Objective

This page outlines all important matters related to 2020 reporting requirements about Transforming the Collection of Student Information (TCSI).

Complexity: MEDIUM

Page Contents

Assumptions

• The user has an understanding of the Australian Tertiary Education System.

• The user is familiar with the previous HEPCAT / HEIMS reporting

• The user has an understanding of TCSI Element Numbers

2020 Reporting Requirements

• Data Element specifications for Higher Education and VET Student Loans Collections (24 September 2019)

• Higher education requirements (24 September 2019)

• VET Student Loans requirements (15 November 2019)

Key terms and concepts

TCSI (pronounced 'taxi') is a joint project to transform how student information is collected.

Background Development Of Paradigm TCSI Implementation

In implementing the new TCSI requirements Silverband analysed the two methods on sending data to the government. These two main methods include TCSI Data Upload (known as Portal method) and B2G real time solution (known as real time solution) . In the intial specification we considered the TCSI Data Upload as this matches closely to the existing HEIMS reporting with different file formats. However the government required that updates be sent weekly at a minumum which Silverband thought was to erroneous of work effort to place on providers. Additionally the government recommended that TCSI Data Upload method was only suitable for very small providers ( approx 20 students) where the data is not changing often.

According to the government the TCSI web interfaces are meant to be resposonsive near in real time. This allowed the implemention our solution that is known as single touch. The single touch soultion allows data to be sent to the government as it saved in Paradigm and return to the interface the response from the web interfaces for the submitted piece of data.

See TCSI Migration 2020 for further notes on the development and how data packets are created.

Changing Fields Cause Bulk Operation

In our solution we push individual records one at a time. Due to a change the made by the government in August changing any of the following fields will cause a bulk operation which may take a while in the system.

We suggest you do not change the the following fields unless required.

Also because of this change you can no longer have flexible unit enrolments that have a variable start and end dates and census dates that do not match the scheduled unit.

In this bulk operation the following will happen:

• All the unit enrolments will be deleted from TCSI 1 at a time.

• Then the minimum required fields will be send to TCSI to create the unit enrolment.

• Then a update will be sent to TCSI to completed the record as it stands in Paradigm.

The fields that will cause this bulk operation to occur are:

TCSI Moved Fields

The introduction of TCSI has presented us with an opportunity to move around some fields in a way that closer reflects the intent of the element from the perspective of the government.

• The elements E572, E573, E574 have been moved from the course enrolment screen to the student screen

TCSI RemappedFields

The introduction of TCSI has presented us with an opportunity to remap some internal fields to TCSI fields as the TCSI implementation has deuplicated the meaning of a field into a single field.

• E319 - Previously this field had a dual value either a post code or country and hence a separate field in Paradigm. In TCSI this elment purely represents the Term Address Postal Code and element E661 has been added to capture the Term Address country code. These address fields have been now mapped to the Semester Address fields for the student and hence removed from the application.

• E320 - Previously this field had a dual value either a post code or country and hence a separate field in Paradigm. In TCSI this elment purely represents the Term Address Postal Code and element E658 has been added to capture the Residential Address country code. These addresses has been now mapped to the Billing Address fields for the student and hence removed from the application.

• E330 - This field has been mapped to the Full/Part Time field in Paradigm. It used to be a calculated based on the eftsl being submitted in the LL file. No action is required to makethis work.

• E329 - This field used to be located on the course enrolment screen and has now been remapped to the scheduled unit screen and the field Mode of Delivery. This field relies that the code items for this field have the new HEIMS value filled in. Please see video below.

• E355 - This field used to be on the unit enrolment and sent to HEIMS depending on the enrolment status of the unit enrolment directly coded in the application. This field has now been mapped to the enrolment status list found in the Status Edit screen and is configurable per software instance by the provider.

Please see this video to map values for the status items.

TCSI Mapped Fields

In the development of TCSI we have mapped some of the internal fields in Paradigm with fields in the TCSI specification. These fields include:

• E599 - This field is located on the course enrolment screen and has been mapped to the course enrolment status field. The enrolment status field needs a HEIMS a value mapped to it in the status edit screen. Paradigm will only send values to TSCI where there a status mapped to the field. This means you can still have your own internal enrolment status values and only when you set a status where the value is ampped with to send a change to TSCI.

Please see the video below to map values for the status items.

• E661 - This field has been mapped to the student country code for there Semester Address. Paradigm now has a mapping of internal country code to TCSI country codes and no provider intervention is required for this update.

• E658 - This field has been mapped to the student country code for there Billing Address. Paradigm now has a mapping of internal country code to TCSI country codes and no provider intervention is required for this update.

Additional Provider Setup

In the development of TCSI you need setup a primary provider record where the abbrviation of the provider record matches the abbreviation of we map in Nexus for your PRODA authentication record. This means that if you are a dual sector provider then you will need 2 primary provider records one for Higher Education and one for VET Provider.

The primary provider record for botht the higher education and primary vet provider must have the role: HEIMS Higher Education Provider.

In addition to the the above role being assigned providers are also required to set a new field: Parent Reporting Provider. Eventhough this is the primary record this field must be set to itself. Apart of submitting records to TCSI Paradigm will only submit records where the primary provider is directly or indirectly associated with the primary provider.

Due to the statement above all records associated with the primary provider must also be have a relationship assigned back to the primary provider. If your instiutiion has numerous unit and program providers submmiting data on behalf of the primary provider they also must have the Parent Reporting Provider field set. Only records that are associated to the primary provider will be submitted to TCSI. Knowing this additional provider records can be created that do not have a relationship to the primary provider for internal use.

Screens Modified Due To TCSI Data Packets

The following tables outline the data packets from TCSI and changes made to the to implement the TCSI data packet.

Course Of Study Packet

Paradigm has implemented the Course of Study Packet and the Courses Group packet on the same screen. This makes the screen a complex to use as data editing must be completed in the correct order.

Courses Group Packet

Paradigm has implemented the Course of Study Packet and the Courses Group packet on the same screen. This makes the screen a complex to use as data editing must be completed in the correct order. You must ensure the fields to get a Dest UID 3 are filled in before you can get a Dest UID5. This means you are required to complete the fields of the Course of Study Packet first. It is important to note without a UID for this record you cannot submit a course enrolment.

Campus Packet

This packet needs be filled out for every provider in the system that delivers a course or schedueld unit. It is important that the field Parent Reporting Provider is enetred otherwise we cannot match the record being submitted to the PRODA account which returns token to submit the data to the correct API record.

Courses On Campus Record

Common TCSI Editing Rules For TCSI Data Packets

Overview

It is important in Paradigm that data packets are now completed in the correct in order for the system to push data packets to TCSI. This is important because we will not attempt to push packets where a required id is not completed. This means if a depenedent UID is later required all the depenedent records will need to saved independently so they get pushed to the TCSI system.eg

If you do not have a UID5 on the Courses Group packet then no course enrolments will be submitted to TCSI and therefore no uniy enrolments. So this means all these records will need to be save individually this also means that if these packets have sub packets they will also need to saved to they are pushed as well. Therefore it is vitally important for saving time that data packets are entered in the correct order.

One of the advanages of TCSI reporting over HEPCAT is you only report sub packets if you have data for that sub packet. eg If your student does not have a disability you do not enter that sub packet.

There are some new sub records which can have one or more records, be time depenedent and both have one or values and be time depenedent.

The table below outline those dependencies

Course Of Study Packet

The table below outines the editing rules you need to follow when using the screens to get a TCSI data packet to completed successfully.

Common Data Errors

The Paradigm implementation of the TCSI web interfaces

Workflow

Where to get more details about element numbers

1. Navigate to the HEIMS web site by clicking on the below link
   https://heimshelp.education.gov.au/

2. On the side menu under 'Resources' click on the Data Element Dictionary. This loads a data element dictionary screen where you can find the specifications and operational definitions for all the elements for which date are to be reported in the Higher Education and VET data collections

3. Click on the relevant year data elements tab option e.g. 2019 data elements

4. Click on the Elements by number under the label 2019 higher Education Student data collection

5. Click on the Number to be viewed.

Further reading

HEIMS HELP website