November 2008

Dear McNair Project Director:

I am writing regarding the McNair Annual Performance Report (APR) submission for program year 2007-08. The new online Web application will be available December 1, 2008 at: https://trio.ed.gov/mcnair; the deadline for submitting the APR has been extended to January 30, 2009.

Please note that the new submission process includes online data quality checks that will require you to correct data errors (or provide an explanation for the discrepancy) prior to being able to submit the APR. Thus, you are encouraged to start the process early to ensure that the APR can be submitted by the due date.

You must follow the revised OMB approved form and instructions in preparing the 2007-08 APR for the new online Web application. In addition to changes in the submission process, a few changes have been made to the data fields to better align the data collection with the new standard objectives for the McNair programs. They are:

• Graduate School Enrollment Status at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year (field #45) has been added to the APR. In this field, you will report on the enrollment in graduate school of McNair participants by the fall term immediately following receipt of the bachelor's degree. Beginning with the 2007-08 reporting year, the Department will use this information to determine annually if your project has met its graduate school enrollment objective. Those participants on the student data file who are reported as having received a Bachelor's Degree or the Equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree (field #21, option #1) during the reporting year (field #22 - date of highest degree earned -- between August 2007 and October 2008) make up the denominator for this objective. Field #45 is then used to determine which of those students enrolled in graduate school by the fall term immediately following completion of the bachelor's degree.
• Research (field #26) and McNair Internships (field #27). The options for these data fields have been revised to capture information on whether a student participated in and completed research activities during the academic year being reported. The Department will use the information in these fields to determine if your project met its objective related to research and scholarly activities. Because the objective states that the participants will "complete" the research and scholarly activities, only those participants that completed the McNair research activity (field #26, option #3) and/or the McNair internship (field #27, option 3) during the academic year being reported will be counted toward achieving this objective.
• Record Updated (field #3). This field has been modified to more accurately identify data consistencies and to determine whether or not the project has been successful in tracking the academic progress of prior participants for this reporting period. Please refer to the instructions for a detailed description of each option in this field.

Prior to beginning the data submission process, please review the OMB approved form and instructions for the 2007-08 APR available on our Web site at:

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

Please remember that, as explained in the instructions, you should continue to report on prior participants for specified periods after their departure from the project (i.e., until they (1) obtain the doctoral degree or a first professional degree, (2) have not enrolled in graduate or undergraduate studies for at least one term in the last five years, or (3) have been out of contact for a period of five or more years).

Also, you may want to download a copy of the McNair ARP Web Site User's Guide available as of December 1 at:

https://trio.ed.gov/mcnair.

There are three sections to the 2007-08 McNair APR. Each grantee funded in 2007-08 must complete Sections I and II. Only those grantees whose 2007-08 budget year is part of a grant/project period that began prior to 2007 must also complete Section III.

• Section I: Project Identification, Certification and Warning;
• Section II: Record Structure for Participant List; and
• Section III: Project Performance Objectives (To be completed by those McNair projects whose 2007-08 budget year is part of a grant/project period that began prior to 2007).

Individual Participant Data (Section II of APR)

The record structure for the participant list (Section II) contains 45 fields; this is one field more than was required for the 2006-07 APR. The participant data file must include all 45 fields in the same order as listed in Section II.

You must submit the participant list in either Excel or CSV format. Column names in the file must match the "Database Column Names" provided in column three of Section II of the APR. Text files (also known as ASCII files) are no longer accepted and as such you do not have to identify the field lengths, position start and position end and field type.

The new Web application provides four options for starting the data submission process for Section II:

• Download an Excel file of last year's submitted data; update the file and then upload directly to the Web form.
• Upload an Excel/CSV file directly to the Web form.
• Transfer last year's data submission to the Web form and update and add records online.
• Enter student data directly into the Web form.

If you choose to Download the Excel file with your last year's data, please note that the Download feature does not include the social security numbers (SSNs) of your participants, even though the file you provided us contained this information. This change was made to better protect the personal information contained on the data file and prevent inadvertent misuse of information provided by the Department. However, the participant data file you prepare for the 2007-08 APR should include the SSNs of all participants, as this is the primary identifier used to match participant records across project years.

Also, the data from last year's file for certain fields that need to be updated each year (e.g., McNair services fields # 26-39) will not be on the Excel file you download or in the Web form if you choose to transfer last year's data directly to the Web form. You will need to complete these data fields with information from your 2007-08 project year.

If you are unable to prepare an Excel (or CSV) file using your existing database, you have the option of either transferring last year's data directly into the Web form or entering student data directly into the Web form. If you choose to transfer last year's data, or enter the data directly online, you must update every student record and/or add new student records online. This process could be very time consuming.

Participant List and Data Error Report

Once the file is uploaded or the data are entered online, a participant report will be generated that lists all of the participants on your data file. To view this report, you must be in Section II, which is the window that displays the Participant Review List Table (also known as Table View). For each participant record with errors, the report will display the specific data field(s) that requires corrections. This report will display two types of errors: (1) invalid data values; and (2) data validation errors.

• An invalid data value is when the data field(s) for the participant record includes a value other than one of the "Valid Field Content" options provided in column 4 of Section II. To correct these types of errors online, you may click on the student name hyperlink and then enter a valid option in the identified data field(s).
• A data validation error identifies data fields that are in conflict with data you provided in another data field. By clicking on the student name hyperlink, you will see an error message that explains the error. You may then correct the data online.

Review and Submit Process

In prior years, data quality checks were done after the data file was accepted with a small percentage of grantees required to resubmit the participant data file due to high error rates. The new process includes a two-tiered system for evaluating the quality of the participant data.

The first tier data checks include the following:

• Funded/Served Rate report. Compares the number of current year participant records on the data file with the number of participants the grantee was approved to serve in 2007-08. We are using a range of between 100 percent and 140 percent of the funded number as an indicator of potential data errors. If your data submission falls outside this range, you will be asked to review the data file to determine if you correctly updated the participant status field and/or included records for all participants served in 2007-08. If you determine that the data file is correct, you will be asked to provide an explanation for the high or low funded rate.
• Critical Fields report. Provides a percentage of participant records with "unknown/no response" for nine data fields that we have determined are critical for analyzing project and program outcomes. Since "unknowns" do not provide usable information for data analysis, we are asking you to review fields for which 10 percent or more of the records have "unknowns" and either correct (or update) the data or provide an explanation as to why the data are not available.

You will be required to correct data errors in the 2007-08 participant data file and pass the first tier data checks prior to submitting the APR. This may include correcting data that was accepted in previous years.

After the initial submission of the APR, the second tier data checks compare the 2007-08 participant data with your 2006-07 data file. If this is your first year of funding, you are excluded from these data quality checks.

The second tier data checks include the following:

• Match to Prior report. Compares the participants on the 2007-08 APR with the participants on the 2006-07 APR to ensure that grantees have included prior year participants on the 2007-08 data file per the APR requirements for tracking and reporting on prior year participants. Those 2006-07 participants not included on the 2007-08 file are displayed on the screen. You must either add the student record or provide an explanation. Please follow the instructions on the screen and/or refer to the McNair User Guide for detailed instructions on how to complete the Match-to-Prior report.
• New Participants report. Compares the participants listed as "new" on the 2007-08 APR with those listed as "new" on the 2006-07 APR. Those participants listed as "new" in both years are displayed. You must update the student records or provide an explanation for this discrepancy.

If you have any tier two errors, you will be given a one-week extension to correct the data file and resubmit. The APR will not be accepted until the participant data file passes both the tier one and tier two edits.

Thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to performance reporting each year and for your commitment to providing complete and accurate data. Please retain source documents in a readily accessible form so that they can be verified during an on-site visit. If you encounter technical problems accessing the Web site or using the Web application, please contact the Help Desk using the instructions provided at the site. Also, remember that after you submit the completed APR electronically you must also submit, via fax, a signed copy of Section I of the report form that certifies that the information submitted electronically is readily verifiable and that the information reported is accurate and complete. The fax number is (703) 995-4812. Should you have questions regarding the performance report requirements, please contact your program specialist directly. To ascertain your program specialist's name, telephone number, and e-mail address, please visit: http://www.ed.gov/programs/triomcnair/contacts.html.

Sincerely,

Eileen Bland
Team Leader
College and University Support Team
Federal TRIO Programs

Performance page | Report page | Help Desk | Online APR | TRIO Home