Inside eRA for Partners, July 7, 2005 (Volume 5, Issue 3)

June/July Electronic Grant Application Pilot Completed

eRA just completed its sixth receipt cycle for accepting electronic applications through the electronic Competing Grants Application Process (eCGAP). Prospective grantees submitted 24 e-applications for the June 1 deadline and 19 applications for the July 1 deadline.

For the first time, NIH permitted e-applications for consortia and sub-contracts with modular budgets. eCGAP will support full-budget submissions for consortia and sub-contracts at a later date. As in previous cycles, the June/July pilot was limited to R01, R03 and R21 grant mechanisms. Responses to Program Announcements (PAs) and Requests for Applications (RFAs) were permissible; however, NIH did not accept electronic submissions involving a change of principal investigator (PI) or institution. 

Since eCGAP pilots began in 2003, more than 30 institutions nationwide have submitted 191 applications through service providers. The number of e-applications is expected to grow dramatically as NIH supports more grant types, and service providers recruit new clients. In addition, some institutions are waiting for NIH to accept e-applications through Grants.gov, and some service providers are developing system-to-system interfaces with Grants.gov for NIH applications.

Update on eRA/Grants.gov Integration

For the past year, NIH has worked to integrate eRA with Grants.gov, the main federal Web site for finding and applying for grants. When integration is complete, applicants for NIH grants will have the option to use the PureEdge™ downloadable electronic grant application forms available at Grants.gov. 

Members of the Commons Working Group (CWG) participated in the first round of user acceptance testing between Grants.gov and NIH. On May 25, CWG volunteers submitted Grants.gov forms with previously submitted application data to simulate applying for NIH grants through the federal site. Participants provided valuable feedback on the draft application guide.

December 2005 is the target for the first opportunity for NIH grantees to apply for NIH grants through Grants.gov. At that time, the eRA eXchange also will begin to retrieve applications for other Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) submitted through Grants.gov.

Transition to New Standard Form 424 Research and Related

The federal site requires the use of the SF 424 Research and Related (R&R) forms family, which was developed by a multi-agency Grants.gov work group and approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). NIH currently uses the Public Health Service (PHS) 398 application form but plans to adopt the new standard forms set in the future. Since the 424 R&R does not capture all the data required by NIH, eRA and Grants.gov have created PHS-specific forms and schema to supplement the new federal form.

eRA recently established the 424RR Transition Working Group, comprising NIH and OPDIV representatives, to develop a plan to transition from the PHS 398 to the SF 424 R&R. The group currently is considering several strategies.

eCGAP Plans for FY 2006

As of now, eRA plans to provide support for the following new capabilities:

• System-to-system Notice of Grant Award (NGA) from NIH to institutions (first major outgoing transaction)        
• System-to-system Non-competing Application Process (SNAP) progress report submission        
• Institutional profile (IPF) update        
• Retrieval of data from eRA database by grantee institutions        
• Corrections to e-applications (including changes to structured data, full substitution, addenda and replacement of PDF attachments)        
• Digital signatures        
• Consolidated rules processor for validating e-applications

For more information on e-grants, go to http://era.nih.gov/Projectmgmt/SBIR/sbir_grants.htm or contact eCGAP task leader Jennifer Flach at flachj@mail.nih.gov.

eCGAP Team Wins DHHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service

The NIH electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (eCGAP) team, under the leadership of eRA Analyst Jennifer Flach, has won the prestigious Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) 2005 Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service. The Department honored the team for its contribution to medical discovery and science management at a special awards ceremony on May 25.

“Every year the Department honors its employees who play a role in improving and enhancing the quality of life for every person in our country,” stated DHHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt. “They represent the best of HHS and their accomplishments deserve our appreciation.”  

Dr. Israel Lederhendler, director of the Office of Electronic Research and Reports Management, offered his sincere congratulations. “Your efforts and dedication have initiated the next era in DHHS grants management.”

Fifteen NIH employees from four Institutes/Centers received recognition for their role in using information technology to reduce the costs of research grants administration to research institutions and the federal government.

Over the past two years, the members of the eCGAP team have been responsible for planning and supervising the development, testing and implementation of an electronic grants-receipt system. When planned systems are fully deployed, eRA will save 200 million pieces of paper per year and countless hours of human effort. These savings mean more money and more time to dedicate to scientific discovery.

In his message of congratulations, Dr. Lederhendler gave credit to eRA’s contractor personnel. “This important award goes to federal staff, but I would like to recognize the critical contributions of our contract staff that made this accomplishment possible.” He also thanked other contributors to the eCGAP effort who earned honorable mention:

Ammar Albadarneh, Laheeb Alsarraf, Jim Cain, Sushma Chand, Ngoc Cao, Mendus Chelapurath, Raghunath Chintalapati, (Asif) Muhammad Chowdhury, Alex Coleman, Krishna Collie, Sheri Cummins, Al D'Amico, Glen Evans, Vickie Fadeley, Rick Falls, Steve Fitzgerald, David George, Dan Hall, Choudhury Hasan, Steve Hughes, Abhi Jain, Sandra Karen, Param Kompella, Izja Lederhendler, Richard Liu, Peter Liu, Kelly Long, Peggy Lynch, JJ Maurer, Gerald Momplaisir, Madeline Monheit, George (Skip) Moyer, Christopher Myers, Edward Myrbeck, Ramesh Nagella, Kalpesh Patel, Raghavan Peketi, Valerie Prenger, Harsha Rao, Brad Sachar, Jody Schraden, Sandy Seppala, Li-Ming Shen, George Shi, Sara Silver, Everett Sinnett, Brad Sneade, Stephanie Song, Vishal Sood, Tracy Soto, Carin Sprick, Don Stallone, Melissa Stick, Manju Subramanya, Ashique Tanveer, Jean Taylor, Jim Tucker, Tim Twomey, Cecilia Vann, Nancy Waters, Janna Wehrle, Changqing Zhen, and Sherry Zucker.

The Departmental Awards ceremony was held on Wednesday, May 25 at 2:00 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building.

Outcomes of May Commons Working Group Meeting

The Commons Working Group (CWG) met with eRA staff and e-application service providers to discuss ongoing activities related to the electronic submission and processing of grant applications. The meeting took place on Sunday, May 22, 2005 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the National Academies of Science in Washington, D.C. 

NIH held its CWG meeting in conjunction with the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) Phase IV General Meeting on May 23–24. To view presentations at the FDP meeting, go to http://thefdp.org/Meeting_May2005.html.

Agenda Items

• One-View Process

One View is an integrated approach that will enable all Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) extramural staff and grantee users ––grants specialists, scientific review administrators, program officials, principal investigators, signing officials and others–– to interact with the eRA system in the same way. They will use the same or similar interfaces and facilities to display, search, and report on grants administration data, receive notifications, enter requests, and execute transactions.

One View has three primary components: 1) single logon for all eRA applications, including the eRA Commons; 2) single method for notification of actions and events, both internally and externally; 3) single interface to initiate and process a request, regardless of context.

eRA Analyst Dan Hall demonstrated the prototype system. NIH would like CWG input; therefore, eRA will make the prototype available for testing and create a demo on the Commons Web site prior to the initial release. One View is planned for production in January 2006.

• X-Train Update

In preparation for reintroducing X-Train, the NIH Commons interface for tracking National Research Service Awards training appointments, eRA had requested that the CWG evaluate the prototype. In general, comments were favorable. eRA responses to CWG questions are available at http://era.nih.gov/Docs/X-Train_UI_CWG_05-22-05.pdf.

• Public Access

See full article in this issue.

• Commons Update

There were three new releases this spring; the most current is Commons 2.7.2. Notable enhancements include:

• Ability to see electronic submission errors through the Status interface.            
• eSNAP support for the optional entry of only the last four digits of the Social Security Number.            
• Alignment of Internet Assisted Review (IAR) fonts and colors with the rest of the Commons.            
• Link from the IAR Meeting Materials screen to the List of Applications screen.            
• IAR batch emails to reviewers.            
• IAR creation of MS Word pre-Summary Statement files for subprojects.            
• Ability for discussants to upload critiques in the IAR READ phase.            
• Capability to submit closeout documents, i.e., the Final Invention Statement (FIS) and the Final Progress Report (FPR), through the Status module. See NIH Guide Notice NOT-OD-05-051, issued on June 17.            
• A content management system for timely editing of Commons screens.            
• Improved error handling.            
• Integration with the NIH Manuscript System (NIHMS).

See full article on the NIHMS in this issue.

•  Organizational Hierarchy

eRA plans to replace current Commons role-based security with a more flexible rights-based security system. The new organizational hierarchy will accommodate each institution’s unique structure (i.e., schools/divisions/departments) and the many roles required by large institutions.

CWG members had the opportunity to provide their input to the project. Comments on the prototype are posted at era.nih.gov/Docs/Org_hierarchy_response_CWG_05-22-05.pdf.

• eCGAP Update

See full article in this issue.

• Multiple PI News

Earlier this year, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director John H. Marburger III announced new steps to promote multidisciplinary and collaborative research. In a January 11 news release, OSTP advised the NIH and other Federal departments and agencies to establish “appropriate policies to acknowledge more than one principal investigator (PI) when there is more than one collaborating investigator working on a Federally funded research project.” 

eRA support for multiple PIs will impact departmental ranking tables, apportionment of funds to PIs, grant applications, information systems, databases and reports.

NIH and OSTP plan to issue requests for information (RFIs). CWG members are encouraged to respond to the RFIs, which will appear in the NIH Guide (http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/index.html) and the Federal Register (http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/).

• New Assurances in Institutional Profile 

See full article in this issue.

Since its formation in January 2001, the CWG has played a critical role in shaping, evaluating and fine-tuning eRA electronic interfaces to the extramural NIH grantee community.

CWG meetings are open to all interested persons. For more information, contact David Wright at david.wright@nih.gov or 301-435-1792. CWG meeting minutes are posted at on the eRA Web site.

Using the New NIH Manuscript Submission System

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the eRA have developed a password-protected, Web-based, NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system to implement the new NIH Public Access (PA) policy. This policy requests and strongly encourages all NIH-funded investigators to make their peer-reviewed final manuscripts available to the public in the NLM’s PubMed Central (PMC). Ideally, manuscripts will be available in PMC as soon as they are published in journals.

The NIHMS system is available at http://nihms.nih.gov. Principal investigators (PIs) must be registered in the Commons to log in to the system. If a PI is not yet registered, he/she can create an unaffiliated Commons account by following the “Create new account” link. Unaffiliated accounts do not provide access to the full range of Commons’ services.

Required Input for the NIHMS

• Journal name  
• Manuscript title  
• PI name and email address  
• NIH grant number(s)  
• Manuscript and graphic files in the same format used to submit to the publisher (e.g., Microsoft (MS) Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Joint Photographic Expert Group (jpg), Tagged Image File (tif), WordPerfect, Portable Document Format (PDF))

Manuscript Submission Process for the PI

1. Go to the NIHMS at http://www.nihms.nih.gov.   
2. Select the appropriate login option (“eRA Commons” for grantees or “NIH” for intramural staff).  
3. Provide required information: the journal title, manuscript title, PI name and email address, and associated NIH grant number(s).   
4. Upload the complete text of the manuscript(s).  
5. Upload supplemental, high-resolution image files for figures, tables, etc.  
6. Review the receipt issued by the NIHMS. The receipt will show data entered as well as the uploaded files merged into one PDF document.  
7. Verify that the data and manuscript are correct. Agree to a Submission Statement that includes setting the delay period for public release of the manuscript.  
8. Review the manuscript in XML format. NIH will convert the manuscript into XML, the standard digital format used by PMC.  
9. After PI approval, the NLM will post the manuscript in the PMC on the date designated by the PI.

Note: Beginning July 6, 2005, others may upload a manuscript on behalf of the PI; however, the PI still must approve the Submission Statement (complete steps 7-9).

For more information, see the NIH Public Access Policy Authors’ Manual.

Verify Your Commons PPF eMail Address

Ensure that the NIH can contact you quickly by keeping the email address in your Commons Personal Profile (PPF) up to date. Recently, NIH sent an important message about a mailer error to 600 principal investigators (PIs). Ten percent of the messages bounced back because of incorrect addresses.

Valid email addresses are the foundation of eRA’s future e-notification system. See article in previous issue. In April, eRA began a Phase I pilot of its new e-Notification system for NIH extramural staff and the grantee community. Version 1 includes the infrastructure and administrative facility to support electronic notification of seven grants-related business events. Paperless notification is key to achieving the eRA mission of reducing the costs of grants administration to all stakeholders.

Registered Commons users can verify and update their email address through the Personal Profile module:

1. Select the Personal Profile tab, then the Personal Information option.     
2. Verify your email address. It is a required field.     
3. Update your email address if necessary.     
4. Select Submit.     
5. Select Personal Profile to return to the previous screen.

To participate in the e-notification system, grantees must be registered in the Commons. Since only 65-70 percent of awardees currently are Commons users, an increase in registration is vital to realize the full benefits of the new system. If you are interested in registering, notify the Sponsored Research Office (or equivalent) at your institution.

For more information, contact the Commons Helpdesk at commons@od.nih.gov or call 866-504-9552 (toll free), Monday through Friday from 7a.m.–8 p.m. EST.

New Assurances Require Institutions to Update IPF

NIH has added three new assurances and reworded two others in the Commons institutional profile (IPF). Soon, NIH will notify institution signing officials (SOs) to log in to the Commons to update their IPF. They must check off the three new assurances before their institution can submit progress reports through the electronic Simplified Noncompeting Application Process (eSNAP).

The new assurances and revised text are part of changes to the Competing Public Health Service Grant Application (PHS 398) and the Noncompeting Progress Report for a Public Health Service Grant (PHS 2590) forms, approved by the Office of Management and Budget in September 2004. 

The three new assurances are: Smoke-free Workplace; Prohibited Research; and Select Agents and Toxins. “Human Subjects” is now “Human Subject Research;” and “Recombinant DNA Research” is now “Recombinant DNA Research, including Human Gene Transfer Research.”

To update the IPF, the SO should:

1. Log in to the Commons (https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/).  
2. Click Institution Profile on the blue navigation bar.  
3. Click Assurances & Certifications on the second blue navigation bar.  
4. Click Edit, which is above and to the right of the assurances list.  
5. Check the unchecked boxes for the new assurances.  
6. Click the Submit button.

Information about the assurances included in the PHS 398 and PHS 2590 forms are in the Assurances & Certifications section of the Policies, Assurances, Definitions document located on the NIH Web site: http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html. 

If you have questions, contact the eRA Commons Helpdesk at commons@od.nih.gov.