eRA Steering Committee
Minutes

December 21, 2000

Attendees:
Marvin Cassman, Ph.D., NIGMS, Chair
Allen Spiegel, M.D., NIDDK
Yvonne deBuy, NIDCR
Ellie Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., CSR
Marvin Kalt, Ph.D., NCI
Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., OER
John McGowan, Ph.D., NIAID/OER
Ed Donohue, NHLBI
Dona Lenkin, CIT (for Al Graeff)
Martha Pine, NIGMS, Executive Secretary

Member Absent: Gahan Breithaupt, NINDS

Dr. Cassman began the meeting by asking that Dr. McGowan provide the committee with an update on any eRA activities of note. Dr. McGowan explained that he was pleased to announce that several new technical staff has been brought onto the project, all of which will play meaningful roles. These new hires include Ani Dutta of Silicon Sprit Consulting Group. Mr. Dutta is an expert in systems architecture and Web business systems and will use this expertise to help design the basic structure of the NIH Commons. Dr. McGowan paused to mention that the Commons team has focused on a number of technologies to develop a scaleable Web technology, provide for a thin client, and allow migration of the Commons and make partnering easier with other organizations. WebLogic is one of the technologies that will be closely examined. The current architecture and design of the Commons is not sustainable for scale up. The current Commons will remain up as a prototype and a decision will be made based on the recommendation from the Commons Advisory Group of whether to put any more developmental funds into the Commons for E-SNAP or X-TRAIN. Dr. McGowan personally believes that these modules will simply be maintained for the 1 ½ to 2 years that it will take to have the new Commons operational. Dr. McGowan reminded the group that this would be a departure from the recommendation of the attendees at the April 2000 review of the Commons. At that meeting, the attendees had suggested making these modules more robust and user friendly. However, the Project Management team realizes that investing in the older technology to undertake enhancements would be wasteful of precious resources. Dr. McGowan plans to explain this new approach at the January 23 meeting of the Federal Demonstration Project participants and he is confident that they will understand and agree to change course. Dr. McGowan agreed to provide a more extensive explanation of the plans for the new NIH Commons at the next meeting of the steering committee.

Other recent hires in order from longest to shortest on board are Ms. Carla Flora and Ms. Donna Frahm, both of whom bring IC experience relevant to the IMPAC II effort with them, Ms. Bobbie Spitzberg, formerly of CIT just hired last week, and Michael Ricardie, of NIDA, who is willing to volunteer 20-25% of his time on the eRA effort.

Dr. McGowan then turned to the status of the budget for this project. He explained that the fate of the FY2001 budget remains unclear. The Central Services Review Committee's decisions regarding the various central services budgets will be presented to and discussed at the January 18 IC Directors meeting. Until then, the eRA effort is only funding maintenance efforts. This led to a discussion of whether Dr. Cassman needed to be prepared for the January 18 meeting with some talking points that would be persuasive in demonstrating the need for the requested amount of funding. The Committee urged Dr. Cassman to reiterate that the eRA Steering Committee had carefully scrutinized the requests and made some reductions and that the IT Board of Governors had similarly examined the proposed budget with great care, prior to forwarding a budget to the CS Review Committee. Dr. Cassman asked Dr. McGowan to send him a few bullets explaining the significant increase in the budget for the Commons. The attendees agreed that it might be helpful for Dr. Cassman to secure an advance copy of any budget tables that may be sent to the IC Directors in advance of the January 18 meeting. If those tables break out figures for each of the IT enterprise systems, more specific questioning of Dr. Cassman might occur.

The steering committee next discussed the note that Dr. McGowan had prepared proposing how the project might have to operate in FY2001 if a level budget had been imposed, due to the then rumored full year level continuing resolution for the NIH. While this became moot with the passage of an appropriation for the NIH, he briefly explained Item 5, a new requirement emerging from a pressing need in the contracts community. By the end of FY2001, the NIH must meet a mandate to be able to report data on contracts to the department. Hence, some work on contracts data in IMPAC II and related reporting capability must be undertaken quickly.

Next Dr. McGowan referred the committee to the list of proposed members of an eRA Commons Working Group. This group will be composed of representatives from the institutions that will be the external partners with the NIH in conducting electronic business via the Commons. Dr. McGowan indicated that he hopes to add to the roster representatives from the small business community and some active investigators. Virtually all of the proposed members on the roster are institutional officials. A more balanced membership is essential to this effort.

Dr. Ehrenfeld asked Dr. McGowan about the goals of the scanning pilots underway in CSR, NCI, and NIAID. She expressed some concern about whether a comprehensive scanning effort in CSR would be a wise investment of resources. He explained that the principal goal is to try to prepare for electronic submission of grant applications and related materials. Not only do workflow implications need to be explored, but the technological implications of the effort must also be assessed. For example, storage capacity, band width, records management and security issues must be explored and tested. With regard to workflow, many ICs will want the pilots to demonstrate that scanning can simplify work processes and produce savings. Dr. McGowan indicated that we could capitalize on the infrastructure already established with IMPAC 2. With little effort every module would have the ability to pull up the scanned-in grant application. The scan would produce an OCR file that could be searched using Adobe Acrobat software. Once CSR is scanning in all applications they receive, many of the IMPAC II module screens will be modified to include a button that would trigger the user being able to read the application on their own computer screen. ICs may choose to avoid incurring charges for copies of grant applications. This will also make it much easier to deal with dual assignments because all ICs will have access to dual assigned applications electronically and could pull them up for funding or transfer if needed. Currently many ICs let dual assigned applications sit in boxes and have to dig through the boxes to find the few applications they may want to fund. Dr. McGowan indicated that another benefit of CSR's undertaking this full-fledged scanning effort is that it will help the institutes that receive their own applications to think through how they might want to mount similar efforts. The bottom line is that this scanning pilot will help the project prepare both the systems and the business rules for the subsequent eRA effort.

Dr. Spiegel asked whether the eRA project team had talked with outside entities that are conducting their business largely or exclusively through electronic means; he referenced, for example, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, which accepts only electronic publication submissions. Dr. McGowan said that he appreciated this suggestion and would consider visiting this journal as part of the project team's benchmarking electronic business practices with other organizations.

Dr. McGowan said that he is awaiting funds in order to undertake the Independent Verification and Validation (IV and V) contract that the steering committee has recommended. However, in order to be poised to do this, he has asked staff at CIT to help draft a statement of work and identify potential sources. The IV and V contractor will help the project managers examine the project plans, labor and cost estimates, and the like, so that the managers and the NIH community are assured that resources are being properly managed on this expensive eRA undertaking. Dr. McGowan suggested that this be among the bullets that Dr. Cassman carries with him to the January 18 IC Directors meeting discussion of the FY2001 funding of this system. Dr. Cassman agreed and also said that he would include a bullet on the strengthening of the project's internal administrative and management systems.

Dr. Cassman then asked the steering committee to offer suggestions about those areas to which the committee should devote attention in coming months. The suggestions included:

1. Reviewing the plans for how each of the priority areas will be carried out, the goals and associated timelines, and the resources committed to each of the areas;
2. Receiving regular updates about progress against the plans mentioned in 1 above;
3. Discussing the new vision for the Commons and plans for making the Commons happen; and
4. Receiving regular brief demonstrations of new IMPAC II functionality.

The Committee felt that, in addressing these topics, it would be meeting the expectations of the NIH community that the group oversee the project's management and direction. The Committee would remain on top of the people, tools, plans and accounting relevant to the eRA project. Dr. McGowan mentioned that he expects his own management team and the group advocates playing a part in this. He offered as one possibility having group advocates come to the steering committee meetings on occasion to present their vision of the future of "their" modules. This led to a brief discussion of whether the eRA Steering Committee can be expected to play a meaningful role in the culture change needed in the ICs in order to ensure that IMPAC II and eRA are truly embraced. Many committee members were skeptical about the committee's being able to make a difference in this regard. Dr. McGowan said that he hopes that the forum being organized by Dr. Thor Fjellstedt will spur the ICs to contemplate how to take more advantage of the eRA tools available. This forum, at which several IC IMPAC II extension systems will be demonstrated, is now being scheduled for the spring (a specific date has not been firmly established).

Dr. McGowan then explained that he and his staff would use the Microsoft Project Manager tool to lay out the plans and then to report the status of each priority area. He will guess at the level of granularity that the Steering Committee may be interested in. This can be modified with experience.

The next meeting of the eRA Steering Committee will be held at 2 p.m. on Thursday, January 18, in Room 2AS.10, of the Natcher Building.

12/29/2000 MQP

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