There is no doubt that the most talked about topic for RTOs for the last 6 months has been the Unique Student Identification (USI); what is it? why is it required? how do you get it?
January has finally arrived, and that means that every student undertaking nationally recognised training in Australia is now required to have a Unique Student Identification. During this time, we have had many of our clients call in about the best way to acquire a USI or what to tell their students, so we thought we would provide a general USI overview, to help ensure that in terms of USI, RTOs can hit the ground running.
Firstly what is a USI? A USI stands for a Unique Student Identifier and is essentially a reference number (made up of numbers and letters), which represents students across accredited VET training in Australia. While the responsibility of USI reporting lies with the training organisation, the USI itself is unique to and belongs to the student – a student will use their same USI across different training courses and organisations and keeps their USI for life.
The USI initiative has been created to benefit students, training organisations, employers and governments.
Students will benefit from this, by being able to access all of their VET achievements in a single authenticated transcript, online and at no cost.
Meanwhile training organisations and employers will benefit from this by being better able to assess a student’s pre-requisite and credit-transfer positions from a single, easy-to-access transcript. This transcript will also provide a more streamlined way to record enrolment details.
Furthermore, governments will benefit from this by having a more accurate picture of the VET system as a whole, including how many students are in the system, for how long, and the pathways students are taking within the system. This information will provide for more informed policy reform.
In terms of acquiring a USI, there are two methods recommended: to request that your students create their own USI or to create the USI on behalf of your students. Both options have their own set of benefits, so it is ultimately up to each RTO to analyse these and decide what would ultimately be best for their organisation.
Firstly, if you have requested that your students create their own USI and they have supplied you with them, you can verify that their USI is correct using the USI Registry System. You can do this one-by-one through the USI Website, or through batches of up to 500 through USI-integrated software (through USI Web Services). The big benefit of allowing students to create their USI, is that it saves time, effort and money on the part of the RTO, as students can do a significant amount of the administration work themselves. Furthermore, because acquiring a USI involves matching data to the forms of student’s identification, many students may find it more convenient to match this information themselves. However, it must be remembered that a student will be unable to receive their statement of attainment or qualification without a verified USI number. Consequently by allowing students to create their own USI, the RTO must ensure that each student has created a number and verified it (as stated above) in order to comply with the new VET data collection and reporting requirements.
Alternately RTOs can take further control of the situation and create the USI on behalf of their students. This may be a beneficial strategy to RTOs which have students who for particular reasons do not have access to relevant details, or have a student profile that requires more assistance.
If using this method, you will need to supply the full name and date of birth of each student you are creating a USI on behalf of. To create the USI you will need to establish access to the USI Registry System, which you can either do through the USI Website (creating one USI at a time) or by connecting your student management system to the USI Web Services. After you have created USIs on behalf of your students you will need to securely delete any data you have collected from them in order to do this.
The benefits of using this strategy is that despite taking more registration work, the RTO can ensure that all student USIs have been created, rather than relying on the student. Being able to create USIs on behalf of students, may also be a greater incentive for potential students in search of a training organisation, as they may not want to, or are in the position to collect this information themselves.
As said previously, the choice on which strategy to use for acquiring USI numbers is completely up to each individual RTO. For further information on this, or other USI related information, as well as useful reports about the VET-sector, visit the official USI website: http:/www.usi.gov.au.