Data submissions are used to generate funding allocations and to calculate regulatory metrics. These issues are of critical significance for every institution and engagement with the funding and regulatory processes is a significant task for institutions.
Understanding the specifications
In stage 1 of the model we covered how institutions have to translate their internal data to the data specification of the data collection. At this stage institutions have to analyse and understand the algorithms used in the funding and regulatory metrics which are calculated from the submitted data. These algorithms can be complex and extensive and the approach to publication of the algorithms varies between the different funders and regulators.
For each funding and regulatory framework this burden is broadly consistent across institutions.
Analysis and interpretation
To understand what these external metrics actually say about the instiutution then the translation from internal data to external data specification and the metrics algorithms need to be brought together to recreate the journey from the internal data to the metrics. This analysis might involve linking data across multiple years and the use of third-party datasets.
The burden associated with this work is driven by:
- The complexity of the internal data
- The fit between the internal data and the external data specification
- The complexity of the metrics algorithms