Document Actions
Heidi equality
Working with the Higher Education Statistics Agency to develop an equality function within their heidi data management tool
For: Equality and diversity practitioners; equality and diversity committees; human resources departments; academics researching issues concerning equality within higher education; all involved in strategic planning connected with equality
When: August 2008 – ongoing
ECU has been working with the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) to contribute an equality function to the higher education information database for institutions (heidi) data management tool, heidi equality.
heidi equality allows users to easily access relevant equality data covering staff and students in a useful and targeted format. This can help practitioners identify and measure equality and diversity at their institution, and benchmark this against other institutions in the sector.
What is available in heidi equality?
heidi equality includes student, staff and destination data from 2006/07 onwards. Data can be used by practitioners to create reports highlighting the disability, ethnicity, nationality, gender and age breakdown of staff and students within their institution and compare this to other institutions in the sector.
A specification of this data can be found within the HESA data summary guide.
heidi equality includes a number of pre-loaded equality reports designed by ECU to assist practitioners to provide evidence specific to their institution.
Subscribed users can also access a set of heidi equality reports that are specifically designed to complement ECU's annual statistical reports.
Is my institution subscribed to heidi equality?
To find out if your institution is subscribed to heidi equality, email heidi@hesa.ac.uk to ask for the names of your local administrators. Local administrators can then provide login information to access heidi.
If your institution does not currently subscribe to heidi, you can take part in a free four-week trial of the system. Email heidi@hesa.ac.uk to request a free trial account.
If your institution is considering subscribing to heidi, further details are available from the subscriptions page. For your exact subscription rate please email heidi@hesa.ac.uk .
How do I access heidi equality?
heidi equality is now available on the heidi website.
When logged on to heidi, student, staff and destination data can be found within the heidi data explorer under the ‘Equality data’ folder for years 2006/7 onwards.
Further training materials and events
Introducing heidi equality
ECU has produced a briefing highlighting how heidi equality can be used by equality and diversity practitioners and other staff to provide an evidence base for their equality work. The briefing is available to download:
The briefing answers a series of key questions about using heidi equality:
- What is available in heidi equality?
- How can it be used to provide an evidence base for equality?
- Examples of reports
- What training is available?
- Frequently asked questions
Training events
ECU and HESA also run joint training sessions for existing and potential users.
The training seminar gives an overview of the data available within the heidi system. It also gives a chance to practice using heidi to generate reports and graphs and analyse and compare the equality performance of individual higher education institutions. The seminars are designed to be as interactive as possible, so that, by the end, you are ready to start working with heidi when you get back to your own institutions.
The seminar is aimed at equality and diversity practitioners in the sector, and others who use equality data – for example, HR practitioners or internal data analysts.
ECU and HESA will run further events when there is sufficient demand. To register interest, please email HESA’s Institutional Liaison Team directly on liaison@hesa.ac.uk and ask to register interest in any forthcoming heidi Equality training sessions (please note that HESA are running generic heidi training too, but it is the heidi Equality training that has been tailored for practitioners in the sector).
On-line training videos
To further help practitioners use heidi, HESA have produced on-line training videos:
There is also an online heidi help screen within the heidi system.
Contacting your local administrator
If you have any further technical queries you should look to speak to your local administrator. HESA can advise who your local administrator is if you contact them on heidi@hesa.ac.uk . In many cases, it might also be worthwhile for you to meet with the team that manages HESA data within your institution, as they are likely to have experience of using heidi already.
Related pages
Primary contact
Stephanie Neave
Research and Data Officer
Telephone: 020 7438 1020
Email: stephanie.neave@ecu.ac.uk