates and submit the data by the required deadline.

Formats and Data Requirements

Field / Format / Example / Restrictions / Explanation
Awarding Body / Text / My Awarding Body (MAB) / Cannot be left blank / Full name of the awarding body as it will appear on publications
Registrations / Numerical / 500 / Cannot be left blank / If no registrations appear against any particular qualification, this field should read ‘0’. The qualification should not be omitted from the spreadsheet if it has zero uptake. Nil returns required.
Certifications / Numerical / 500 / Cannot be left blank / As above
Qualifications Title / Text / SVQ 1 in Hairdressing at SCQF level 4 / Cannot be left blank / This should be the full accredited title as it will appear on candidate certificates. No abbreviations or alterations from the title agreed at the point of accreditation will be accepted.
If the qualification has been credit-rated for the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF), this should be reflected in the title.
For Work Place Core SkillUnits, the SCQF level must be included in the tile.
Code / Text / G123 / 4 digits only / The four-digit accreditation code which was assigned to the qualification after accreditation
Level / Numerical / 21 / 2 digits only / The two-digit level code which was assigned to the qualification after accreditation.
Qualification Type / Text / Other / Must exactly match types designated by SQA Accreditation / This field should read one of the following only:
SVQ
Regulatory
Other
Workplace Core Skills
No other qualification types will be accepted.

Notes

Awarding bodies are expected to present the data in the format provided in the template and as such additional rows, columns or other information are not accepted.

The fields should be completed accurately with no leading or trailing blanks.

Data should be provided in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or a later version;or

Comma Separated Value (CSV)

All data submitted to SQA Accreditation will be made publicly available within the Quarterly Statistics Report. This can be found on SQA Accreditation’s website at:

11 September2012

This document is published by SQA Accreditation

For further information, please contact: The Optima Building

SQA Accreditation: 58 Robertson Street

SQA Accreditation:

Tel: 0345 213 5249G2 8DQ

AU/Regulation/20120911 Regulatory Directive No. 2 Version 3