What are cookies?
To make this site easy to use, useful and reliable, we sometimes place small amounts of information on your computer. These small files are known as cookies.
We do not use cookies to identify you personally and you can delete them.
To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit the ICO website.
How do we use cookies?
We use four types of cookie:
1. Necessary cookies
Necessary cookies help make the website usable. They enable basic functions like page navigation. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.
| Name | Description | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _cfduid |
This is used to identify trusted web traffic |
29 days |
| _RequestVerificationToken | This helps prevent cross-site request forgery (CSRF) attacks | At the end of a session |
| adx-notification | This is used on the TEF ratings website in basic form actions to store alert messages to be shown on redirection. | At the end of a session |
| adxPreviewUnpublishedEntities | This is used on the TEF ratings website to help the site publishers with the management of content. | At the end of a session |
| ARRAffinity | This is used to distribute traffic to the website on several servers to optimise response times | At the end of a session |
| ARRAffinitySameSite | This is used to distribute traffic to the website on several servers to optimise response times | At the end of a session |
| ASP.NET_SessionId | This preserves the visitor's session state across page requests. | At the end of a session |
| .AspNet.ApplicationCookie | This is used on the TEF ratings website to identify user sessions. A user session starts when a user browses the website for the first time. It ends when the session is closed. Configure authentication can be used to change session expiry time span. | At the end of a session |
| AWSELB | This is used to distribute traffic to the website on several servers to optimise response times | 1 day |
| AWSELBCORS | This registers which server-cluster is serving the visitor. It is used in context with load balancing, in order to optimise the user experience. | At the end of a session |
| ContextLanguageCode | This is used on the TEF ratings website to store the default language of the user accessing the website within a session and across webpages. | At the end of a session |
| CookieConsent | This stores the user's cookie consent state for the Office for Students domain. | 1 year |
| Dynamics365PortalAnalytics | This is used on the TEF ratings website. It is a critical service cookie that analyses service usage anonymously and is aggregated for statistical purposes. | 90 days |
| isDSTObserved | This is used on the TEF ratings website. It stores a value to indicate if the current moment is in daylight saving time. | At the end of a session |
| isDSTSupport | This is used on the TEF ratings website. It indicates whether a specified date and time falls in the range of daylight saving time. | At the end of a session |
| local_storage_support_test | This is used in context with the local-storage function in the browser. This function allows the website to load faster by pre-loading certain procedures. | Persistent |
| timeZoneCode | This is used on the TEF ratings website. It stores the timezonecode field value of CRM timezonedefinition table for the current timezone. | At the end of a session |
| timezoneoffset | This is used on the TEF ratings website. It stores the timezone difference between UTC and Local browser time. | At the end of a session |
2. Remembering your settings
We host interactive data visualisations on our website. These require a 'preference' cookie to operate. These cookies do things like remember your preferences and the choices you make, to personalise your experience of using the site.
| Name | Description | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| tableau_locale |
The cookie determines the preferred language and country-setting of the visitor - it allows us to show content most relevant to that region and language. |
At the end of a session |
3. Website use and analytics
We would like to set cookies which help us to understand how visitors use the website and how accessible it is for them. These cookies do not directly identify anyone.
| Name | Description | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| _ga |
This registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. |
2 years |
| _gat | This is used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate. | 1 day |
| _gid | This registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. | 1 day |
| image.aspx | This registers statistical data on users' behaviour on the website. | At the end of a session |
| nmstat | This cookie contains an ID string on the current session. This contains non-personal information on what subpages the visitor enters – this information is used to optimise the visitor's experience. | 999 days |
4. Marketing
These cookies may be set by third party websites and do things like measure how you view YouTube videos.
| Name | Description | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| __widgetsettings |
This cookie is set by Twitter. It allows the visitor to share content from the website onto their Twitter profile. |
Persistent |
| ads/ga-audiences | This is used by Google AdWords to re-engage visitors that are likely to convert to customers based on the visitor's online behaviour across websites. | At the end of a session |
| IDE | This is used by Google DoubleClick to register and report the website user's actions after viewing or clicking one of the advertiser's ads with the purpose of measuring the efficacy of an ad and to present targeted ads to the user. | 1 year |
| pagead/1p-user-list/# | This is used by Google to track if the user has shown interest in specific products or events across multiple websites and detects how the user navigates between sites. This is used for measurement of advertisement efforts and facilitates payment of referral-fees between websites. | At the end of a session |
| RUL | This is used by Google DoubleClick to determine whether website advertisement has been properly displayed. This is done to make their marketing efforts more efficient. | 1 year |
| test_cookie | This is used by Google DoubleClick to check if the user's browser supports cookies. | 1 day |
| VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE | This is used by YouTube to estimate the users' bandwidth on pages with integrated YouTube videos. | 179 days |
| YSC | This is used by YouTube to register a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen. | At the end of a session |
| yt.innertube::nextId | This is used by YouTube to register a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen. | Persistent |
| yt.innertube::requests | This is used by YouTube to register a unique ID to keep statistics of what videos from YouTube the user has seen. | Persistent |
| yt-remote-cast-installed | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | At the end of a session |
| yt-remote-connected-devices | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | Persistent |
| yt-remote-device-id | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | Persistent |
| yt-remote-fast-check-period | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | At the end of a session |
| yt-remote-session-app | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | At the end of a session |
| yt-remote-session-name | This is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video. | At the end of a session |
Published 05 July 2021
Last updated 28 September 2023 + show all updates
Last updated 28 September 2023 + show all updates
28 September 2023 - The page has been updated to include cookies used on the TEF 2023 ratings website.
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