Sending Data to CORC

How can I submit my data to CORC?

The first step in submission is having an assigned data submission month. If you do not have a data submission month, or you are unsure of which month you have been assigned please contact the CORC Team.

Shortly before your submission month you will receive an email from the team reminding you to submit your data. When you are ready to do so, you will need to upload your data to the UCL Data Safe Haven, a secure file transfer portal. Instructions for use of the Data Safe Haven are available here.

Click here for an overview of our data submission process

CORC currently accepts data in 2 separate formats: CORC Snapshot and CORC+. In order for us to accept your data to create a report, it must match one of these two formats. To find out which format may best suit your service and the type of data you collect, please answer the following question:

How often does your service collect service-user reported outcome data?

• If data is collected primarily at two time points - assessment and 6 months later/ at case closure - your data best fits the CORC Snapshot format
• If data is collected at assessment and case closure, but you also use session-by-session measures and collect data at more than two time points, your data best fits the CORC+ format

How does our data need to be structured?

• • CORC Snapshot: Data must match the  CORC Snapshot data specification v4.0.
  • Current: CORC+: Data must match the CORC+ data set specification v5.5 and Variable Definition Document v.5.5. 

CORC Snapshot and CORC+ Data Submission: Overview

	How often do we collect measures?	How does our data need to be structured?	What is the minimum amount of data we must submit?	What other information do we need to provide?	How do we submit our data to CORC?	What will our report look like?
CORC Snapshot	At 2 time points (assessment, & 6 months or case closure)	Data must match the CORC Snapshot Data Specification	You may submit as much outcome data as you like. However key fields that allow us to identify unique “periods of contact” and other mandatory fields must be included in your submission (See data specifications for details).	Please submit a CORC Snapshot member pro-forma along with your data	If you don’t already have a CORC Data Submission Month email the CORC team to be assigned one. Once a year, during your submission month, upload your data to a secure file transfer portal using these instructions	You can download a sample CORC report to get an idea of what your report will look like
CORC+	At 2 or more time points (including session-by-session use)	Data must match the CORC+ Data Specification and Variable Definition Document		Please submit a CORC+ member pro-forma along with your data

How much data do we need to submit?

As CORC reports are produced annually, members usually submit around one year’s worth of data. However, you are welcome to submit as much data as you like, as long as it matches our CORC+ or CORC Snapshot data specifications.

There are a few key fields that must be present in your data in order for us to identify unique “periods of contact” or “cases”. These key fields are indicated in the data specification documents for the particular format you use.

How do we prepare the data for upload?

Data must be prepared according to the CORC+ or Snapshot data specifications and saved as comma separated values (CSV) files. Please see the data specifications for details.

If you would like to use template CSV files for your Snapshot data upload, please contact the CORC team with the names of the data sheets/questionnaires you are planning to submit, and the type of respondent (e.g. child-reported, parent/carer-reported, clinician-reported)

What happens after we submit our data?

Once your data is submitted it is validated by a member of the team to ensure it properly matches either our CORC+ or CORC Snapshot format. Often there are common formatting errors in the data that must be corrected before the data can be used. If there are errors in your data we will contact you to support you to correct the errors and re-submit your data. The length of this process can vary based on how many errors we find in your data and how difficult they are to fix.

Further information about submitting data to CORC, our analysis process and the reports can be found on our FAQ pages or you can contact us at corc@annafreud.org.

Why would I send my data to CORC?

CORC can provide your organisation or service with an annual report on your routinely collected outcome data. This can help provide an insight into how your service is doing, demonstrate your impact and identify areas for improvement. The data is analysed and benchmarked against the “Rest of CORC” dataset, which is made up of outcome data from other CORC member services.

As part of the report, you can record up to 8 teams in your data. Many member organisations choose different ways of dividing their data into teams (e.g. geographic location, type of work etc.). Team-level data is analysed in a supplementary report which displays outcome and demographic data broken down by team. This report does not contain any benchmarking against the CORC dataset.

A sample CORC report is available to give you an idea of what your finished CORC report may look like. However, depending on the type and amount of data you submit your report may vary from the sample report.

Am I eligible to receive an annual report from CORC on the data collected by my service/ organisation?

If you are from an organisation that is a full CORC Member, your organisation is entitled to an annual CORC report as part of membership. If you are unsure if your organisation is a current full CORC member, please get in touch with the CORC team. CORC is also able to offer reporting to non-member, or associate member organisations for a fee. For more information on commissioning reporting from CORC, please get in touch with the CORC Team.