Student Status Audits

The University is required to confirm the attendance for all funded students with standard start dates to the Student Loans Company (SLC) at the beginning of October. This includes Undergraduate, Postgraduate and Postgraduate Research students.

This triggers the release of the first instalment of tuition fee loan payment from SLC to the University. Registry are responsible for ensuring that  an accurate data return is submitted to the SLC, confirming students who:

• are normally registered for the current session

• have arrived and started attending their studies

To facilitate this process, Colleges are required to submit a data return to Taught Student Administration (TSA) listing the exceptions to the above, namely:

• new students who have not arrived to take up their place at the University

• continuing students who are not returning to study as they are permanently withdrawing from their programme or taking a leave of absence

Overview document

• 2024-25 Standard SLC Fee Liability Deadlines (UG FT) (PDF - 183Kb)
  

The liability points overview document includes information on deadlines for academic Schools and Departments to return information to TSA for liability points 1, 2 and 3. Implications for students in terms of their fee liability, and a summary of the responsibilities of College staff in relation to the liability points data returns are also included. 

Resources for College Administrative Staff submitting a liability point data return:

To assist with your data return, consult:

• 2024-25 - LP1 guidance for schools (complete guide) (PDF - 327 Kb)

Included in this guide is the checklist for new and returning students. Please note that the checklist is designed to be used as a reference guide for determining students that have not arrived or are not engaging with induction activity / their programme of study. You are not required to complete and return the checklist.

• LP1 training powerpoint 24-25 (1) (PPTX - 41.2Mb)

• 2024-25-lp1-data-return-template (XLSX - 13.5Kb)
  

We ask that you use this specific template so that we can easily collate your data together.

• Class Register by Department & Joint Honours - BOXI Report

This is an optional BOXI report that can be generated to create induction registers for classes, and to copy and paste the data into your return template. This is located by searching for the following folder:  Banner Documents/BIRMS Students/Student Records General

Undergraduate Students enrolled on programmes with Non-Standard Liability Points:

• NSSD_TSA_2024-25 (XLSX - 22.1Kb)
  

The list includes all programmes (full-time and part-time) that do not follow the standard liability points outlined in the overview document.

Students studying on Part-time Undergraduate Programmes

College administrators are required to return the details of new and returning students who have not arrived, or are not engaging with their programme of study to their TSA named contact as soon as possible. Do not include these students on your liability point 1 template return; instead, please contact your named TSA administrator directly.

As the fee loan amount will be calculated for part-time students based on their credit load, it is vital that students are registered for the correct modules at the start of the academic year, and that their record is accurate by 4 October.

Further information is available in 2024-25 SLC Part Time Maintenance Loans 1.0 (PDF - 154Kb)

Postgraduate Students

Please note that the liability point deadlines for staff outlined in the liability points overview document do not apply to PGT students.  

College administrators are required to return the details of new and returning PGT students who have not arrived, or are not engaging with their programme of study to their TSA named contact as soon as possible.

Information for academic Schools and Departments regarding Postgraduate students:

• 2024-25 SLC Postgraduate Masters Loans 1.0 (PDF - 143Kb)
  

Postgraduate Research Students

Please note that the liability point deadlines for staff outlined in the liability points overview document do not apply to PGR students.  

• 2024-25 SLC Postgraduate Doctoral Loans 1.0 (PDF - 145Kb)
  

A census of registered students on each programme of study is taken on 1st November.

The census data is used:

• As the base to undertake initial forecasts of the OfS grant and any financial holdback for the new academic year.

• To measure student intakes against College/School targets.

• As the base from which we will forecast the student population and tuition fee forecast as required by OfS in December.

• For the statistical profile and other management information purposes.

Only those students who are normally registered as of 1st November are included in the census. It is therefore essential that all students engaging on their programme have ‘Normally Registered’ status on the Banner student record system by 1st November.

How students complete registration

Students must register themselves online for each academic year of their programme.

All new students are sent emails providing their ADF username/password and asking them to complete registration. Returning students are sent an email to inform them when https://registration.bham.ac.uk is open to complete Online Registration. Returning students who do not know their ADF username/password or experience problems while registering can contact the Registration Helpline +44 (0)121 414 9009.

Unless Legal Agreements stipulate, Registry are not able to register students on their behalf, as the registration process is a binding legal contract between the individual student and the University.

How to check which students have not completed registration

A new report has been developed that will allow Schools and departments to more easily identify new and continuing students who have not completed online registration.

The Student Registration Audit report is stored in BOXI and is located via the following folders Banner Documents > Students > Student Records (General) folder > Student Registration Audit.

If you do not have access to BOXI this can be requested through the IT Services Helpdesk

The report has 2 tabs, ‘AS’ to identify unregistered new students and ‘ER’ to identify returning unregistered students.

The report can also be scheduled to run at specific times, this can lead to reduced administrative burden. Guidance on how to run and schedule reports can be found on the BOXI Guidance and Resource

The report helpfully identifies when new students were made UA (Unconditionally Accepted) through the Admissions process and thus when they first started to be contacted about Online Registration and when a progress ART was released for returning students which indicates when returning students would first start to receive ‘Expected to Re-register communications.

Encouraging students to complete registration

Students who have not completed registration are automatically sent regular reminders to encourage them to do so.

Schools are asked to encourage students who are in attendance but not registered to complete this process as soon as possible. In previous years we have found that direct contact from Schools in addition to the reminders from Registry has been effective in persuading students to complete their registration.

Benefits of students completing online registration

• Students can maintain access to all systems and services.
• Marks, Awards and Progress decisions can be released following exam board decisions.
• Students receive timely tuitions fee invoices; these can only be issued when a student is Normally Registered.
• Early dentification and timely record updates will enable the Timetabling team to explore opportunities to alleviate pressure on the timetable, particularly in cases of double teaching sessions and the use of overflow rooms due to increased student numbers.
• UoB Regulations and Codes of Practice only apply to a person who is Normally Registered. A person who has not complete online registration is not deemed a student at the University of Birmingham.

Taught Students

We ask School colleagues to identify any student who has confirmed that they are no longer starting their programme of study in 2024/25 (in the case of new students) and students who have confirmed that they wish to voluntarily withdraw from their programme of study (in the case of returning students). This information should be sent to tsa-withdrawals@contacts.bham.ac.uk for both Never Arrived and Voluntary Withdrawal status’. TSA will then update the students record to reflect either Never Arrived or Voluntary Withdrawn status.

Definitions

Never Arrived – A student who is due to start their programme of study in the 2024/25 academic year who have not engaged with course materials, attended scheduled lectures etc. In some cases a student may have had some initial contact during Welcome/induction sessions, in these cases, if no engagement with actual study has taken place, they would still be classed as Never Arrived.

Voluntary Withdrawn – A student who has had previous engagement with their programme of study e.g. returning students or new students who have engaged with the start of their programme of study.

If you require assistance in interpreting or generating the report, please contact your usual Student Administration contact.

Postgraduate Research Students (PGRs)

To enable a postgraduate researcher to register online, a progress decision must first be processed in BIRMS. Please ensure that all outstanding progress decisions are actioned in BIRMS to enable PGRs who should be normally registered to register online by 1st November and be incorporated into the census.

PGRs who are in attendance and who have not completed online registration should be encouraged to do so. In previous years we have found that direct contact from Schools has been effective in getting PGRs to complete their registration.

PGRs who have not registered can be identified by the BOXI report referred to  above. If you require assistance in interpreting or generating the report please contact your usual Student Administration contact.

Students who will not be taking up their place / are withdrawing from their programme

Please inform tsa-withdrawals@contacts.bham.ac.uk of any taught student who will not be taking up their place on the programme or will not be returning to continue with their studies.

Please also inform Research Student Administration of any PGRs who have agreed a later start date. This is vitally important for all Student route visa holders, so that UKVI (Home Office UK Visas and Immigration service) can be informed of the revised start date.

Queries

If you have any further queries regarding the census please contact:

• Taught students:

  Marcelle Cobbold, Head of Taught Student Administration

  m.y.cobbold@bham.ac.uk  

• PGRs:
  Matt Phillips, Head of Research Student Administration

  m.phillips@bham.ac.uk 

Student Administration will send a report of students due to return from a period of leave of absence to each School/Department in September and December 2023, to assist Schools in their work to ensure that students have a smooth transition back to their studies.

Student Administration will send a report of students whose leave of absence has expired to each School/Department in October 2023 and January 2024 to assist Schools in their work to signpost students who may need a further leave of absence to the relevant welfare support services.

Once Schools have attempted to make contact with students, confirmation of no response/withdrawal can be sent to TSA for record updates and confirmation of withdrawal emails will be sent. It will be assumed that they have voluntarily withdrawn from their programme in accordance with Section 10: Failure to Return from a Leave of Absence Code of Practice on the Leave of Absence Procedure (PDF - 134Kb).