LRS Organisation Portal Releases
Following a successful release this past weekend (28/29 April), we’re already building release 8 in test. It never stops for the LRS team…Whereas release 7 made substantial changes to over 100 screens, the next release will be smaller but smarter, with the data matching algorithms updated to improve search results. Release 8 will be deployed in June 2012.

Future releases of the LRS Organisation Portal
We continue to plan further releases for the 2012/13 financial year, which will include releases 8, 9 and possibly version 10.

How to guides
We’re producing presentations for using the LRS Organisation Portal using Adobe Captivate. A couple of examples are:

• Awarding Organisations: release 7 screen changes
• Learner Registration Bodies: release 7 screen changes

Awarding Organisation trial update
The Awarding Organisation (AO) trial (the loading of qualification data into the Personal Learning Record (PLR) by AOs) closed at the end of March 2012. Management consultants, KPMG independently evaluated the trial and are now preparing a report. The evaluation report’s key findings will be published in June 2012.

Unique Learner Number (ULN) update
We’re continuing to promote the use of the ULN in schools in England and Wales.

Kind regards,
Cheryl

We understand that a link to a personal learner record (PLR) survey sent out this afternoon is not working on some emails. The link is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/F9FNGNY

NB: This survey is for learner registration bodies currently using the PLR service only

Verification; is she who she says she is, is he who he says he is – has always been important, but now it is even more necessary to prove one’s identity. Passports, especially to the States now include fingerprints, retina scans or both; mobile phones not only hold important personal data, can identify your locality to within a metre or two, but now, using ‘mobile financial services’ you can pay your college fees. So where does the Learner Records Service (LRS) fit into all of this?

When Managing Information Across Partners (MIAP) was originally designed verification of the learner was an important part of its structure. It was important that the learner registration body (LRB), registering the learner onto MIAP, identified the learner. The initial documentation recommended either driving licence or passport but this was soon found to be somewhat impractical. The business rules that MIAP was built on however do give emphasis to the verification of the learner. It was envisaged that the awarding organisations would use the data in MIAP to verify the learners prior to external examinations so they were sure that the person taking the examination was indeed the learner and not her cousin or his uncle!

These business rules have recently resurfaced; we are currently trying to raise the data quality and tidy up some of the ‘older’ data.

Including a Unique Learner Number (ULN) in a batch file can be used to update data such as postcodes without the need to edit each record individually. Running a batch file containing the ULNs gives rise to the RC002 exception code showing that a ULN has been matched and the record updated; however, if the verification field is ‘not seen’, in the batch file, then only the non-mandatory information is updated.

This means that in the management information system (MIS) of the LRB the verification flag is set as zero, either intentionally, i.e. the LRB does not verify its learners, or the MIS produces a default setting of zero, then mandatory data such as postcodes will not be updated.

Some LRBs intentionally do not verify their learners; it slows down enrolment, it creates a barrier to learning and so on. In these days of fast living these are factors to consider, but if a learner is not verified then not only will the LRS not be updated but the data on the MIS will not match, this means that when an awarding body verifies the learners it will create exceptions which will be returned to the LRB. Unless verification takes place then each exception will need to be resolved individually to satisfy the awarding organisation, taking rather a lot of resource. As we move on the LRS could potentially become the main source of learners’ data, not only for the awarding organisations but also for the ILR returns, other funding sources and educational organisations such as UCAS; can an LRB really afford not to verify its learners?

Until next time
Malcolm Edmonds

Just to remind you that there will be a planned outage of the LRS portal for routine maintenance over the weekend of 24th – 25th March 2012.

Members of the Learning Records Service team were in Northern Ireland last week, delivering a presentation on the latest LRS developments to the ‘Northern Ireland LRS Project Board’. 

The ULN is firmly embedded in the further education sector in Northern Ireland, and the LRS is continuing to support the adoption of the ULN throughout the education sector in the province and across the UK.

More great news for the Unique Learner Number (ULN)!

The Information Standards Board for education, skills and children’s services (ISB) has endorsed the use of ULNs across schools for post 14 learners. 

In a statement on 17 February, to suppliers of school management information (MI) systems participating in the Awarding Organisation to Centre Project (A2C), Dorian Bradley cited recent discussions with the Department for Education (DfE), Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Learning Records Service (LRS) and advice from the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC), saying: 

‘All parties are agreed on the general principle that there should ideally be only one unique identifier used throughout the system.  My own view, as the independent chairman of the ISB, is that logically this should be the Unique Learner Number. ‘

He went on to say:

‘The board is therefore recommending that all MI suppliers make provision for direct links between school MI systems and the Learning Records Service’ 

The LRS is committed to working with suppliers to actively embed the ULN in MI systems throughout education, skills and children’s services, and we’re running a workshop with systems developers in London next month to explore this area further and decide how best to move forward together.

Read the full statement

Kind regards
Alison

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has considerable influence in higher education circles. So the fact they have now endorsed the Personal Learning Record (PLR) as an authoratitive record of student achievement for higher education institutions (HEIs) is good news indeed.

The exclusion of ‘AAB+ equivalent students’ from student number control limits for 2012-13 means it is more important than ever for English universities and other HEIs to verify these students. The PLR, says HEFCE, provides a valuable additional tool for this process

The individual PLR includes qualification results and grades at GCSE, A/S and A levels, but also covers equivalent qualifications including BTEC, so can also be used to verify the whole spectrum of learner achievement, as universities and other HEIs already registered with the Learning Record Service (LRS) have already found.

The further education community has known all this for some time. HEIs signing up now as learner registration bodies (LRBs) with the LRS will benefit from the experiences of the FE community.

This potential  ‘across the board’ application of the PLR to HEI student number control calculations is bound to further raise the profile of the Unique Learner Number with schools and awarding organisations, which in turn can only benefit both the FE and HE sectors.

We at the LRS are pretty pleased, too.

Fact sheet on using the PLR for HEIs

Kind regards
Alison

Spring – season of re-birth, regeneration, mad March hares and further education (FE) conferences.

For the Learning Records Service (LRS), this March is set to be a month of workshops.

On 13 March 2012 in central London we have a date at the Lsect College Spring Data Conference.  This year we will be previewing the major upgrade coming to the LRS’s Organisation Portal at the end of April.

Later in March, we are getting together with management information systems (MIS) developers, from both user organisations and suppliers, looking at how we can best support one another embedding unique learner numbers (ULNs) into systems.

This event is invite-only, but we’re more than happy to hear from any MIS developer for the FE sector who didn’t get an invitation but would like one. Just drop us an email or leave a comment on the blog.

Then there’s The Big One: the FE Data Conference in Coventry on 28^th March.

This intensive one-day conference, bringing together the work of the information authority, the Young Peoples Learning Agency (YPLA) the Skills Funding Agency, the Data Service and of course the LRS, will be the first major national event of its kind in more than 2 years. 

With 5 workshops to choose from, and what’s bound to prove a lively Q&A panel session including the funding agencies, the FE Data Conference is a definite ‘must’ for anyone involved with management information in the FE and Skills sector. 

So one way and another, we at the LRS hope to work out with you at some point during March this year.  Let us know on the blog what you’re planning to attend, why, and what you’re hoping to get from the experience.  If we can, we’ll do our best to oblige.

Kind regards
Alison

We constantly monitor the security of the LRS Organisation Portal, and are aware that a certain amount of ‘Pass the Password’ is going on amongst users.  It’s become apparent that a number of users in some organisations have been sharing a single username and password to access the portal.

We take the security of the Portal extremely seriously. Passing the password directly contravenes the conditions of use of the service. You as an individual user are responsible for complying with the security conditions your organisation has signed up to. Sharing access could have serious implications for you personally, and for your organisation.

Your Super User has been issued with a password and username, and it is their responsibility to protect these details. If you’re a user, your Super User will have issued you with individual access details and can re-set them for you, but it’s you who’s accountable for how they’re used, and by whom.

So if your organisation, or anyone in it, has been playing ‘Pass the Password’ – please ensure that from now on every user of the LRS Organisation Portal has their own separate password and user identity. 

If you’re not sure how your Super User can set up additional users in your organisation, please check Section 1 of the LRS User Guide or call the LRS Customer Helpdesk on 0845 602 2589.

Kind regards
Alison

The Welsh Government Department for Education and Skills (DfES) made a landmark decision this month, when the Minister for Education and Skills, Leighton Andrews, approved the full implementation of the Unique Learner Number (ULN) and Personal Learning Record (PLR) for learners aged 14 and over in Wales. He also agreed feasibility work for the inclusion of Welsh qualifications data in the PLR.

In fact, over 400,000 learners in Wales already have ULNs, largely as a result of the roll-out of the service to the further education (FE) sector in Wales.  Now learners from schools in Wales will approach FE already armed with a permanent online record of their verified achievements and qualifications.

In England, the FE sector is now beginning to see the full benefits of the introduction of ULNs in English schools back in 2007. These ULNs allow FE providers to, for example, confirm that course entry requirements have been met, or to check details of completed units contributing toward skills qualifications. As the PLR continues to build throughout a learner’s lifetime, the benefits to training providers, awarding organisations, advisers and employers, as well as to learners themselves, will continue to accrue.

The savings and efficiencies gained by accessing shared information about individual learning and qualifications from a single secure online source are well recognised. Now, these benefits will become increasingly available to FE learning providers and awarding organisations working with learners from schools in Wales.

For more information, visit the LRS website.

Kind regards
Alison