| Registrations |
Within the PBCS system and within the Census Reporting Pack and Management Pack, registrations always relate to Registrations to Majors. Module Registrations and Student Numbers are not part of the dataset. In many cases a Major Registration corresponds to a Student Registration but in the case of Joint Majors, Minors etc. this is not the case. |
| Major Registrations |
This term is used to describe ‘First Time Registrations’. For Fee Income planning purposes, this is the key category and this is the data that is used to drive planned Fee Income. For planning purposes, additional Majors have been added to represent New Majors for each School at UG and GT levels. A Registration is loaded for each of these in order to enable planning and therefore the Feb and Base Plan registrations include 2 additional registrations per school. |
| Repeat Registrations |
Repeat Registrations are included on PBCS but are not used to drive Fee Income planning. |
| Total Registrations |
This comprises of Major Registrations plus Repeat Registrations. Total Registrations for a school are the same as those reported in ‘(opens in a new window)Registrations to Majors – School Summary’ in the Official Registration Statistics reports on InfoHub. |
| Registration Statuses |
Any students with an enrolment status matching R* or E* are included within Registrations. Students with an enrolment status of RR or EO are included in the 'repeat' category, all other students are in the first-time registrations (Major Registrations) category. |
Glossary - Student and Fee Planning
| My Majors |
Registrations against a school indicate that the School owns the Major and therefore the Major will be categorised under 'My Majors'. These Majors are individually listed in the My Majors grouping in detailed reports. |
| Shared Majors |
Majors that are owned by another school but for which planned changes do impact on my school. For example if 'Omnibus Science' is owned by the College Office and designated as a Shared Major for My School, then additional registrations planned for it will affect the FTEs and Fee Income of My School. These Majors are individually listed in the Shared Majors grouping in detailed reports. |
| Other Majors |
Majors that are not My Majors or Shared Majors for My School. Even if the owner of the majors change the planned registrations, it will not affect the plan of My School. The reason for this is that there are tyically a very large number of Other Majors for each school, and the impact of changes in them is not very significant for My School. These Majors are not individually listed in detailed reports. A total for all of the Other Majors is shown instead. |
| My FTEs |
Student FTEs that are associated with Fee Income attribution in the Census and Fee Income Planning. For the vast majority of Majors and Schools, this is simply what have traditionally been referred to as ‘FTEs’. When planning on PBCS, changing the number of registrations is expected to change My FTEs (using various Factors to do so). |
| Other FTEs |
In a small number of cases, typically for programmes in Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Singapore, and also Resit FTEs, the FTEs are not directly used in attributing Fee Income. Therefore these are reported separately. The FTEs are included in overall totals, but are not part of the driver-based planning whereby changes to registrations lead to changes in FTEs. |
| Total FTE / All FTEs |
The total of Student FTEs + Other FTEs. |
The vast majority of the c. 4,000 majors set up on PBCS are real majors, with the code and description matching those set up on Banner.
In addition, a relatively small number of artificial majors are set up in order to help plan efficiently and these are referred to as Planning Majors.
These typically cover the following cases:
- In conjunction with a Group, planning changes against one major to represent changes across a set of majors;
- A generic major to represent future major(s) for which the code is not yet known. These might be a year or two away from introduction;
- A specific major to be introduced for which the code is not yet known. [Consideration should be given as to whether it is appropriate to plan at such a detailed level].
Naming Conventions for Planning Majors
Using a coding scheme for naming Planning Majors makes it easier to work with and to administer the Planning Majors.
Undergraduate level:
- where there are multiple majors in a CAO group (ie for a DN code), a planning major is set up based on the DN code - PL600 is used for DN600. Typically PL600 would then be used as a Key Major (ie changes would be planned against it, not against each major);
- Planning Majors are not set up in any other way at UG level - the CAO coding only is used.
GT level
Planning Majors are organised around schools and incorporate the school code into the name. A sample name is PM008GT01 and the components are:
- PM - Planning Major;
- 008 - the school code except for the leading 'S';
- GT - the level;
- 01 - a 2-digit sequential number. The next number is used by the FM if requesting a new Planning Major to be set up.
At GT level, the standard practice is to create a small number of Planning Majors and associated Groups. Planning on a major-by-major level is the exception and if that approach is followed, Planning Majors are not created.
OC level
- Generally it is not intended to use Planning Majors at OC level. Planning will either be carried out on a detailed major-by-major basis, or by nominating real majors as Key Majors.
GR level
- The approach to Planning Majors at GR level is to be discussed and agreed on.
| Dean’s Plan |
Deans / Associate Deans prepare intake plans for undergraduate offerings incorporating different access routes – CAO, HEAR, DARE etc. The plans are expressed in terms of CAO codes rather than our internal programme and major codes. The plans are prepared using a spreadsheet template circulated by the Director of Admissions and Enrolment Planning. Deans consult with College Principals and Finance Managers in preparing the plan and provide the agreed plan directly to the Director Of Admissions and Enrolment Planning, copying Finance Managers. Intake plans at Major level are prepared on PBCS to ensure consistency between the Deans’ Plans and the School Plans. The Intake for a group of majors as planned on PBCS for Stage 1 of a group is compared against the Dean’s Plan to ensure that they are consistent. If they are not consistent, either the Deans Plan or the School Plan should be amended. In validating Intake against Deans Plans, weightings need to be applied to PBCS Intake to allow for Joint Registrations etc. so that they can be validly compared against the Deans Plan. |
| Shared Majors Plan |
Schools plan registrations for their own majors. In general, our planning process ignores changes planned for other schools' majors on the basis that in aggregate these changes will not have a big impact on My School. However, a particular major owned by another school may have a big impact on My School (eg an omnibus major associated with the College Office). PBCS uses the concept of a Shared Major to identify majors owned by other schools for which planned changes should impact my school. The Shared Majors Plan for a school lists the Majors to be treated as Shared Majors. A Shared Major Plan may be created for each school, or may be used in common for a number of schools. |
| Grouped Majors |
Majors may be grouped on PBCS to enable reporting. Processing of the majors is not affected in any way, but certain reports/forms can be produced for the Group rather than for all majors. One main usage of groups is to associate majors with CAO codes so that we can report on the number of planned registrations assciated with a particular CAO code. Another is to group a set of majors together with a Planning Major. Typically in this case changes are planned against the Planning Major only, and the other majors are left as per the base year. Reporting on the Group provides a full picture of the base plus changes. |
Intake refers to students entering Stage 1 / Year 1; Enrolment represents the number of registrations in total i.e. entering plus continuing. Intake is also referred to as Student Intake.
| Intake |
Intake refers to numbers entering as at November of each of the Planning Years. Intake is relevant for Stage 1 / Year 1. Intake is measured on PBCS in terms of Major Registrations and for most levels this is equivalent to student headcount. For undergraduate planning, the Dean's Plan (see below) is the official Intake Plan. The PBCS Intake numbers include registrations to Joint Majors and to Minors. Finance Managers reconcile these with the Dean's Plan to ensure consistency. |
| For levels other than Undergraduate, the Intake Plan as prepared on PBCS is the official Intake Plan. The NonEU aspect of this is used to appraise UCD International of school plans. |
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| Intake Method |
Intake my be calculated from Major Registrations, or may be directly entered by the FM. |
| Intake Factor |
Where the Intake is calculated, the Intake Factor is the number by which planned Major Registrations are multiplied by to calculate Intake. It represents the expected relationship between February registrations, and the number of registrations as at the previous November. An Intake Factor of >100% will produce Intake numbers higher than the Major Registrations. Normally this would represent a small dropoff in Major Registrations between the November census and the February census. |
| Enrolment |
Enrolment on PBCS represents the number of registrations in total i.e. entering plus continuing. Enrolment is not seen as a key output of Student and Fee Planning - FTEs are generally seen as more significant as the 'equivalent' means that they can be totalled without any ambiguities - registrations can be for Single or Joint Majors or Minors and therefore there are issues when they are totalled. |
| Progression |
Students moving from one stage to the next are described on PBCS as progressing. It is possible to have PBCS calculate the registrations in a stage based on the number of registrations in the preceding stage, using a Progression Factor. If there are 100 Major Registrations in Stage 1 and 90 in Stage 2, then the Progression Factor is 90%. |
Fee Income accounts used on PBCS are not the same as those used on eFinancials.
| Gross Fee Inc (Registrations) |
Gross Fee Income planned on the basis of Registrations. The financial amounts are calculated based on the number of registrations, the average fee rate and the % atttibuted to My School. As an exception, the Adjustments form canbe used to enter financial amounts directly to this account. |
| Resit Fee Income |
Resit Fee Income is entered directly as financial amounts. |
| NRG Fee Income |
Non-Registration Generated Fee Income is entered as a financial amount. |
| All Gross Fee Income |
The sum of the above items. |
Information in UCD's censuses has traditionally been presented by Stage.
For planning purposes, Stage is not a very useful concept for levels other than undergraduate as Heads tend to think of student cohorts by Year. Therefore an amended dataset is produced which classifies students for levels other than undergraduate by Year.
Small rounding differences can occur between information attributed by Stage and by Year and so small differences may occur between fee income attributed to a school in InfoHub reports compared with reports on PBCS.
Rather than starting from scratch ie from zero FTEs and Fee Income, we plan Student FTEs and Fee Income by incorporating changes from the current Student FTEs and Fee Income. The current position is therefore recreated on PBCS as a Base Five Year Plan.
Normally when we start our planning cycle, the February 1st census provides the most recent dataset. That data is used to 'seed' a Five Year Plan which represents the current position. This Base Five Year Plan acts as the starting point for Student and Fee Income planning.
Points to note are:
- The Base Five Year Plan does not model progression through each of the five years. Stage 2 registrations in each of the 5 years will match the current Stage 2 registrations, they will not be a result of calculating progression from the preceding Stage 1 registrations.
- The Base Plan is created by copying drivers and assumptions from the current census to each of the Five Years, and then calculating the resultant FTEs and Fee Income. It is possible for assumptions to be missing or invalid and if so the resultant FTEs and Fee Income in the Base Plan will not match the current Census. A validation exercise is carried out by Finance Managers before planning commences to ensure that no material errors or gaps exist in the Base Plan.