Student Registration Exercise and Collection of your Raven Account

In this section:

What is the Student Registration Exercise (SRE)?

Who needs to complete the SRE?

When do I need to complete the SRE?

How do I complete the Student Registration Exercise?

How do I update my personal or contact information outside of the Registration window?

How will my data be handled?

Updates to information collected from Michaelmas 2022

What is the Student Registration Exercise (SRE)?

• The Registration Exercise is designed to be a simple process only taking a few minutes to complete.  At the end there is the opportunity to collect your UIS or Raven account if you are a new student.
• By completing SRE it ensures the information held on your student record is correct:  It is not a way of registering for or applying for a course of study.
• The data collected during the registration process forms the requirements of data submission to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) – the designated data body for Higher Education. HESA uses this information in its own right, for example to publish aggregated statistics about students in Higher Education.

Who needs to complete the Student Registration Exercise?

All students enrolled on an award-bearing course are required to complete the Student Registration Exercise (SRE) on an annual basis.  The SRE must be completed even if you have studied with us before.

When do I need to complete the SRE?

No action needs to be taken until you receive an email invitation to complete the Registration Exercise usually from September onwards.  At the same time, you will also receive a second email detailing your Unique Student Number (USN) sometimes referred to as your Identification Number.  The invitation email will provide details of the closing date for registration and students are requested to complete by that date.

How do I complete the Student Registration Exercise?

Process overview

1. Receive SRE email and USN email
2. Create a new account (even if you are a returning student)
3. Complete SRE
4. Collect Raven account if you are a new student
    

Click here for instructions

How do I update my personal or contact information outside of the Registration window?

Please contact your Course Administration Team with the details of any changes you would like to make.

How will my data be handled?

All data collected and/or verified during the registration process will be used in accordance with the University of Cambridge’s data protection on how we use your personal data and data protection policy. 

Updates to information collected from Michaelmas 2022

As of Michaelmas Term 2022 the screens for Student Registration were updated to include a question regarding ‘Legal Sex’ as this is a compulsory field in the Student record data return to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) from the 2022-2023 academic year.  Legal Sex is your sex as recorded on your legal documents such as birth certificate, gender recognition certificate, or passport. If you have two legal documents that record a different sex then you should use the most recent document.  Information regarding changes to the Student Record data return, including that relating to Sex ID, for the 2022-23 academic year can be found at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/innovation/records/reviews/data-futures-2022-23

HESA is a designated data body (DDB)  for the Office for Students - the regulator and competition authority for the Higher Education sector in England –  and under sections 64(1) and 65(1) of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, English Higher Education providers must provide the DDB with such information as the DDB specifies. As such, we are now legally obliged to attempt to collect this data from all students, but we have provided students with the opportunity to refuse this information if they do not feel comfortable supplying it.  The purpose of the data collection is simply for the HESA return to enable them and the Office for Students to conduct equalities-based research into access to and participation in Higher Education.