Third party verifications

Employers or agencies

We are pleased to announce the implementation of the Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) online verification service for employers and agencies to verify Heriot-Watt University awards. Please note that this service is only for third parties.

The system has been developed by Graduate Prospects, in consultation with universities, employers and screening agencies. Funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and launched by Graduate Prospects, HEDD is now being rolled out to institutions throughout the UK.

The secure online candidate verification service allows registered enquirers to input data provided by applicants (name, date of birth, institution, year of graduation, qualification classification etc). You will be required to upload a PDF consent form signed by the candidate.

How to register

To make an enquiry you need to register with HEDD by visiting www.hedd.ac.uk. Select ‘Heriot-Watt University' from the list of UK higher education institutions and choose the option to 'verify a degree award'. There is a charge of £14 per enquiry. If you require further assistance, please email heddhelp@prospects.ac.uk.

Making an enquiry

You'll need the individual's name, date of birth, course and qualification, and a document confirming the candidate's signed consent to seek this verification. For graduates you'll also need their year of graduation and degree result. If you require dates of attendance, please request this at the time of making the enquiry.

We recommend that you ask to see the degree certificate if there is one, and use that as the basis of your verification enquiry, or ask individuals to give you their data as they believe it's recorded in the student records system. If the information submitted is an exact match to the information held within the student record, your request will automatically be verified. If the information does not match all fields, then the enquiry will go to the heddhelp@prospects.ac.uk for manual verification, with a five working-day turnaround time.

Management information

All your enquiries are stored in the system and can be exported as an MS Excel or CSV file. You can sort your enquiries according to status:

• Automatically verified
• Pending – this means we couldn't automatically verify your enquiry and you're waiting for a response from the University
• Not verified – where the University has responded in the negative
• Partially verified – where the University has verified some but not all of the data, eg the wrong year of graduation has been submitted

Help

If you have any problems or queries, please email heddhelp@prospects.ac.uk, including your phone number if you would like a call back.