A number of HEIs agreed that I could pass on their replies to my query in the e-mail below. Anonymity is preserved!

“We use the MSD record in SITS to provide cost centres and JACs codes to our modules in a tailored way. In our case we have a fairly straightforward approach to assigning staff to cost centres so that isn't the complex bit - JACs codes are far more varied.

There isn't an automatic link between our staff database and the cost centre assignment, but Module leaders are held in SITS so for the few cases where the cost centre is indeterminate from knowing which of our Fields the module belongs to, we can drive the cost centre from that. “

“I am interested in solutions that involve the tutor driving the cost centre allocation. The reason I am interested is that HESES specifically states that cost centres are driven by staff, so it seems to make sense to base the cost centre of the module on the member of staff teaching it.

As you pointed out, one module can be taught by different teachers in different parts of the organisation (we have an example where a module called Child Protection is delivered in Education and in Health). Fortunately there is a field for storing module tutor in the MAV (module availability) record, which would allow a different tutor for different occurrences of the module. But this still means that there needs to be a field to hold the cost centre somewhere on the PRS record.

I’m also interested in interfaces between SITS and our HR system, from which the HESA staff return is created, but this is probably beyond the scope of what we’re talking about here.”

“We use the MSD (Module subject department) screen which is off MAV. Most of our departments map to one cost centre

However for our department of Physiology and Pharmacology which is across two cost centres any module that relates to one of them has the appropriate subject which links cost centre.

For any module than is taught by two different subjects/cost centres you can have two subjects and store the percentage split between the subjects. We only have a few of these at the moment so it’s fairly easy for our office to maintain but this is becoming more of an issue and we are looking for ways for maintain this in the future.”

We are currently undergoing a change of student record system

from a bespoke system to using an off the shelf package.

I'd be interested to hear from any SITS users about how they drive

the cost centre of a module using the HESA staff cost centre of the

teacher, in the case that a department has multiple cost centres.

Additionally, how do you deal with the scenario that a module can

be taught by multiple staff members from different cost centres in