Where does HOP get our course data from?

HOP gets your course data from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA). This enables your courses to be displayed without asking you to input data into another system. This means users of HOP can find lots of different learning opportunities from colleges, training providers and local education authorities that are contracted with the ESFA.

You can see the raw data used on data.gov.uk. The ESFA data is usually refreshed once a month, so updates can take up to 6 weeks to be reflected in the site.

What can we do to make sure our course data in HOP is accurate?

To make sure your course data is accurate, please send accurate course data to the ESFA via the Publish to the course directory service. If you need help with uploading course data, this video includes a demo or you can contact the Course Directory Support team on 0844 811 5073 or email [email protected] (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm)

Sometimes the data provided to the ESFA contains formatting that ESFA does not support and so is converted to strange characters. Most of these characters are purged in order to display the data in the site, however if any remain you may wish to review the format of the data supplied to the ESFA.

Why is my course not appearing in HOP?

If your course is not being returned by the search in HOP and you believe you have supplied the course data to the ESFA, please check the following:

The start date of the course. The course will not appear in the ESFA data if the start date is before the current month. Courses with flexible start dates will appear.

The postcode of the venue (or location) of the course. If the postcode is not in the region of the portal, the course will not appear. If your course is an online course and you wish it to appear in the portal, please ensure you also include a venue.

When the course was added / updated. The ESFA data is usually refreshed once a month, if the course was added or updated in the last 6 weeks it may not be appearing correctly yet.

The provider name as known to the ESFA. It may be that your course is only being returned under the official name of your provider (the one associated with your UKPRN).

You can review the raw data used on data.gov.uk.

Some providers have noted the following additional reasons for fewer courses being returned than expected:

Apprenticeship Training and T-Levels data may have been supplied to the ESFA but this information is not part of the courses dataset.

One course per LARS code had been supplied which meant the different varieties of offering (e.g. part-time / full time), weren't all listed.

Why is the name of our college different from the one we normally use?

As HOP uses the ESFA data, the provider name supplied is the official name associated with your UKPRN number. In some cases, this is the name of a college group which may be less well known than the names of the individual colleges.

If your college is often known under a different name, we suggest you include this name as the venue or location name when you supply your data to ESFA. The venue name is displayed directly below the provider name on the cards and course details screen. The Provider name filter will return courses which match on either the provider name or the venue name.

Where is the apprenticeship data in HOP supplied from?

The apprenticeship data in HOP is fed from the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS).

The apprenticeships listed are actual opportunities offered by an employer for an individual to do an apprenticeship. There may be apprenticeship standards which you could offer off-the-job training for, but these will not be listed unless an opportunity is currently available with an employer.

The data is supplied directly from NAS and so updates to the data should be reflected in the site within a day.

How can I make sure our apprenticeships appear in HOP?

Ensure all the apprenticeships you have been contracted to provide the off-the-job training for, are listed on the National Apprenticeship Service. You can do this via the Recruit an Apprentice service. Unless the employer is very large and has direct grant funding they will not be able to do this themselves and you, as the training provider, will need to list the opportunity.

Ensure the address of the apprenticeship employer has a postcode within Hertfordshire (HOP only contains Hertfordshire based opportunities).