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Feel free to browse the tabs below to review resources, data sources and support available for departments either undertaking an Athena Swan application, or general data driven EDI activity:

COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO SOURCING DATA

Comprehensive guides to locating, accessing and managing data can be found here:

"Sourcing data for Athena Swan and EDI"

"Sourcing Student Data" (Coming soon!)

QUICK REFERENCE: DATA AVAILABLE

Data type How to access

Staff in post data

and Recruitment data

To request access to tableau Staff data and Recruitment Data you must do so via your data guardian – you can find more info on how to do so here:

Accessing Tableau | HR Systems (ox.ac.uk)

This dataset also includes: Divisional and institutional benchmarks, leaver data, maternity leave/paternity leave/shared parental leave data and recognition of distinction data.

Promotion data

RoD Data can be found using the Athena Swan Tableau Datasets as above. Other title processes (eg. URL and Titular Associate Professor) are available via your divisional facilitator. Contact your Divisional facilitator.

Student cohort data

Student attainment data

Student recruitment data

Departments should use the tableau student data updated and maintained in datasets called ‘Annual Programme Statistics’ by SDMA, which can be found here [Tableau link].

To request access, please contact SDMA@admin.ox.ac.uk or follow the process outlined here: LINK

Full instructions and guides for locating  the correct datasets can be found in this document 'Sourcing Student Data' (coming soon).

MSD Benchmark document A document with internal and external benchmarking for your staff and student data (including across the Russell Group by speciality, student recruitment data by broader EDI categories, and clinical academic staff data by demographic) can be found here: MSD Benchmarking data.

Staff survey data

From 2016-2018 surveys were run centrally, and departments have access to these datasets via the divisional facilitator, or via your departmental Athena Swan teams.

From 2021 the staff surveying moved to an external company People Insight - to request access to the online results dashboard contact your Divisional facilitator.

Student Survey Data

Each year students are asked to respond to the student barometer (average 15% response rate) and departments can access this data by demographics, including sex, ethnicity and disability.

Overall student satisfaction by specialism/department against Uni average.

Dept Student satisfaction by demographic (sex/ethnicity/disability) against Uni average.

NB: Use the slider to select the year. If you do not have enough respondents in the year try a two/three year rolling average.

Other Student Surveys

Whilst the main staff survey does not include non contracted students, some departments have elected to survey their student cohorts alongside staff in a separate process. Since 2018 these surveys have been administered by the Divisional Athena Swan Facilitator. To find out if you have any student survey data in your department please contact your Athena SWAN lead, or the divisional facilitator. Contact your Divisional facilitator.

Student destination data

The Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey asks what leavers were doing six months after they qualified from their course to provide detailed analysis of career paths.

Destination of leavers results.

 

Staff leaver data

You may wish to conduct a regular review of staff leaving the department and any gendered issues here which needs an action to combat. Comprehensive leaver data is available via Tableau, and MSD has developed a workbook which automatically sorts your data and presents it in gendered format to assist any data gathering and analysis activities. Currently this is only available for ACARES staff.

Dataset can be accessed here: Leaver Reason Data.

Workbook an be found here: AS Leaver Data Workbook.

Grant application success rate by legal sex data

The X5 Gender report is available via the suite of departmental grant applications reports on Tableau. This provides information on application, award and success rates by legal sex. MSD have developed a workbook to analyse this data simply.

To request access to this dataset you can request access to these reports on the BI webpages.

Workbook can be found here: Grant Application Success Rates by Sex.

Staff and student internal training data

From September 2019 all University providers were offering training via a system called Access PlanIT, and since early 2022 this data is available to access by specific individuals. MSD have developed a workbook to simply sort these records by sex and role type.

More information can be found here: Self Service Training Data Records.

You can request access to this dataset here: Request access to Self Service Training Data.

Workbook can be found here: Training data by Sex and Role type.

RESOURCES FOR PRESENTING DATA

The Medical Sciences Division (MSD) have developed a workbook to support departments who are not confident using charts and tables to present their data annexes for an Athena Swan application, or other EDI endeavour.

This can be found here: Department Data Template Charts.

Resources for using Survey Data

MSD have a suite of resources that departments can use to process their survey data out of the People Insight Dashboards

For access to People Insight survey dashboards please contact your Divisional facilitator 

To join the SES Users Peer Support Teams group: Join the channel here

MSD developed some intermediate Survey training in 2023 to support staff to use their survey data - you can find the slides which serve as a manual here - SES 2023 Tip, Tricks and further information (coming soon)

Other resources that will support you to use your survey can be found below:

Department Data Template Charts. This template workbook includes a tab for each of the mandatory Athena Swan data, including survey and includes template chart you can use to generate figures for your data annex

SES 2023 Demographic Comparison Workbook

Takes 2023 ‘Comparison’ outputs for multiple comparisons (with and without filters) and sorts all data side by side for comparison across all demographic input

Includes a tab showing Athena Swan data over time for the main groups

SES 2023 Full data download processing

Takes the output from an excel download on the ‘Homepage’ (all data for all questions for all staff, or a selected filtered demographic) and process to put in order, include n numbers for each response group and comparison data

SES 2023 AS Full Data Workbook

The workbook takes an excel output for each combination of major job role, gender and year (8 in total) and shows you all of the data in chart form over time for use in review, analysis or application

RESOURCES FOR ANALYSING DATA

MSD have a suite of resources that departments can use to analyse their data, these are designed to work with the data outputs that can be found on the Sourcing Data tab of this website.

Each workbook is designed to guide you through how to use them, and full details can be found in the Sourcing data for Athena Swan and EDI guide. However it can be tricky to get going, so if you would like a quick tutorial, or for the MSD Facilitator to set it up for you please contact your Divisional facilitator.

A note for users with screen readers or other assistive technology:

All of the workbooks listed here have been accessibility checked, and pass. However using them requires processing often huge datasets which will be difficult for a user of assistive technology, and require accessing datasets using Tableau which is not yet fully accessible.

If a member of staff who uses a screen reader wishes to analyse their data using one of these workbooks please get in touch with the Divisional facilitator who can prepare a report for you.

Workbook title Workbook details

Student data workbook - locate, download and analyse

This workbook guides you through how to use SDMA on Tableau locate, download, review and visualise your student data quickly and simply, and will create charts which you can then just copy into your data annex. Also includes video guidance on exactly how to use it. This document only analyses by sex but reports linked provide ethnicity, disability and nationality data.

Tableau Staff Data Management

This workbook uses the underlying dataset from the Staff in Post Tableau reports which holds both by grade data (for ACARES) and Job Family data (PTO). The tabs walk you through checking for role grouping errors, and deciding how to combine and report Staff in Post by role type (Academic and Research) and by Job family (Professional, Technical and Operational).

Recruitment Data Workbook

This workbook uses the crosstab output Staff Recruitment Tableau reports (view 1) and groups recruitment by role group over the years available to help you identify any gendered trends in concert with the staff in post data.

Grant application success rates 

This workbook uses the output from the X5 Legal Sex reports to sort and chart your departmental data. Also includes a tab to help you review data by PI.

Training data workbook

Coming soon!
Leaver Data Workbook This workbook uses the Leaver Reason Data crosstab from the Athena Swan SiP reports in Tableau. The spreadsheet sorts the data by grade to show leaver distribution by grade and sex, and then examined the distribution of leaver reasons by sex, and leaver destinations types by sex. This is a more complex dataset so please contact your Divisional facilitator for support.

Benchmarking

The divisional facilitator can help you if you need to source benchmark data for any particular area, however there is a resource collating potential benchmark data from Tableau (MSD divisional), HEIDI+ (Russell group by specialism). Please contact your Divisional facilitator for more information.

Application toolkit

Preparing for your application - a starter guide

MSD have curated an overview guide with suggested 12 month timetable for an Athena Swan application to support departments to understand what elements happen when, and offer some tips. MSD Preparing for an Athena Swan Application

The transformed Charter

In 2021 and 2022, divisional and institutional colleagues held a series of webinars on the Transformed charter, including a session with an overview of the new charter, a session on what departments can do to prepare for the transformed charter, and one on monitoring, evaluation and designing good action plans. You can find recordings of these here: Athena Swan Transformed Charter guidance.

Advance HE also held a series of webinars you may find useful which can be found here: Advance HE Guidance.

Selecting your award level

The first decision applying departments need to make is what level of award. We have prepared a briefing document on the main difference in expectation between silver renewal and gold full application which can be found here: Silver Renewal vs. Gold application

Successful TransFOrmed Charter Applications

We have had several successful transformed Charter Applications since 2021, and familiarising yourself with a transformed charter application from within the Oxford ecosystem will help you to write a better application.

Department Award Level Application Feedback
Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences Silver renewal Final application and action plan Application feedback
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences Gold full Final application Application feedback
Nuffield Department of Medicine (coming soon) Silver renewal

Final application

 

Application feedback

Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences

Silver Renewal

Final application

(coming soon!)

Application Feedback

(Coming soon!)

 

BRIEFING NOTE

NB: All panels assessing an application from Oxford will be given the ‘Oxford Briefing Note’ – this offers the panel guidance on various unique aspects of Oxford University and the staff/student life cycle including:

  • The collegiate system
  • Undergraduate admissions
  • Academic staffing structure
  • Promotion and progression

Please review this and bear in mind the information already imparted to panels when writing your staff data narrative.

A copy of the briefing can be found here: Oxford Briefing Note.

Annotated application forms with guidance

MSD have annotated the application form with the Advance HE guidance from our experience of applying for Athena Swan awards, condensed learning from Athena Swan Transformation webinars as well as the criteria for success in each section of the form. Each section includes prompts to help you draw together your application. Please feel free to download a copy to aid you in drawing together your narrative.

Silver full award application form

All levels renewal application form

Gold full award application form

Transformed Charter Action Plan Template

Using guidance from the Athena Swan webinar MSD has created an action plan template to:

  • Help you to manage the roll out of your actions
  • Annotate information as you progress through to action plan period
  • Record barriers, facilitators and changes and other contextual information to support you to write your progress and success narratives
  • Undertake a periodic RAG rating to support a future application

Transformed Charter Action Plan Template

Support sourcing and analysing data for an application

We have a comprehensive guide to Sourcing Student Data, and Sourcing general data for an Athena Swan application, as well as several workbooks to aide you in sorting and analysing your data as a part of self assessment.

Details can be found here:

Sourcing Data for Athena Swan and EDI

Analysing Data for Athena Swan and EDI

General GDPR Guidance

When using equalities and staff and student survey data it is important to keep in mind privacy and identifiability - you want your staff and students to be able to give your essential feedback safely and build trust with your communities.

Typically before you share any data you should consider:

  • Who is your audience, what is the minimum they need to know? Do not over-collect or share data
  • The chances that any individual could be identified by a reader either by demographic combinations, or direct quotes
  • What were the conditions of the data being shared? How do you state you would use the data when you collected it via your Data Protection Screening/Data Protection Assessment?

Always restrict access to data to only those who have a legitimate need to access it, and ensure you are thinking about setting minimum group sixes for demographic cuts (usually 5) to ensure individual privacy. 

To read more on Privacy by Design you can find a digest of resources here: Useful links on Privacy by Design and Data Protection Impact Assessments.

Running a Survey

If you wish to run a survey to collect staff or student opinions on a subject you are able to do so, however it is essential that you interrogate the reasons for a survey, and the questions you are asking thoroughly to ensure that they are essential, and that you are protecting your staff and student body from identification.

You can find comprehensive guidance including a short webinar here: Survey Guidance (Medical Sciences Division).

If you would like to take a look at some example Privacy by Design examples, you can find these here:

Example Data Protection Screening

Example Data Protection Assessment

Example Privacy Notice

JISC Surveys is the preferred survey system in the University as we have an institutional agreement with them which satisfies institutional privacy and data handling requirements. To request a JISC Online Survey Institutional account you can do so here: JISC Surveys (IT Services).

If you would like divisional support in setting up a survey please contact the divisional facilitator to discuss.

GDPR, events and feedback

It is important when you run events and actions that you have monitoring and evaluation baked into the process, and that you follow up or collect feedback from participants.

For events management, including setting up a GDPR compliant event, including photography etc. please see the resources here: 

For arranging diverse events see the fantastic guide put together by The School of Geography: Developing Inclusive Conferences.

Research Services has a fantastic suite of resources on:

Evaluation resources for public engagement with research

Comprehensive guides on Public Engagement with Research can be found here: Support for public engagement with sections on funding, training, strategy, evaluation, champions and a host of useful toolkits including:

  • Public Engagement with Research
  • Citizen science / public involvement
  • Working with young people
  • Festivals
  • Evaluation
  • REF & impact
  • Working with the media

Running a Focus Group

Running focus groups can be a powerful way of identifying the needs of a particular group in your department, and identifying specific actions to support a discrete group in your department.

MPLS has created some specific guidance on how to run an effective focus group which you can access here:

Focus Group Guidance

Wellcome Trust Cafe Culture

Café Culture is an opportunity for you and your colleagues to talk about the challenges you face in research culture, reflect on what a better culture would look like, and propose solutions. The format of these discussions are highly praised by the EDU's expert on Monitoring and Evaluation, and can be downloaded here:

Wellcome Trust Cafe Culture Toolkit

Document(s) on these external pages may or may not be accessible. please also note that the majority of the links on this page lead to the Advance HE Connect site, therefore you will need to be a member of Advance HE connect and join the Athena Swan connect community to follow these links

Application information packs

You can download an information pack on the Advance HE website, and find charter materials, guidance and FAQs.

You can also access annotated application materials with internal guidance here: Application Guidance.

How to submit your application can be found here

Transformed Charter Webinars

Advance HE also ran several introductory webinars on the transformed process in 2021 and 2022, which can be accessed via the resources page of the Advance HE Website (you will need an Advance HE Connect account to access these)

The Transformed Athena Swan Charter recording

The below can be found on the direct links included, however you may need to access via Advance HE Connect, fuller and more detailed papers on each of the below subject areas can be accessed in the guidance documents section also

Topic 1: Collecting and Analysing Data: Presentation - Recording

Topic 2: Assessing Your Culture: Presentation Recording

Topis 3: Reviewing your Policies: Presentation - Recording

Topic 4: Identifying Your Priorities: Presentation - Recording

Topic 5:  Creating your Action Plan: Presentation - Recording

Topic 6: Implementing and Evaluating Your Action Plan: Presentation

Topic 7: Evidencing success: Topic paper 

This is particularly useful as it explicitly lays out the threshold for success for the different award levels

 

In addition there are other useful events, including:

Webinar: Building a successful team or network to transform institutions.

Virtual Networking event: Going for Gold.

They have a developing FAQ section, information on governance, information on assessment and some interesting blogs.

Good practise initiatives

Advance HE have a database of good practise inititatives that have been amassed from Athena Swan applications. These can be found here: Good practise initiatives

Data

Staff and Student data reports:

Now in its 14th year, A-HE’s annual Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Reports aim to assist the sector in better understanding the main equality challenges for higher education institutions.

By presenting a snapshot of the age, disability, ethnicity and gender of higher education staff and students, as well as the interplay between these identities, this report can help direct future efforts to overcome these challenges and address the inequalities in the UK higher education sector and can be useful benchmarking resources.

Publications

All publications, reports and resources are gathered together in the Advance HE resource hub.

Accessible campus guide

Guidance on using data and evidence

Equality Diversity and Inclusion guides