Entry Profiles: the approvals process

If you would like help writing and managing your conservatoire's Entry Profiles, come to one of our free training workshops, aimed at helping member institutions understand and enhance Entry Profiles. For more information, please contact the Professional Development Team on 01242 545 712 or professionaldevelopment@ucas.ac.uk.

All Entry Profiles undergo a process of approval before being published onto Course Search. This process includes both the conservatoire and CUKAS approving the content and design of each submitted Entry Profile for courses that appear on the CUKAS Course Search. It is the Courses Data Team who manage the approval process at CUKAS.

Each Entry Profile is reviewed against the following criteria:

  1. Grammar and spelling

    British English is used as standard. For example, any words with the ending '-ize' will be reviewed and replaced with an '-ise' ending where appropriate. Double character spacing at the beginning of sentences will be removed. Sentences which are ambiguous or difficult to understand, for example through a lack of commas, will be amended. However, CUKAS will not specifically edit the text of an Entry Profile as a whole for any other reason.

    If the text contains inappropriate material, unsubstantiated claims or legally dubious material, the Entry Profile will be returned without approval to the conservatoire for further editing.

  2. Broken URLs

    All embedded URLs should be active, current and link to relevant material, whether they are in the section headings or in the main body of each text field. For example, URLs which are embedded within the section that details entry requirements should not link to a main conservatoire home page but should lead directly to a page that contains entry requirements. Where this is not possible, we recommend that text is used instead.

  3. Out-of-date information

    Any Entry Profile which includes out-of-date information will be returned to the conservatoire. For example, if an Entry Profile is attached to a course open for 2011 applications and refers to course fees for 2008, we would return the profile to the conservatoire and request that either the current year's fees be included or that section be removed completely from the profile.

  4. Duplicate information

    Entry Profiles must contain course-specific information. There may be a certain amount of information that is generic to all the courses that a conservaoire offers, perhaps across a specific faculty or department's provision, but it is expected that the majority of the Entry Profile to be unique in every case. However, information should also not be repeated under multiple headings within an individual Entry Profile.

    If a conservatoire submits multiple Entry Profiles with only identical text in each, the Entry Profiles will be returned for further amendment.

  5. Blank Entry Profiles

    Occasionally, Entry Profiles have been submitted for approval by conservatoires when no URL or text has been added. Entry Profiles that do not include text or links in any of the fields will be returned to the conservatoire for development.

  6. Additional formatting points

    Conservatoires may use images, graphics and embed YouTube-style video in their Entry Profiles. However, we suggest that these are kept to a minimum as potential students may have difficulty viewing these while using school or college computers due to internet security software.

    Formatting such as bullet points, bold text and italics can be used, but must be correctly coded with HTML.

    Coloured text is permitted, but must be correctly coded with HTML. We would strongly advise conservatoires to keep to a small palette of colours, for example, the colours used within the conservatoire's logo or corporate colour scheme. Please keep in mind that the rest of the web page will be branded with the CUKAS corporate colours.

For more information about how to use these guidelines, please contact the Courses Data Team on 01242 544 864 or email coursesdata@ucas.ac.uk.