Project One: Students' Experience of the Transition from HN to Degree
Project Two: Articulating Student UCAS Project
Project Three: The Impact of Articulating Support Advisers

The main aims of this project are to investigate articulating students’ experience and opinion of:

(i) the preparation for undergraduate study received from their college and HEI before entry to their degree programme; and
(ii) the ongoing activities and support during their first year of degree study.

A key aspect of the project is to make recommendations for the further development of student support for articulating students on the basis of the findings of the student survey.

While the prime focus of the study is articulating students ie those entering year 2 or 3 of a degree programme, it was decided that it would be valuable for the study to also include HN students who have gone into first year for comparison purposes and to investigate the reasons why some HN students do not articulate.

The study will also consider the extent to which students take a break between gaining their HN qualification and entering degree study, the reasons for this and their activities and any additional qualifications undertaken in the time in-between.

The study is based on two internet surveys of students with HN qualifications who entered their degree programme in the most active ELRAH HEIs in 2010-11.

This project was commissioned by the Edinburgh, Lothians, Fife and Borders Regional Articulation Hub (ELRAH). ELRAH is one of five Articulation Hubs in Scotland funded by the Scottish Funding Council to develop articulation routes that enable college students to use Higher National Certificates (HNCs) and Higher National Diplomas (HNDs) to progress into years 2 or 3 of university degree programmes.

The project aims to:
• establish what Scottish colleges and HEIs require from the UCAS database to enable them to monitor articulating students’ applications to degree prpgrammes and their subsequent offers or rejections.

• review and report on the extent to which the UCAS database enables the monitoring and reporting articulating student applications for degree programmes.

• develop a data access and reporting specification for UCAS data that is endorsed by all stakeholder institutions in Scotland

The intention is that the data access and reporting specification will inform discussions with UCAS about how its data might be developed to improve the data available for monitoring and reporting requirements in relation to articulating students.

The objective of this project is to provide an independent assessment of the impact of the Articulation Support Advisers. Each Articulation Support Adviser will be interviewed about their activities, the issues facing articulating students and colleges and HEIs and the impact they have been able to make and their views on the way forward. A range of other staff who have been in relevant posts for some time will be interviewed. Topics will include: what difference have Articulation Support Advisers made; what additional support is now available to students and to staff; how has the work of the Articulation Support Advisers impacted so far on the experience of articulating students and on staff’s ability to support them; what are the key issues for the future.

Cathy Howieson
Linda Croxford
David Raffe