Electronic Submission of the Annual Performance Report for Program Year 2006-2007

Each McNair project is required to prepare the annual performance report (APR) in accordance with the instructions provided at the following Web address.

www.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/report.html

There are three sections to the APR:

• Section I requests project-identifying information;
• Section II contains detailed instructions for preparing a data file of individual participant information; and
• Section III requests information on the extent to which the project has met its project objectives related to the prior experience criteria.

Preparing the APR

1. How should a project begin to prepare the performance report?
First, a McNair project must review the required data elements in Section II of the report to ensure that the project is collecting all the required information. If some data elements are not being collected, the project should develop plans and procedures for collecting the required data.

Next, the project should determine how it will prepare the electronic data file of individual participant records. In response to question #2, below is a brief discussion of options available for preparing the participant data file.

If you currently have a management information system for your project with participant level information, you may choose to create a "text file" or export the data to a spreadsheet or database. If, however, your project does not have a database or the database does not capture many of the required data elements, you may decide to use the Department's Tool. (See discussion of this tool under question #3.)

2. What options are available for preparing the participant data file (Section II of performance report)?
A grantee has three basic options for preparing the student data file. You may choose any of these options, provided you submit the data in accordance with the instructions for preparing the participant data file (Section II of the performance report). These instructions are available at the following Web address:

www.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/report.html

Option A: Use the database or spreadsheet that you currently use to capture and manage your project data and then export the data required for the performance report to an Excel spreadsheet (xls), Access database (mdb), or database file (dbf). If you choose this option, you must:

• Change your column names to match the "Database Column Names" provided in column three of Section II - Record Structure for Participant List (if you are using Access, you must change the column names in the "Design, Table");
• Provide the data (columns or fields) in the same order as the data fields in column one as listed in Section II of the report instructions (i.e., the first column of your spreadsheet must be PR, the second column must be BatchAY, etc.); and
• Use only the valid field content provided in column eight of the report instructions. For example, the valid field content for "Gender" (field #9) is 1 for Male, 2 for Female. Values such as M for Male and F for Female are not acceptable.

Option B: Prepare a text file in accordance with the record structure provided in Section II of the report. A text file (sometimes called an ASCII text file) is a text-only document that contains no formatting; by contrast, word processor files insert special (non-readable) characters for bold text, italic text, and underlined text, etc. Most current word processing software will save a document as a text file, usually under the "Save As..." and "Save As Type. . ." options. This will remove all special formatting from the file. The advantage of a text file is that it is a standardized file type and many different software packages can read the data in the file. Once you have created the text file, you must check the file to ensure that the data fields exported correctly and that the data elements meet the valid field content requirements provided in column eight of Section II of the report instructions.

Option C: Use the software tool developed by the Department of Education for capturing and submitting the performance report data.

3. What is the McNair Tool?
The McNair Tool is a self-installing electronic software application that you may use to collect the data required in Section II of the performance report. The McNair Tool is a stand-alone application that requires no additional software to run. However, in order to properly run this application, you must have an IBM-compatible PC with the Windows 2000 (or higher version) desk operating system.

This tool is designed to assist grantees, especially those without participant databases, in meeting the reporting requirements. Grantees without an automated participant recordkeeping system may use the tool to manually enter the participant information. The tool will also help grantees check the quality of their data submissions in order to reduce the number of potential errors associated with importing data to the TRIO databases. Once all the required data are entered, the grantee can create a file to upload via the McNair APR Web site and submit to the Department as Section II of the APR.

The McNair Tool is available for download from the following Web site:

https://trio.ed.gov/mcnair

4. Must a McNair project use the McNair Tool?
As noted above under the response to Question #2, McNair grantees have several options for preparing the individual participant records; use of the tool is one of the options. You are encouraged to select the method most compatible with your current data management systems.

5. What are the features and functionality of the software tool?
The McNair Tool is a software application that assists grantees in submitting the required data for the annual performance report electronically. The tool is not intended to serve as a project management information system and thus has limited functionality. Grantees without an automated participant recordkeeping system may use the tool to manually enter the participant information. The tool is designed to reduce the number of input errors by prompting the user to enter valid field contents. Once all the required data are entered, the project can create a file to upload via the McNair Performance Report Web site and submit to the Department as Section II of its performance report.

The McNair Tool has three additional features to assist grantees.

• The tool allows grantees to select data fields from other databases and import the data into the tool. The grantee can then use the tool to check the data for formatting and field content errors. Once the data is checked, the grantee can create a file to upload and send to the Department of Education.
• The tool allows grantees to export the data to another database, spreadsheet, or management information system. This feature allows McNair projects to use the performance report data to develop a project management system without having to re-enter the basic data required for the performance report.
• The tool will generate a statistical report that aggregates the individual participant data.

6. How does a grantee format the date fields when preparing the participant data file (Section II) in Microsoft Excel or Access?
Excel attempts to convert all numbers to a correct format. By entering "022571" in a field, Excel will convert that to "22571" because that is a true number. To avoid this problem, please use one of the three options provided below. Using one of these three options will ensure that your data is imported correctly.

Option A: Include slashes in the date fields (i.e., #8, #14, #15, and #22). For example, a date of June 24, 2005 should be entered as 6/24/2005 or 6/24/05.

Option B: (1) Before entering information, select the entire column by clicking on the grayed column name, for example "E," so that it turns gray.
(2) Select the Format menu and the "Cells..." prompt. You can also do this by clicking on your right mouse button while the mouse is over the highlighted column and selecting "Format Cells."
(3) A tabbed dialog box should now appear. Select the first tab, "Number."
(4) Change the category to "Text." DO NOT change the category to "Date" because it can give you some unexpected results.

Option C: Place an apostrophe as the first symbol within a cell (e.g., '06242005).

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