Managing Information Across Partners (MIAP) is a sector wide service established in August 2005 to provide information systems infrastructure services to enable the sharing of learning provider and learner information.
MIAP offers three key internet based services to enable information sharing across schools, Further Education and Higher Education organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland:
- UK Register of Learning Providers – provides information about learning providers, including their contact details and courses
- Learner Registration Service - enables UK based learning providers to issue and verify Unique Learner Numbers for learners over the age of 13
- Personal Learning Record Service – builds up an electronic record of a learner’s participation and qualifications which can be securely accessed by learners and learning providers
The MIAP programme has been a major success, exceeding targets in all areas with over 7.8 million Unique Learner Numbers issued to learners; over 5,000 learning providers and other organisations being accredited to register learners, and with 3 million individuals now able to access their Personal Learning Record.
MIAP will be an integral part of the delivery of the Qualification and Credit Framework (QCF) Service Layer.
QCF is a new framework for recognising and accrediting qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It works by awarding credits to qualifications and units (which are small steps of learning). The QCF Service Layer is currently under development and is due to be fully launched to the education sector in September 2010.
Once it is launched, our role is to manage the QCF Service Layer. This involves storing learners’ achievement data from awarding organisations and validating the achievements in order to assign the correct level of credits. Learners, providers and awarding organisations will be able to access this information through MIAP’s Personal Learning Record Service. This enables learners to understand how they combine units to complete qualifications.
For more information take a look at our website: www.miap.gov.uk
