Template talk:HESA student population

New statistics for 2014/15

Hi Jolly Janner, the 2014/15 statistics for student population has been released by HESA (see Table 3 of this link: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/pr/3771-statistical-first-release-224). Before you make the update for 2014/15, have you considered using only the data for full-time students rather than for the total number of students (where part-time students are included)?

I have noticed that for the wikipedia pages for other universities outside of the UK, their wikipedia student enrolment figures report only show full-time students. Also in the financial statements, annual reports and prospectuses of UK universities, they usually only report the figure of the number of FT equivalent students in their 'key statistics and facts' sections. EmyRussell (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

I think that if we were to go forward this way, it would perhaps be best to keep the templates as are and create a new {{HESA FT student population}}, so that {{HESA student population}} can still be used. This would involve editing all the articles using it (about 150) to replace the template. As a result, I want to be certain that this is the best way to display the result. I am not familiar with which source of data is most appropriate (total students or just full time). Do you have any online examples that show this? Perhaps any new articles that list the UK's largest universities or a sample of prospectuses. Jolly Ω Janner 04:17, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. I think that would be a good way forward as well. I understand that this would require a lot of work and effort for you to undergo, I will be happy to work with you in doing this should you need any assistance. I've looked at the Times Higher Education Ranking for the profiles of UK universities and they use FTE student numbers as their reference point, unfortunately I have been unable to find any specific news articles for student body sizes. I will go on to look at some prospectuses to find you some specific examples.EmyRussell (talk) 03:11, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

That would be great. The work involved in changing from {{HESA student population}} to {{HESA FT student population}} should be pretty quick and easy with Autowikibrowser (a programme for automating wiki edits), although I expect a few articles using it in prose might need a slight rewording. Jolly Ω Janner 03:24, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I decided to do a little research and found the following universities using FT and PT combined figures: Exeter, Manchester and UCL, . Nottingham give a full breakdown of figures as well as combing FT and PT; Leeds have a similar picture. It looks like Birmingham use full-time figures (they don't match up with the combined totals for 2013/14 at least). Manchester Metropolitan use a figure that I cannot trace to HESA, but is almost definitely using full-time figures based on how large it is. I could carry on, but so far at least, I'm not seeing any convincing evidence to use full-time figures. Jolly Ω Janner 09:32, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

New data for 2017/18

Data for 2017/18 has been available for a while now: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/where-study - I am not sure how to update the template but perhaps someone else can do it? -- HermanTheChairman (talk) 07:44, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

New data from 2021/22

Is there an easier way of updating this list? The HESA dataset now uses UKPRN identifiers rather than INSTID and there are about 300 institutions in the list, far more institutions than when this template was first created. It is unreasonable to manually update this list so I am interested to explore a way in which this can be done better. EmyRussell (talk) 02:20, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a problem. I updated it manually a few years back, and it took ages. I think when HESA were using INSTID it could be done quickly by just copying in the relevant columns from their spreadsheet, but we can't do that now. Changing to UKPRN is probably the answer, which would allow the HESA spreadsheet to be copied in again, but that means changing the template everywhere it's currently used! Robminchin (talk) 03:32, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice. I gave up after I realised the number of further education colleges which were also included and it dawned that I would have to do the same task for undergraduates and postgraduates as well. Is there a way in which we can check how many Wikipedia pages uses this template?

Just recently, Independent schools in the United Kingdom had its name changed to Private schools in the United Kingdom and it seems to be undergoing a manual update process which is taking days. I doubt that this template will be used on as many pages as private schools so I am hoping it will be a task that just takes a couple of hours. The benefit of updating from INSTID to UKPRN is that it would hopefully future proof this same issue and future editors can just import spreadsheet data rather than manually updating this template. It is a shame that the original creator of this template no longer seems to be active. EmyRussell (talk) 21:02, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I've added a tracking category at Category:Articles using template HESA student population. As of now, it shows 126 pages using the template (although there's a chance it hasn't fully propagated yet). Robminchin (talk) 02:29, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

That's great, far fewer than expected. I had removed the INSTID tag from some pages which used the template (due to the template conflicting with information in lead paragraphs) but can always revert back to this template once this template eventually gets updated/replaced. Unfortunately, I do not have the know-how to do so, but I will keep an eye on this page so that if it does gets updated, the pages I edited can revert back to using this template. EmyRussell (talk) 02:55, 28 February 2023 (UTC)