Inside eRA, May 14, 2003 (Volume 4, Issue 6)

NIH Deputy Director Promotes eRA at Annual Symposium

NIH Deputy Director Dr. Raynard Kington urged 300 participants at the eRA Symposium to embrace the new eRA system and to participate actively in refining it. In his opening remarks on April 30, Dr. Kington stressed that NIHers “will be the pioneers, and our ability to use [eRA] successfully will have great resonance throughout the Department.” Health and Human Services (HHS) currently is evaluating eRA for department-wide use.

This year’s symposium, entitled “Progress in Program: Tying It All Together,” was dedicated to informing the Program community about the growing challenges of grants administration as well as the opportunities offered by eRA.  Dr. Ronald N. Germain, deputy chief of NIAID’s laboratory of immunology, explained how grant portfolios would become more interdisciplinary and complex as a reflection of systems biology, the new trend in biological research. According to Germain, major advances are not likely to come from small single-PI laboratories. “Rather, larger teams comprising expert biologists, computer programmers, mathematicians, engineers, chemists, and others are needed to collect and assemble the vast amount of data into predictive models of biological behavior.” NIH will need to create new funding mechanisms in support of systems biology.

Project Manager Dr. John McGowan then emphasized the potential for advancing medical research through the mining of eRA data using Knowledge Management technology. Expected to grow from six to twelve terabytes in the near future, the eRA database is accessed in 300 countries worldwide.  Approximately 3,500 extramural staff at NIH, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) use the eRA system. More than 2,500 grantees already have registered for the new NIH eRA Commons (eRA’s external interface); more than 50,000 are expected to enroll when the system reaches full productivity. In addition, the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP), eRA’s biomedical database system containing information on research projects and programs supported by HHS, is accessible to the general public.

In his presentation on “Future Directions,” Dr. Steve Hausman, deputy director of NIAMS and eRA advocate for advanced technologies, gave a summary of major FY 2002 eRA successes, including the scanning of all incoming applications, distribution of proposals to reviewers via CD, support for electronic submission of peer reviews, automated generation of summary statements, and a facility for submitting progress reports through a Web interface.  By 2004, it is expected that 80 percent of principal investigators (PIs) will use eSNAP to submit their progress reports online. 

Dr. Hausman also introduced new emerging technologies, including Gyricon-based media for electronic paper, improved collaborative technologies for conducting meetings, wireless broadband, BroadBench, Spot technology, Blue-Ray DVD and Augmented Cognition, which offer many possibilities for improving grants administration business practices. 

For more information and copies of symposium presentations, visit http://era.nih.gov/eraworkshop3/. To view the videocast of the symposium, go to http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp and select “NIH Only Events.”

Planning Continues for Knowledge Management Pilot

eRA currently is building a prototype for using knowledge management (KM) technology to locate qualified peer reviewers for research proposals submitted to the NIH. KM refers to the family of text-mining tools for examining vast quantities of data to identify patterns and establish relationships. Given the exponential rate at which the world’s information is growing (estimated at 10¹⁸ new bytes yearly), KM holds great promise for optimizing the knowledge assets of an organization.

Dr. Richard Morris, eRA advocate for knowledge discovery, recently presented KM concepts at the Third Annual eRA Symposium on April 30 (see article above). He also outlined the process by which eRA will apply KM techniques to identify candidate reviewers. Basically, eRA will “fingerprint” (profile) each incoming research proposal using the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH^®) Thesaurus. MeSH is a database of hierarchical (e.g., “ankle” is subordinate to “anatomy”) and cross-referenced topics (e.g., “for vitamin C, see ascorbic acid”), which permits searching at various levels of specificity. The fingerprint for each research plan will consist of the most appropriate MeSH terms.

The other sources of input are databases of reviewer biosketches. These can be both internal and external to NIH. Once the biosketches are fingerprinted, locating subject-matter experts consists of comparing proposal profiles with expert profiles to produce the best matches. Thus, KM will enable NIH to transform raw text (research plans and biosketches) into useful information.

eRA also can use the same KM techniques to ascertain similar research plans (from proposed and already funded research) and to create opportunities for scientific collaboration by identifying experts with common interests. These and other KM applications are expected to improve NIH performance and efficiency by facilitating data sharing, verifying facts, informing decisions, shortening grant cycle times, and reducing costs. NIH also hopes to realize qualitative gains.

The pre-production phase of the KM reviewer identification module will continue through August. If you are interested in becoming an early adopter, contact Richard Morris.

eSNAP: Implications for Your IC

Additional interested grantees will have the opportunity later this summer to submit their Streamlined Non-competing Award Process (SNAP) Type 5 progress reports through eSNAP, a new NIH eRA Commons Web interface. Since pilot usage began last November, more than 118 electronic progress reports have been transmitted. Currently, almost 50 percent of NIH awards (over 24,000 annually) are eligible for SNAP.

ICs are encouraged to evaluate their business processes and incorporate the electronic receipt of eSNAPs into their policies and procedures. In particular, ICs should consider the following:

eSNAP progress reports differ from hard-copy SNAP progress reports.

Although basic reporting requirements are the same as paper SNAP progress reports, some incentives have been introduced to encourage electronic submission. For a complete list of differences, see the July 2002 issue of this newsletter. eSNAP is testing the feasibility of shifting the monitoring of Institutional Review Board/Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IRB/IACUC) approval dates from grant-by-grant monitoring to systems monitoring; therefore, no IRB or IACUC approval dates are required with eSNAP submissions and ICs should not request this information. Since eSNAPs are due 45 days before budget start date (vs. 60 days for paper), ICs need to modify their business practices regarding “late T-5” letters.

The eSNAP is stored in the eRA database and can be viewed in the Grant Folder.

eSNAPS can be displayed in any eRA application that connects to the Grant Folder. From the Grant Folder, click on the E-Application button. There also is a direct link to the eSNAP from the Grants Management (GM) module. The “View E-App” button is on the bottom right of the Award screen.

The IC learns about the receipt of an eSNAP through its designated IC Inbox.

eRA now uses the IC Outlook Inbox, originally established to receive Summary Statement notifications, for eSNAP notifications. ICs should be sure to monitor this mailbox. Until eRA releases its planned e-Notification module, ICs are encouraged to set up Outlook auto-forward rules to ensure that appropriate staff is notified. It is the responsibility of each IC to forward notification to Program personnel.

There also are eSNAP indicators on several GM screens, including Search, Workload, T-5 Receipt, GM Worksheet, Workload Report and T-5 Receipt Report. When an eSNAP is received, the Receipt Date field automatically is populated.

Visit http://impacii.nih.gov/tools/grants/grants_esnap_list.cfm to access the “Pending eSNAP Report,” which displays eSNAPs that have been received but not yet awarded.

eRA discourages the printing of hard copies of eSNAPs for distribution.

The elimination of hard copy distribution is a primary objective of the eRA initiative. It still is necessary, however, to print a copy for the “official” file until the government agrees to designate the electronic file as the official file.

Send questions about NIH eSNAP policy to David Wright or Marcia Hahn. Contact the eRA Helpdesk for assistance in using the eRA system to process eSNAPs.

eRA Seeks Advocate for Council Operations

With the objective of achieving end-to-end electronic research administration, eRA is seeking a new advocate to promote paperless business processes for Council Operations. The eRA system currently does not support this phase of the grant lifecycle, which includes IC Advisory Board/Council meetings, generation of the ranking list, selection of grants for funding, creation of the funding authorization (paylist), completion of the administrative review, and award negotiation. 

As a first step in developing automated paylist functionality, eRA is evaluating IC extension systems designed for this purpose. On April 22, Mr. Stephen Hazen, chief of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Extramural Financial Data Branch, presented NCI’s paylist application to the eRA Project Team.  Implemented in 1999, this client/server system supports the creation of ranked lists of applications (scored by Review, approved by Council and assigned to Program), selection of applications within the payline for award, assignment of administrative codes, and routing for electronic approval. Other NCI modules enable Program staff to request funding for administrative supplements and to pay exceptions (grants outside the paylines).

eRA’s future Council Operations module will be Web-based and use J2EE technology. It will complement eRA’s new Program module (PGM), which currently is in pilot mode. The advocate for Council Operations will play a major role in gathering requirements and leading the development of the Council module from the user perspective.  As liaison to his/her business community, the advocate will facilitate two-way communication between users and eRA management and technical staff.

If you are interested in serving as advocate for Council Operations, contact John McGowan, eRA project manager.

Program Officials Provide Feedback on New eRA Tools

Program Officials (POs) have responded favorably to several new tools, which were introduced at the Third Annual eRA Symposium on April 30. With the theme of  “Progress in Program” in mind, symposium presenters demonstrated the pilot Program module (PGM) and prototypes for the Web Query Tool (Web QT) and a Knowledge Management (KM) application (see article in this issue). These new applications will enable POs to conduct NIH research administration using the paperless processes mandated by Congress.

Dr. Andre Premen, health science administrator at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), was very enthusiastic in his response:

The new PGM will enable NIA program officials to better serve their scientific constituencies by providing more timely and accurate information to applicant investigators and grantees alike. The "time savings" accumulated while conducting e-business will afford NIA Program staff the opportunity to spend more quality time on developing important new scientific initiatives supporting the mission of the institute…Any innovation that will significantly decrease the "paper load" is a clear winner!

Mr. Jay Choudhry, a member of the Analytic Epidemiology Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), was equally pleased with advances in eRA:

Regardless if one is a bench scientist, science administrator, or program official, one can easily find it a very useful tool for retrieving the pertinent INFO one wants to get. After yesterday's symposium, I came away with a positive feeling of satisfaction...time well spent, knowing that our NIH peers are putting their concerted efforts and hard work into a real user-friendly system. And I am sure we will be evolving with the new technologies, as Dr. Hausman mentioned in his presentation.

Drs. Virginia Hartmuller, a member of NCI’s Analytic Epidemiology Research Branch, and Joan McGowan, director of the Musculoskeletal Diseases Branch at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), are withholding their judgment until they have the opportunity to use the system. Dr. McGowan responded, “I really enjoyed the Symposium.  It brought in some breadth and perspective and was not just a "how to."  However, now I need to play with the module a bit and…spend some time…road-testing.” Likewise, Dr. Hartmuller commented, “I enjoyed the symposium and I think it was helpful in terms of letting Program Directors know about the upcoming changes, which will happen quickly in the next year. How this will really work will be determined as we use it.”

If you are interested in participating in the PGM pilot, contact Carlos Caban, eRA’s advocate for Scientific Program Management. The Web QT pilot will begin in July; contact Sherry Zucker for details. To become an early adopter of eRA’s Knowledge Management reviewer selection application, contact Richard Morris.

For more information and copies of symposium presentations, visit http://era.nih.gov/eraworkshop3/. To view the videocast of the symposium, go to http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp and select “NIH Only Events.”

New Advocates for Training Activities Join Project

Ms. Barbara Huffman and Dr. Richard Ikeda are eRA’s new advocates for Training Activities. They replace Dr. Walter Schaffer, a research training officer in the OD Office of Extramural Research, who worked for two years to modernize NIH National Research Service Award business operations through eRA. Currently, there are two modules for this purpose: Training Activities (TA) enables internal staff to process appointments, terminations and payback obligations; and Extramural Training Activities (X-Train), an NIH eRA Commons Web interface that allows grantees to electronically submit and track trainee statements of appointment and termination notices.

For the past seven years, Ms. Huffman has been the Grants Management (GM) officer for research training in the NIAID Office of Special Populations and Research Training (OSPRT). Prior to 1996, she served in several other capacities at NIAID, where her primary area of responsibility has been managing all aspects of research training (F, K and T mechanisms) from grant review through closeout.

During her fifteen years of experience working with training grants, Ms. Huffman has seen the need for creating a successful and user-friendly electronic system for research training grantees and NIH staff. According to Huffman, “We've seen and experienced the success of the IMPAC II GM module. NIH now needs to devote the necessary time and resources to the TA and X-Train modules to catch up to the other eRA modules and achieve the same efficiencies.”

Richard Ikeda will serve as Huffman’s co-advocate. A program director in the Division of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), he received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and broadened his training as a postdoctoral fellow in enzymology and replication at Harvard Medical School. After teaching at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 13 years, Dr. Ikeda joined the NIH in 1999. He currently manages a portfolio of research grants and postdoctoral fellowships that encompasses science from mechanistic enzymology to wound healing.

Dr. Ikeda believes that his role as advocate for the Workgroup on Extramural Training Systems (WETS) is to ensure communication between the extramural training community and eRA. “By doing so, I believe that the eRA Project will be able to efficiently produce electronic tools that the extramural training community will find useful and effective.”

eRA Bids Farewell to Bud Erickson and Earl Hodgkins and Welcomes Israel Lederhendler

The eRA Project Management Team bids farewell to Burdette (Bud) Erickson and Earl Hodgkins who served as advocates for their respective business areas. Mr. Erickson represented Scientific Program Management and Mr. Hodgkins represented Budget by identifying user requirements, establishing functional priorities, preparing business plans, collaborating with technical analysts, and monitoring the progress of eRA development for their communities. Israel Lederhendler will step into the role of co-advocate for Program.

eRA Project Manager John McGowan praised Erickson and Hodgkins for being the first in their areas “to step up to the plate to ensure that eRA recognized and responded to Program and Budget needs.” He added that Erickson’s vision contributed to the development of the new Program module (PGM), which now is in pilot mode. Hodgkin’s efforts have led to the inclusion of budget functionality in Query/View/Report (QVR) and Web Query Tool (Web QT), currently under development.

In addition to volunteering as an eRA advocate, Mr. Erickson, a program director in the Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), served on NCI’s Institute Information Systems Advisory Group as vice-chair and chair. For the past six of his thirty years at NCI, he has been managing one of NIH’s largest extramural research portfolios in biostatistics. Mr. Erickson resigned his eRA post in response to a substantial Programmatic reorganization. When he leaves, Dr. Israel Lederhendler will join Dr. Carlos Caban as co-advocate for Program.

Dr. Lederhendler serves as the chief, Basic Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience Program, and coordinator for Sleep Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Trained in psychology (McGill University), biopsychology (City University of New York, American Museum of Natural History) and behavioral neurobiology (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole), he coordinates sleep and chronobiology research for NIMH. In addition to his scientific activities, Dr. Lederhendler administers a grants portfolio and participates in Program policy and technology committees, including the Project Officers/Program Officials Forum (POPOF), the eRA Program Official User Group (ePUG), and the Program Module Joint Application Development (JAD) team.

Mr. Hodgkins, a budget officer for the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), recently retired after 32 years of service to NIGMS. Last July, Dr. Zerhouni presented him with an NIH Director’s Award for contributing to the establishment of the new National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. In addition to serving on the eRA Project Team, Mr. Hodgkins has been a member of the NIH Data Warehousing and QVR Steering Committees as well as several Human Resources and Budget committees. After his retirement, Mr. Hodgkins plans to work as a consultant for the NIH Center for Information Technology (CIT).

eRA now is seeking to fill Mr. Hodgkins’ position on its Project Management Team. Interested persons should contact John McGowan.