Inside eRA for Partners, October 10, 2001

NIH Commons Working Group Decides Next Steps

The first meeting of the NIH Commons Working Group convened in conjunction with the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) meeting held at the Beckman Center in Irvine, CA, on January 10-11, 2001. The Group serves as a conduit to conduct business process requirements assessments and gathering, help establish eRA priorities, participate in outreach efforts, and assist with NIH eRA testing and deployment activities. Below we provide a number of the short and long term recommendations that the Group identified as important for NIH.

Short Term Recommendations

The NIH Commons should continue development in a way that is complementary to what is being designed for the Federal Commons. Only by doing so will the NIH be able to meet the mandate in P.L. 106-107, as well as provide their grantee organizations with a plan that they can use as they further develop their respective eRA systems.

The NIH should maintain production systems, namely I-Edison and CRISP, and keep other existing interfaces without spending further funds or resources for enhancements or modifications. Registration of additional sites would not be encouraged. Key to NIH staff was the agreement that submission of non-competing applications via e-SNAP will be suspended until business practices redesign and new technology is available.

Long Term Recommendations

To complement these activities, the Working Group agreed to organize itself into two subgroups: The Interface Specifications subgroup will focus on the functionality in the existing NIH Commons to ensure that the existing Commons modules will serve the community adequately while the new architecture of the system is being developed. The information will form a basis for enhanced functionality to be included in version 2 of the Commons.

A second subgroup will be devoted to the grant application process. The first effort of this applications subgroup will be to conduct a thorough analysis of non-competing awards. Out of this analysis they expect to make recommendations for changing existing grants policy to streamline the non-competing applications; then they will turn to the R01 application process. Proposed changes will be reviewed for endorsement by NIH staff, and the changed policy and procedures will be incorporated into future eRA system iterations.

The next Commons Working Group meeting will be held in the late Spring, likely in conjunction with the FDP meeting to held in Washington, DC in May.

Extramural Training (X-Train) Application Pilot Deployment Underway

Final steps are underway for the pilot deployment of the Extramural Training (X-Train) application, a module of the NIH Commons. Several institutions represented on the NIH Commons Working Group (CWG) have expressed interest and will be the first to participate in the pilot. Once deployment to these institutions occurs within the next several weeks, the pilot will be expanded to include institutions that have been using the electronic Form 2271 system. A third phase of the pilot, tentatively scheduled to begin by the end of the year, will invite all current NIH Commons-registered institutions to participate.

The Web-based X-Train Version 1.5 enables grantee institutions to capture information about trainees who receive National Research Service Awards (NRSA). X-Train establishes an end-to-end communication between the NIH and grantees regarding trainee appointments, reappointments, and terminations. Based on early feedback indicating a need to re-evaluate the number of signatures required, termination notices are not included in the initial phase of the pilot.

Demonstrations of X-Train received an eager welcome at the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) ERA VI Conference in August. Based on input from NCURA participants and from the CWG, the X-Train pilot phase will be used to maximize understanding of user requirements. The development team will use feedback from a limited population's evaluation of Version 1.5 to identify and finalize detailed system requirements for the Java-based X-Train Version 2.0, which they will design and develop in 2002.

X-Train provides electronic replacement for the Trainee Statement of Appointment (PHS 2271) and its automated version, Electronic Form 2271 (e2271). X-Train improves upon the e2271 by providing grantee institutions with continuous access to data after submission to the NIH. Grantees will continue to enjoy the ease and convenience of submitting appointments and termination notices to the NIH through the Internet. Status information provided by the X-Train application will electronically inform extramural program directors when to process reappointments and termination notices.

In addition to demographic information about trainees, X-Train tracks the duration of the training appointment; the amounts allocated to stipend, tuition, and travel; and the applicable training category. By replacing the Discipline Specialty Field (DSF) with the enhanced Field of Training (FOT) coding system, X-Train will provide a more exact method of categorizing training on training reports.

Input on training activities related to eRA should be directed to Dr. Walter Schaffer at 301-435-2687 or by email at schaffew@od.nih.gov.

eRA Reaches Out to NCURA Conference Participants

Enthusiasm for eRA's products and plans was evident at the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) Electronic Research Administration (ERA) VI Conference, held August 16-19 in Portland, Oregon. The annual conference, which attracts more than 500 attendees from universities and institutions, was themed "Stop Talking and Start Doing" this year.

More than half of the conference participants visited the eRA booth staffed by NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) personnel. Demonstrations of the Extramural Training (X-Train) application [see Extramural Training (X-Train) Application Pilot Deployment Underway in this issue] and information about the NIH Commons were provided. "The response was supportive and positive," said Scarlett Gibbs, User Support Branch.

Interagency Edison (I-Edison) Receives Recognition from U.S. Air Force Users

The Air Force Research Laboratory's Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) extolled the benefits of the Interagency Edison (I-Edison) system in the August 2001 issue of Leading Edge, a publication of the Air Force Materiel Command. AFOSR representatives note that the ability for grantees to self-report inventions in the I-Edison database has resulted in reduced paperwork, time and cost savings for federal staff, increased data accuracy, and greater reporting compliance. I-Edison also enables the NIH and other grant-making agencies to highlight the positive results of federally funded research and facilitates the transfer of technology from the research laboratory to the commercial and public sectors.

As you may know, I-Edison, a Web-based invention reporting and tracking system developed in 1995 by the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER), enables federal grantees, contractors, and participating federal agencies to electronically manage extramural invention portfolios. Currently, 13 federal agencies have adopted the I-Edison system, and the U.S. Forest Service is expected to be added shortly.

The impetus for I-Edison was the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which requires grantees to report inventions and patents that result from federally funded research. With I-Edison, intellectual property tracking starts before the grant or contract process ends. Both the grantee/contractor organization and federal staff can access invention records in a real-time, interactive setting. Authorized users from the grantee/contractor organization can access only their own organization's invention records and can query the database to generate reports based on their organization's data. After a grantee or contractor enters a new invention disclosure in I-Edison, a tickler system automatically provides a reminder at system sign-on of time-sensitive reporting requirements and decisions.

At the request of AFOSR, John Salzman of OER provided an I-Edison briefing and hands-on instruction for Aerospace Research and Development (EOARD) staff in England in mid-September. Mr. Salzman will provide training to Air Force staff in Japan later this fall.

I-Edison demonstrates the success of interagency cooperation in streamlining grants administration and in presenting a "common face" to the extramural grantee community. The system is slated for incorporation into the Federal Commons, an electronic grants management gateway for federal grantees.

New Summary Statement Status Interface Planned for 4th Quarter

The development team for IMPAC II, the NIH enterprise-wide grants administration system, is working toward the November deployment of a new summary statement status interface in the NIH Commons. Users currently can view summary statements as straight text. When the new interface is implemented, NIH staff will be able to create summary statement "bodies" in Microsoft Word or WordPerfect, which supports rich-text features such as boldface, bullets, underline, italics, Greek characters, and tables. After the bodies are submitted to the IMPAC II database, summary statements can be generated in Adobe Acrobat portable document format (PDF). Any user who downloads the free Acrobat Reader from Adobe's website can view PDF files.

Application Scanning Update

eRA is moving ahead with plans to implement full scanning of all grant applications within the next year. The Project Team currently is exploring the optimal technology for accomplishing this goal. Approximately 500 grant applications were scanned this summer as eRA collaborated in pilot projects with various NIH institutes and the NIH Biomedical Engineering (BECON) and BioInformatics (BISTI) consortia.

Scanning is the first step on the path to accepting electronic grant applications by FY2003 as mandated by federal law. Taking advantage of scanning technology now will facilitate the development of business practices for receiving e-grants in the future. See Scanning: An Essential Step toward Handling e-Grants for background on the eRA scanning initiative.

The main objective is to have scanning as an option for any paper grants received in the future. Dr. Steven J. Hausman, Group Advocate for Scanning, is implementing several pilots to determine how scanned or electronic grant applications might be used. The pilots will explore what can work now, what gaps exist in current modules, and what changes need to be made to policy and business practices to better use the digital grant.

Pilots are underway to evaluate the use of scanned applications to create CD-ROMs for peer reviewers. This has been successfully accomplished with BECON grant applications for several years under the direction of Dr. Eileen Bradley of the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) and recently was expanded to BISTI. According to Dr. Bradley, reviewers have responded positively to the CD-ROMs. She also noted the potential for cost savings and improvement in the use of human resources. In May and June of this year, CD-ROMs containing all grant applications were distributed to 35 study sections.

One issue identified thus far regards conflicts of interest and the need to provide CD-ROMs tailored to individual reviewers. After electronic review is integrated into IMPAC II, NIH's grants management system, grants administration staff will be able to create CD-ROMs customized for each reviewer.

NCURA and Federal Demonstration Partnership Survey ERA Usage

Last winter, the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) and the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) asked their memberships to respond to a Web-based survey on the status of electronic research administration (ERA) at their institutions. Feedback from 299 respondents, most of whom are affiliated with colleges or universities, provided valuable insight into whether factors such as an institution's size, type, or participation in FDP affect readiness to participate in ERA.

FDP members and institutions with the largest research volume generally have the most advanced electronic capabilities. Among all institutions, 60 percent of respondents can access online financial data or reports, while less than 25 percent can electronically prepare and store proposals or submit approval and routing forms. Although public and private institutions have comparable access to online financial data or reports, private institutions are slightly more able to prepare and store online proposals and to use electronic approval and routing forms.

Almost 80 percent of respondents rank their office technology resources as generally sufficient for current needs. Respondents at large-volume or private institutions reported the greatest range in satisfaction with technical support, hardware, and software.

Large-volume institutions and FDP members are more likely to have formal frameworks for incorporating ERA. Almost 60 percent of respondents report integrated development projects with vendors. Large, public institutions are more likely to employ vendors to develop or implement their ERA systems.

Although fewer than 30 percent of respondents have experienced difficulties with federal or private agency ERA systems, FDP institutions and the largest institutions reported more problems. Regardless of volume, institutions reported similar concerns about incorporating ERA: uncertain direction from federal agencies (24 percent), expense (23 percent), and insufficient institutional buy-in (18 percent). Only 15 percent of respondents see little need to proceed with ERA.