The heart of the HEAT Service is a secure online system that can be used to record participant details and their involvement in widening participation (WP) activities. This data capture underpins the monitoring, tracking, evaluation and evidence of WP activities carried out by our member organisations.
Database
The system is a shared, central, online repository and reporting tool that has been developed collaboratively with members to provide a web-based data-capture facilty that tracks student engagement in outreach activities delivered by each member organisation. The system helps users to plan and monitor WP events as well as capture individual information for the creation of student participation datasets. It also allows its members to target individuals and/or institutions, monitor outreach programmes, capture cohort information and produce evaluative questionnaires. By monitoring the complete student life-cycle (often referred to as longitudinal tracking) it provides participating organisations with an unsurpassed ability to evaluate and evidence their own WP activities as well as accessing aggregate data generated from over 100 Higher Education Institutions, Uni Connect consortia and charities.
In addition to the key functions of storing and linking a vast number of fields relating to Students, Institutions and Activities, the HEAT system also integrates many online productivity tools and various value-added functions.
At its core, the Database focuses on 3 types of records:
- Institutions – Schools, Colleges, Community Groups, Virtual Schools and Universities
- Activities – Taster DAys, Masterclasses, Mentoring, Assemblies and Residentials
- Students – First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, Postcode and education history
For each member organisation, there is no cap imposed on the number of users that can be registered to access the database, nor how many users can be logged in simultaneously.