Guidance

VTQ Information Hub: guide to the data submission process

Published 30 November 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.

What data will be collected?

The purpose of the data collection is to fulfil the measures set out by Ofqual on 12 October 2023 to embed and strengthen this year’s arrangements in response to feedback from schools and colleges, awarding organisations, exams officers and education leaders. The measures include the VTQ Information Hub to bring together key dates and deadlines from a wider range of awarding organisations, to support school and college staff working in the administration or delivery of these qualifications.

It should be noted that data for England only should be reported.

When will data be collected?

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

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 webpage 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 by emailing data.services@ofqual.gov.uk, 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 and we will make arrangements for you to 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 statistical publications to fulfil our responsibility as a government department. This data may be used analysed in conjunction with data already available to Ofqual, such as the results issued in these qualifications and already provided by awarding organisations or further contextual data available to Ofqual.

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.

General guidance

• templates can be submitted in any order
• AOQualificationGroup - this refers to the title of qualification group that this event related to as text. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to
• key dates (also referred to as events) should include the title of the key event, milestone or date for qualification group that centres must be aware of to ensure that students using qualifications for progression to higher education or further education are certificated as planned. These dates may include but are not limited to:

• deadlines for entries for external assessments

• deadline for very late entry when entry amendment fees apply

• deadline for entries/requests for moderation for internal assessments

• deadline for very late entry/requests for moderation when entry amendment fees apply

• deadline for internal assessment mark and/or grade submission

• deadline for submission of evidence for verification/ moderation/quality assurance of assessments

• latest date by which moderation must be complete

• latest date by which external moderation must be competed

• qualification claim date, if applicable

• deadline for applications for special consideration for missed external assessments

• date of release of final results to centres for issue date for results to be issued to candidates

• term time checkpoint(s)

• AdditionalDescription - this section allows you to expand on the title and include more detail about the key date, including URL links to further information

• question - Can a qualification be in multiple groups?
  A: No – to ensure centres understand clearly what is required qualifications must only fall into a single group

• question - A subset of qualifications in a group have a different deadline, for example, art and design. Should they still be in the main group or a new one?
  A: To ensure centres can access key information quickly and clearly where dates are different within a group you should create a new group, for example “Qualification Group Name: Art and Design”

Key dates - general guidance

• dates will be set out under qualification types and groupings so where multiple qualification groupings have same date, please include new entry for each
• qualification level data such as individual exam dates is not required in this submission
• data should follow the format set out below:

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
Event	Title of the key event, milestone or date for qualification group that centres must be aware of	1	^.{1,250}$	1 to 250 characters accepted
QualificationType	Type of qualification Must be one of the predefined valid values. For example, “Vocationally related qualification”	2	^( Vocationally related qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$	Accepted values •Vocationally related qualification •Technical Qualification •Performing Arts Graded Qualification •Occupational Qualification •Other Vocational Qualification
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this event related to as text. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to. Where multiple qualifications have same date include new entry for each	3	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted
StartDate	Date that event begins, in the YYYY-MM-DD format	4	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[19]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits) Format accepted yyyy-mm-dd
EndDate	Date that event ends, in the YYYY-MM-DD format	5	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[19]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits) Format accepted yyyy-mm-dd
AdditionalDescription	Additional information (text or webpage) about the event. The description will not be displayed on main info hub page but will be available as part of CSV download and calendar.	6	^.{1,250}$	1 to 250 characters accepted

Qualification groupings - general guidance

• each qualification group must link to each of the qualifications that is included within it
• this data will ensure that there is not possibility to mistake similar qualification names or reformed and legacy qualifications with different dates
• data should follow the format set out below:

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
QualifcationNumber	Qualification Number, for example, 123/1234/1	1	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters accepted
QualificationTitle	Title of qualification	2	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted
QualificationType	Type of qualification Must be one of the predefined valid values. For example, “Vocationally related qualification”	3	^( Vocationally related qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$	Accepted values •Vocationally related qualification •Technical Qualification •Performing Arts Graded Qualification •Occupational Qualification •Other Vocational Qualification
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this event related to as text. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to. Where multiple qualifications have same date include new entry for each	4	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted

Links to information pages - general guidance

• the VTQ information hub page will include a link to a single webpage hosted and maintained by you which contains further information and details regarding key dates and processes for your awarding organisation.  Please include this link or links
• data should follow the format set out below:

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
QualificationType	Type of qualification Must be one of the predefined valid values. For example, “Vocationally related qualification”	2	^(Vocationally related qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$	Accepted values •Vocationally related qualification •Technical Qualification •Performing Arts Graded Qualification •Occupational Qualification •Other Vocational Qualification
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this event related to as text. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to. Where multiple qualifications have same date include new entry for each	3	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted
InformationURL	URL link to your information page about this group	3	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted

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