Full Economic Costing (FEC)

FAQ

• FEC for the Impatient
• Quickstart
• Additional Information
• Who do I contact for further help and advice?
• Background Information
• What is the background to the Full Economic Cost System?
• Why do we need to develop a Full Economic Cost System?
• What is the Full Economic Cost of an Activity?
• Who is involved in the Full Economic Costing Project?
• What benefit is the Full Economic Cost System expected to bring?
• What do I need to Know and Do?
• What is the AAP Form?
• Who should complete the AAP Form?
• Why do we need to fill out an AAP Form?
• How long will it take to fill in the AAP form?
• How do I log in to the AAP system?
• How do I fill in the AAP Form?
• Why are percentages being used? Why not hours?
• Will Academics have to fill in time sheets?
• How often should the AAP Form be completed?
• Where and when do I return the form?
• What are the nine Activities listed on the AAP Form?
• How do I know which of the nine activities to populate?
• What is a Data Dictionary?
• What information is needed to complete the AAP form?
• What will the forms and data be used for?
• Who will have access to my data?
• Are there other sources of information available?
• How do I treat Annual Leave and short term sick Leave?
• How to deal with leave (other than annual leave)?
• Do research staff have to complete the form?
• Will researchers still need to complete time sheets for research-project submissions?
• What is the timetable for full implementation the Full Economic Costing System?
• Who do I contact for further help and advice?

FEC for the Impatient
Quickstart

Key information:

• The Academic Activity Profile (AAP) form should be completed during the last week  of June 2011.
• The AAP form is accessible through staff's portal pages.
• For additional information, see below.

The following resources are available to help staff complete the AAP form:

• This FAQ should answer many possible questions
• A Data Dictionary defining academic activity has been compiled to provide further clarification
• It is hoped to have a video walk-through available shortly
• Two fictional case studies are available to help give an indication of the thinking necessary to accurately complete the AAP form

The FEC Finance Manager, Jack Conlan, is available to provide help and advice in completing the AAP Form.
In addition, one head of school from each of the faculties has been closely involved in the development of the Full Economic Costing system, and should be able to help. These people are:

• Stephen Blott (Faculty of Engineering and Computing)
• John Costello (Faculty of Science and Health)
• John Doyle (Faculty of Humanities and Social Science)
• Pierre McDonagh (DCU Business School)

Nationally, funding for the education sector, including third level, is coming under increased pressure due to reduced availability of exchequer funding as a result of the deterioration in public finances. The individual universities are facing increasingly competitive funding requirements; with expectations among the sector that the core grant will continue to grow at a slower rate than inflation. The rapid rate of increase in postgraduate numbers and sponsored research activity (which is mostly only part funded) is welcome in academic terms, but is placing great pressure on university finances which impacts on teaching, research and other activities.

Full Economic Costing is needed for the effective planning and management of university resources and to satisfy the information requirements of external funders. In addition it will provide a better understanding of costs within the university and support the case for increased funding for teaching and research across all disciplines.

The Full Economic Cost of an activity includes direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs include payroll while indirect costs include items such as space, energy, maintenance, etc. Full economic costing identifies the total or true cost of a teaching or research activity.

Irish Universities led by the Irish Universities Association (IUA) are implementing a Full Economic Costing system through Higher Education Authority (HEA) funding from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF II).

The introduction of the Full Economic Costing System will be a positive development as it will:

• be led by the Universities
• bring benefits to teaching, research and students by identifying funding requirements, etc.
• allow Irish Universities to be placed on an equal footing with leading universities internationally who already have equivalent systems
• support future funding applications to the government, and
• be fully accepted by the EU as a full costing system for Framework 7 research projects.

The Academic Activity Profiling (AAP) form is an electronic document used to identify the proportions of an academic's time devoted to activities under nine nationally agreed headings. The AAP form is accessible through staff portal pages.

Almost all academic staff within the school of  Physical Sciences, Nursing, Educational Studies and Electronic Engineering should complete the AAP form. There are exceptions, but they are very few (exceptions include research-only staff, and hourly-paid lecturing staff). If you are uncertain whether you should complete the AAP form, please consult your head of school.

To ensure the University identifies the full cost of all aspects of teaching, research and other activities carried out on its behalf and to ensure appropriate funding is requested from the HEA, other relevant authorities and research funding agencies to fully cover universities costs. Staff costs make up over three quarters of total costs for most institutions. Staff duties need to be attributed to activities using a robust and comprehensive costing method to support funding applications.

The form should initially take less than forty five minutes to complete.

The AAP form is accessible through staff's portal pages. You will need your Novell user name and password, and access to the internet.

The AAP form is completed by allocating a percentage of academic activity against the each relevant heading. The percentage of activity on the form must total 100% when complete. There are nine nationally agreed activities which are divided into subheading to help clarify where an activity should be recorded. You may complete the form either by recording percentages under the nine main activities or completing the subheadings within each activity.

Percentages are being used because the purpose of the system is to allocate costs to activities. The costs of academic staff are known. The activities are generally known, but not the proportion of academics time (hence also costs) is devoted to each of the activities. The Full Economic Costing system will provide that missing link.
However, an option to indicate the total number of hours worked per annum is provided at the bottom of the form. The provision of the information is optional for each colleague.

No, time sheets are not required.

A national decision as to the frequency of form completion will be made after the first phase has been completed and analysed.

The data on the form is included in a report to the FEC Manager and should be completed by the end of June 2011. Please note that it is possible to partially complete the form and return at a later time to complete the remainder

The nine activities listed on the AAP Form are:

• Teaching (Undergraduate)
• Teaching (Postgraduate Taught)
• Teaching (Postgraduate Research)
• Research - Sponsored with Output
• Research - No External Sponsor with Output
• Other Research & Scholarly Activity
• Other Income Generating Activities
• Clinical Services
• Administration and Management

Each of the nine activities are further divided into subheadings to help clarify where an academic activity should be recorded for example:
Activity 3, Research sponsored with Output, is further broken down into three subheadings:

• National Exchequer Funded Research
• National Non Exchequer Funded Research
• EU Commission & Other Internationally Funded Research

In addition guidance on the right hand side of the AAP form provides every day examples of teaching, research and other activities for example mentoring, timetabling, etc. which can be used to easily identify academic activity.
A Data Dictionary defining academic activity has been compiled to provide further clarification, and to ensure consistency both within institutions and across the sector.

A Data Dictionary explains in more detail which of the nine activities is best suited to recording where duties may be recorded.

The information needed to complete the web form is your Novell user name and password.
In addition you will need to identify the percentages of your time spent across each of the nine activities during the reporting period. In some cases an activity may not be relevant to an individual and a zero should be entered against that heading.

The data collected will have an institutional guarantee in terms of its not being used for any purpose other than Full Economic Costing. The individual returns will be aggregated into robust tables of data to support future funding applications made by the University to the authorities.

Only the Academic staff member who completes the form, the Full Economic Costing team and Internal Audit will have access to the individual forms. The form will not be used for any other purpose e.g. performance development processes, workload modelling, performance management or any form of evaluation, other than the stated purpose of Full Economic Costing.

A national web site has been set up to provide background detail and other helpful advice on the Full Economic Costing project.

Annual Leave or short term sick leave are ignored in the AAP form, simply calculate percentages of time other than these short leave periods.

An Academic on leave (other than Annual Leave) who returns to the University within a reporting period should indicate this in the Leave box on the AAP form and identify whether the leave was paid or unpaid leave. No additional information is required

No, 100% research committed staff do not have to complete the form.

The current requirement for time sheets by certain funders will continue as before.

2010 is the first year for live, robust reporting of academic activity through the Full Economic Costing system. The system will be built and tested during 2009.

The FEC Finance Manager, Jack Conlan, is available to provide help and advice in completing the AAP Form.
In addition, one head of school from each of the faculties has been closely involved in the development of the Full Economic Costing system, and should be able to help. These people are:

• Stephen Blott (Faculty of Engineering and Computing)
• John Costello (Faculty of Science and Health)
• John Doyle (Faculty of Humanities and Social Science)
• Pierre McDonagh (DCU Business School)