Guidelines for HEI File Changes and/or Additions

Increasingly, Regents’ are relying upon HEI to answer questions that previously would have been answered through a survey of campus personnel. Regents’ staff modifies or adds files when there is a clear need and when campuses have been consulted. When possible Regents’ staff will attempt to adhere to the following guidelines when making HEI file changes and/or additions. Please note that there may be certain legislative mandates and requests or other circumstances that arise they may cause a departure from these guidelines.

1. Regents’ staff will provide at least six months notice of changes to files and file additions. This notice will include a data submission document on the web containing proposed changes. Please note that at times requests for information arise in such a fashion that Regents’ staff cannot always provide six months notice.
2. Regents’ staff will solicit comments from campuses about proposed changes and will consider their feedback prior to implementing the final version of the data submissions document.
3. To the extent possible, effective dates of file changes or additions will be set at the beginning of a subsequent fiscal year (e.g. Summer term)
4. Regents’ staff will post updates to the data submissions documentation on the Regents web site, as well as publish the revised edit specifications on the Regents web site.
5. Regents’ staff will post all correspondence pertaining to any file changes or additions in the "Important Memos" section on the HEI web page of the relevant data area.

Summary of Scheduled Future File Changes and/or Additions

Summary of Previous File Changes and/or Additions by Data Area

Summary of Scheduled Future File Changes and/or Additions

• Transfer Assurance Guides (TAGs) Information
  • Amended Sub. H.B. 95 required Ohio 's public universities and colleges to develop a universal course equivalency classification system. That classification system has been created in the form of the Transfer Assurance Guides (TAG). A list of the TAGs and their status is available on the Regents web site at: http://regents.ohio.gov/tags/tags.html . The Articulation and Transfer Council has requested campuses to determine which of their courses are equivalent to the TAG courses and report that information to the Higher Education Information (HEI) system in the Ohio Articulation Number (AN) File and the Ohio Transfer Module (TM) File . Campuses may submit courses and comments on the draft file specifications during the pilot phase until May 1, 2005 . Once these standards are finalized on May 1, campuses will have until August 31 to submit their official AN and TM data to HEI for Autumn 2005 courses. This date has been set because the legislature has specified that the new transfer system should be in place for the fall.
• Addition of Academic Program Code to the SN file
  • Effective for SM 2005 reporting, the Academic Program Code will be included in the Student Enrollment (SN) file. This change is part of a larger effort initiated by the Board to review the processes in place to determine the continued viability of new degree programs approved by the Board. Edits for the SN file will be modified to verify the academic program code against the list of valid academic programs reported in the AP file.
• Conversion of Financial Aid Programs to HEI
  • The Nurse Education Assistance Loan Program will be available on HEI January 2006.
• Jobs Challenge- Submission of Non-Credit Course Section (NC) File and Non-Credit Student Enrollment (NE) File
  • Starting on July 1, 2005, all campuses receiving Jobs Challenge funds will begin reporting non-credit course and enrollment information to HEI (using data collected between July 1, 2004-June 30, 2005).  All campuses that offer non-credit coursework outside of Jobs Challenge also will have the opportunity to submit non-credit course and enrollment information to HEI, but will not be required to do so.  These data will be used to help create a picture of non-credit coursework in Ohio.
• Race/Ethnicity structure in All Employee (AM), Faculty Demographics (FD) and Student Entrance (SE) Files 
  • According to AIR Alert #24, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) announced that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommended that the Department of Education delay implementation of new standards for the reporting of race/ethnicity on Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) surveys for at least another six months. The race/ethnicity codes in the AM, FD and SE files will change to comply with OMB's new standards for federal data collection when they are released. Campuses will be informed when the timeframe for the implementation is announced by OMB. (2004)
• Changes to the Capital Planning Data Area Changes/Additions 
  • The Capital Project Request Form is being updated to reflect data required for OBM (2007-2012 biennia submission period).
  • The Program of Requirements form required for each capital request is being automated (opening date to be announced). 
• IPEDS
  • HEI staff may modify HEI files to keep them comparable with IPEDS files and will inform data reporters in advance of these changes. (2002)
• Change to Collection of High School of Graduation Data
• It is anticipated that high school of graduation will be collected in the SE file rather than in the High School of Graduation (HG) File in the future. This change to the SE will be made at the same time as the changes to race/ethnicity structures. This will eliminate collection of the HG. (2002)

Summary of Previous File Changes and/or Additions by Data Area

Academic Program Data Area

Enrollment Data Area

Facilities Data Area

Faculty Data Area

Financial Data Area

Financial Aid Data Area

Academic Program Data Area

File Additions

• Academic Program (AP) – collects data on active and inactive degree programs as well as information about the number of credits required to complete a program (Autumn 2001).

Capital Planning Data Area

File Additions

• This data area was created to help Regents capital planning staff provide services to campus capital planning staff. The capital planning data area has a Capital Planning Liaison (that is separate from the HEI Liaison) that assigns permissions to appropriate campus staff. Queries, data submissions, and reports will be forthcoming in this data area.
• The Capital Project Request Form is the first data submission in the Capital Planning Data Area. It replaces the previous paper process for submitting Capital Project Requests. Campuses had been reporting capital project requests using a paper form as part of their five year capital plans.

Enrollment Data Area

File Additions

• Tech Prep Consortium Tracking (TC) – replaced the Tech Prep (TP). Contains more comprehensive data on Tech Prep students, in order to comply with Perkins/WIA (Workforce Investment Act) reporting requirements. Submitted by Tech Prep Coordinators at institutions assigned to a specific consortium (Spring 2002).
• Tuition Award (TA) File – the collection of data in this file was a recommendation of the Graduate Funding Commission (Autumn 2000).
• Cohort Tracking (CT) – mandatory for universities for the Governor's Performance Report, but it will be of service in creating more accurate number of transfers out for IPEDS reports (Summer 2000).
• Revised First Enrollment (RF) File – this was needed to get a more accurate picture of Year and Term of First Enrollment. This was a new file submission to correct an oversight on our part. Universities that used the RF file received more of the share of Success Challenge. This file will be phased out as campuses report the High School Admission Area (HGH) in the Student Entrance (SE) file (Winter 2000).

Non Mandatory File Additions

• Preliminary Course Inventory (PC) - Miami University, with the support of the Ohio Board of Regents and the Arizona Board of Regents, has developed a Web based, student transfer support system known as the Course Applicability System (CAS). CAS provides information on courses, course equivalencies and program requirements at a CAS institution to anyone who accesses a CAS website. The PC file will be compared with those submitted in previous years to help CAS reporters determine if changes were made to courses that would affect their transferability between schools. These records are collected for CAS annually by June 30th.Production window opened June 1, 2003.
• Distance Learning Course Offerings (DO) and Distance Learning Course Sections (DS) - The Ohio Learning Network (OLN) offers a web based course catalog of distance learning opportunities through OhioLEARNS!  Through the collaboration with HEI, data reporters submit these distance course offerings in two ways: through data entry screens or through two batch files. These data are loaded to the HEI database and the OhioLEARNS! website. Production began spring 2003.
• Extended Programs (EP) – identifies baccalaureate or associate degree programs whose normal time to degree is something other than four calendar years for a baccalaureate degree and two calendar years for an associate degree. Submitted once and then updated annually as necessary (Spring 2001).
• Extended Students (ES) – identifies students in degree programs who will take less than or more than four years to graduate from a baccalaureate degree program or two years from an associate degree program (Spring 2001).
• Special Cohort Tracking (SC) – this is not mandatory and was created so schools could track certain populations of students (Autumn 2000).
• Identifier Change (IC) File – this is not mandatory but is used so schools can correct student identifiers if they change (Autumn 1999).

Automation of Existing Data Collection Processes

• Update to primary edits – formerly the primary edits could only be viewed as html and could not be sorted for quick analysis of errors and warnings. We have created an alternative to viewing the primary edits in html, "Tab Delimited Edit Results," where the detail of the primary edits can be viewed in Excel or another program whereby the errors and warnings may be sorted by the key identifiers of the record (Student ID, Faculty ID, Building ID) or by the error or warning code (Spring 2002).
• High School of Graduation (HG) File – this replaces the FE file and is necessary for the Remediation Report. Campuses have always sent to OSU the equivalent of the FE. The HG is an addition but will create efficiencies on campus by not reporting the FE (Spring 2001).
• Graduate and Professional Admission (GP) file – this is the HEI version of the UIS report. This file has a data entry capability and need not only be submitted by file (Autumn 2000).
• Preliminary Headcount (PH) file – this was being collected all along by Regents but is now collected through HEI. This file has a data entry capability (Autumn 2000).

IPEDS Reports

• Created the Graduation Rate Survey from the Cohort Tracking (CT) File (Spring 2001).
• Created the Fall Enrollment Survey from several files (Spring 2001).
• Created programs to reproduce the IPEDS Completions Survey from data submitted in the Degree/Certificate Earned (DC) File (Autumn 2000).

Files Eliminated

• Tech Prep (TP) by way of the Tech Prep Consortium Tracking file (Fall 2001).
• Freshmen Enrollment (FE) file by way of HG (Spring 2001).
• Aggregated Enrollment (AE) file except for audited schools (Autumn 2000).

Changes to Enrollment File Submissions

• Beginning Summer Term 2004 HEI subject codes will be based on CIP 2000. (2002)
• The academic program code from the AP File was included in the DC file submission beginning with the Fall 2003 submission. (Announced 2001)
• The TA file deadline was moved to February 28 to allow more time for Autumn data collection (Autumn 2002).
• The DC file was modified, in response to the changes in the IPEDS completion survey, to allow for the reporting of second majors (Summer 2002).
• The ES and EP files were broadened for use by two-year campuses to report information on extended two-year programs (Spring 2001).
• The Cohort Tracking File (CT) was modified to accept the accomplishment of 30 semester hours as an attribute of the student under the performance reporting time and degrees section (Spring 2001).
• IPEDS subject codes for short term certificates that are valued and nationally understood were broadened for inclusion and submission in the DC file (Spring 2001).
• Response to Senate Bill 53: New Residency Status Code in Student Enrollment (SN) and Attempt for Academic Credit Code in Course Enrollment (CN) (Autumn 2000).
• Addition of High School Admission Code (HGH) in Student Entrance (SE) File (Autumn 2000).
• Collect Hours Earned in Student Enrollment (SN) File. This was a recommendation of the Graduate Funding Commission (Autumn 2000).
• Redefinition of Graduate Student Ranks. This was a recommendation of the Graduate Funding Commission (Summer 2000).
• Addition to Special Status in the Field Student Enrollment (SN) File: Senior Citizens (Winter 2000).
• Update Feature for Correcting Records: Removed the need in most cases to delete data in antecedent files (Winter 2000).

Query Enhancements

• OLN Distance Learning Enrollments Query (Spring 2004)
  • This query returns demographic, enrollment and job information for students enrolled in distance learning courses.
• Student Enrollment Query (Spring 2002)
  
  • Credit Hours (added from the Course Enrollment (CN) and Cross Registered (XR) credit hours for that student, year and term)
  • Subject Field (an aggregation of Major Field of Study/Subject Code)
  • Discipline Area (an aggregation of Subject Field)
  • GPA (Cumulative Credit Hours and Quality Points from the SN file will be returned by selecting the option to "Include GPA data in the output" at the bottom of the query)
  • "Single Summary" Option (if multiple attributes of a field are selected but you do not wish to view the results by each attribute, but would rather include them together, select this option)
  • Year and Term of First Enrollment from Revised First Enrollment (RF) File (if an entry in the RF file exists for this student the query will select the Year and Term of First Enrollment from the RF)
• Course Enrollment Query (Spring 2002)
  • Campus Type Added
  • Subject Field (see explanation above)
  • Discipline Area (see explanation above)
  • Subsidy Level Added
  • "Single Summary" Option (see explanation above)
• Degree/Certificate Query (Spring 2002)
  • Duration (the number of years between the term the degree was awarded and the Year and Term of First Enrollment)
  • Year and Term of First Enrollment from Revised First Enrollment (RF) File (see explanation above)
• All Employee Query (Spring 2002)
  • Schools who have not submitted the AM file are listed
• Mobility Tracking Query (Spring 2002)
  • Count reflects unique value (Formerly if a student was concurrently enrolled at two schools for multiple terms, each count of that student's concurrent enrollment was included in the results. Now a unique count per student is returned.)
  • More explanation for each option of the mobility query is given

Facilities Data Area

• Other Source of Funds (OS) – provides a better picture of the amount of monies invested in the rehabilitation of buildings. The data collected by this file will be used to determine a rehabilitation date for buildings for use in the aged space calculation (Autumn 2001).
• Reduced reporting for Course Section Schedule (CS) (Spring 2001) & Other Use of Instructional Rooms (OR) (Fall 2000) from every year to every other year.
• Clarified how to report overlapping hours in the CS (Fall 2000).
• Added an activity code to the OR for medical school activity (Winter 2000).

Faculty Data Area

• Reduce reporting for salaries for faculty files by only asking for salaries for full-time employees (previously part-time employee salaries were also required) (Winter 2000).

Financial Data Area

• Fall Survey of Student Charges automated and submitted via Web form (Summer 2004). 
• Announcement that no changes to financial files will be made to reflect GASB 34/35 (Summer 2004)
• Elimination of Investment by Type (IT), Changes in Auxiliary Funds (AU), and Changes in Hospital Funds (HP) file beginning with FY 2004 reporting (Summer 2004)
• Two new financial queries- HEI Expenditure Query and HEI Revenue Query.
  • The Expenditure Query contains expenditure information from the Changes in Current Funds (CF), Education and General Funds Expenditure (EE), Instruction and General Expenditures by Object (IO), Campus Expenditure (CX), College Expenditure (CP), Changes in Auxiliary Funds (AU), Changes in Hospital Funds (HP), Funding Unit Expenditure (FX), and Faculty and Instructional Non-faculty Funding (FF) files.
  • The Revenue Query contains revenue information from the Changes in Current Funds (CF), Sources of Education and General Revenues (SR), Changes in Auxiliary Funds (AU), and Changes in Hospital Funds (HP) Files (Spring 2002).
• Research Incentive (RE) – replaced the old Research Incentive reporting process. Campuses who are eligible for Research Incentive funds had been reporting data to Regents for years using excel spreadsheets (Summer 2001).
• Financial files reorganization was a major change that required campuses to change around their structures for financial files. Provided data entry capabilities (Summer 2000).

Financial Aid Data Area

• Student Choice Certification (SH) and Adjustment (SA) files - (Spring 2004)
• War Orphans Certification (WO) and Adjustment (WA) files - (Autumn 2003)
• Ohio Instructional Grant (OIG) Certification (IG) and Adjustment (IA) files - submitted for each term for each student from your institution who is eligible to receive OIG funds (Spring 2003)
• Independent, Proprietary, and Non-Ohio Colleges and Universities Student Entrance File (PE) – submitted for each student who entered an independent, proprietary or non-Ohio college or university and received state financial aid during the past fiscal year. The Board of Regents supplies a list of student identifiers to each institution for all students reported to have received state assistance including, but not limited to, Ohio Instructional Grants, Part-Time Student Instructional Grants, Student Choice Grants, Workforce Development and Ohio Proficiency Awards (Spring 2002).
• Independent, Proprietary, and Non-Ohio Colleges and Universities Degree/Certificate Earned (PD) – submitted for each degree or certificate recipient from your institution that received some form of state assistance (Spring 2002).
• Ohio Academic Scholarship Program Online Application – began with the 2002 scholarship competition. This web-based application process replaces the paper Ohio Academic Scholarship application that has been in use since the beginning of the scholarship program. In addition to eliminating a paper form, which is an objective of the Board of Regents and the State of Ohio, the improved on-line application will provide additional benefits including:
  • Automated verification of ACT scores by the Board of Regents (paper score reports will no longer be required)
  • On-line computation of the applicant’s cumulative GPA (the potential for computational errors is eliminated)
  • On-line calculation of scholarship index for an unlimited number of students (counselors will submit the top five applications the Board of Regents via the on-line system)
  • Automatic ranking of scholarship applications submitted by your high school
  • Easy access to application data
  • Faster selection of scholarship recipients