Session year (SessionYear)

A SessionYear is required for each combination of start and end dates a provider offers except where Course.FULLYFLEX = 01 or Qualification.QUALCAT starts with D or L, or Qualification.QUALCAT = C0008, D0004, E0003, H0018, I0012, J0011, L0002 or M0022

The SessionYear indicates the planned course years offered by a provider.

SessionYears are not required to be returned for fully flexible, postgraduate research or credit accumulation courses. Credit accumulation is a process of achieving credits over time in relation to a course or courses of study, or formally-recognised experiential learning. Each higher education awarding body determines what credit it will accept for purposes of accumulation or transfer in relation to its individual courses.

Any courses where Qualification.QUALCAT=C0008, D0004, E0003, H0018, I0012, J0011, L0002 or M0022 would not be required to return SessionYears and would instead be returned with year long StudentCoursesSessions. If the student then moves on to study for a qualification and has a different aim, at that point they should be attached to SessionYears.

SessionYears must be a year in length, with the exception of SessionYears representing courses that are shorter than one year in their entirety, where the provider can choose to reflect the actual length of the course. Validation will ensure that the length of a SessionYear does not exceed one year and four days. 

Different SessionYears do not have to be returned to reflect different courses, types of study or modes of study. A new SessionYear is only required to record different dates.

If a provider offers a number of courses that start within a short space of time, different SessionYears are not required however the SessionYear.SYSTARTDATE must be within 14 days from the actual planned start date of the course.

For example:

• A provider has a number of 3-year undergraduate courses that start on the 21st September 2020. A SessionYear is required to be returned with the start date 2020-09-21 and end date 2021-09-20. A subsequent SessionYear would be needed for each year that the course runs. Each SessionYear could be associated with students studying any courses, modes, years of programmes or type of activity (e.g. foundation years, placements) provided the dates reflect their planned start dates.
• A provider runs a 3-month course over the summer. One SessionYear is required to be returned for each time this course runs, each SessionYear would be 3 months long.
• A provider runs an 18-month course starting on the 21st September 2020. As the Course is more than a year in length, the SessionYears must be a yearlong. A yearlong SessionYear would be returned starting on 21st September for each year that the course runs. This means that first and second year students can be associated with the same SessionYear provided the SessionYear start date records the planned start date of their year of study.
• A provider runs a course that has entry points in September, January and April. A SessionYear is required for each entry point so 3 SessionYears would be returned for each year the course runs, starting in September, January and April.