Guidance

Exams timetable: guide to the data submission process

Updated 30 June 2023

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide exams delivery data for regulated qualifications.

When will data be collected?

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.

What data will be collected?

Exams timetable data will be collected for GCSE, AS, A level and Project level 3.

Updates to formats and guidance

This guidance document will be updated regularly. Any changes to procedure will be incorporated into the guidance document.

How to submit your data

Your data should be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the ‘Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data’ document on our web page to help you submit your files to us. If you need to ask us about a data submission please do contact the Data Services team, please do not send your data files via email to Data Services or to any other Ofqual email address, or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules. These are detailed in the sections below. If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into our systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

Amendments to data

Ofqual staff will not alter data once it has been submitted. If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify us by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

How your data will be used

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and, where required, to produce Official Statistics to fulfil our responsibility as a government department.

General completion guidelines

1. Column headers must be an exact match
2. Units that can be used against both AS and A level specifications should have data repeated on a separate row, one for each qualification level
3. Assessment end date is relevant for units that have an assessment window. Where this does not apply, the start date should be re-entered in the end date field

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
ExamSeries	Exam series data relates to, for example June 2019.	1	^(June)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$	Full month name of exam series and year.
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted regardless of when it was actually uploaded. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd.	2	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]\|1[012])[-](0[1-9] [12][0-9]\|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).
AwardingOrganisation	Name of the awarding organisation.	3	^.{1,100}$	1 to 100 characters accepted.
QAN	Qualification Accreditation Number, for example 123/1234/1	4	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters accepted.
QualificationLevel	Level of qualification e.g. GCSE	5	^(GCSE\|AS\|A level\|Project L3)$	One of the following list: GCSE, AS, A level, Project L3.
UnitOrComponentCode	Unit or component code as designated in the specification.	6	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters accepted
UnitOrComponentTitle	Unit or component title.	7	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted
SpecificationCode	Specification code.	8	^.{1,7}$	1 to 7 characters accepted.
SpecificationTitle	Specification title also known as subject title.	9	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted.
AssessmentStartDate	Date of exam or start date of assessment window. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd	10	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]\|1[012])[-](0[1-9] [12][0-9]\|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).
AssessmentEndDate	Date of exam or end of assessment window. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd.	11	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]\|1[012])[-](0[1-9] [12][0-9]\|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).
Session	To indicate if the exam is taken in the morning or afternoon session	12	^(AM\|PM)$	Accepted values: AM or PM.
Tier	To indicate tier if applicable.	13	^(F\|H\|F&H\|-2)$	One of the following list: F, H, F&H, -2.
ResitOnly	To indicate if resit only.	14	^(Y\|N)$	One of the following list: Y, N.

Contacts

For all queries relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance. please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email Data.Services@ofqual.gov.uk