eRA STEERING COMMITTEE MINUTES
MAY 17, 2001

Attendees:
Yvonne DuBuy, NCDCR
Gahan Breithaupt, NINDS
Ed Donahue, NHLBI
Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., OER
John McGowan, Ph.D., OER
Alan Graeff, CIT
Martha Pine, Executive Secretary

Members absent:
Marvin Cassman, Ph.D., NIGMS
Marvin Kalt, Ph.D., NCI
Ellie Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., CSR

Guests present:
Brent Stanfield, Ph.D., CSR (for Ellie Ehrenfeld, Ph.D.)
Dona Lenkin, Office of the CIO

Dr. Wendy Baldwin served as chairperson in the absence of Dr. Cassman. She noted that the attendees had been given a draft of a revised charter for the eRA Steering Committee, explaining that the NIH IT Board of Governors (BOG) had recently decided to standardize several parts of the charters of the various enterprise IT steering committees. The changes largely affected the sections concerning who could vote, what would constitute a majority vote, and whose presence would count toward a quorum. The Committee approved the revised draft. The next step will be to seek approval for the charter from the NIH Chief Information Officer and the Acting Director, NIH. (Note: Subsequent to this meeting, the charter was again slightly revised to reflect editorial changes suggested by the NIH Executive Secretariat. The final revised version is attached at the end of the minutes.)

After Dr. Baldwin turned the meeting over to Dr. McGowan, he made an extensive presentation to provide updates on a number of aspects of the eRA effort. (http://impac2.nih.gov/pm/steercom051901.ppt, url provided for the PowerPoint presentation.) Dr. McGowan began by reporting on the extensive positive feedback that he and the project team had received concerning the May 10 eRA Enterprise Workshop. Among the features of IMPAC II that received positive comments was the introduction of the so-called "Grant Folder" to a number of the modules. Many staff felt that this would be a very useful feature. Dr. McGowan said that the workshop had reinforced the idea that the Federal Commons, the NIH Commons, IMPAC II and IC extension systems are all part of one electronic research administration continuum.

Referring to the slide 5, Dr. McGowan reported that hiring onto the project remains ahead of schedule. He also reported on slide 6 that the data quality contract had been awarded to Quantum and that the IV and V contract was being negotiated with a June award date probable. In addition, he is negotiating with ORACLE about their possibly providing a very talented person to assist the NIH for 4 to 6 months with some critical tasks. These might include devising one log in for all IMPAC II modules and linking current IMPAC II functions into one package that could be useful to both program staff and budget staff.

Dr. McGowan also reminded the Committee that the on-line newsletter "Inside eRA for Partners" was now available to all NIH principal investigators (slide 9). Referring to slide 10, Dr. McGowan pointed out that the project is seeking volunteers to help with OD Operations and Progress Reports, both crosscutting functionality.

Dr. McGowan then briefly summarized the discussions held at the May 16 Commons Advisory Workgroup meeting. They had seen the same presentation of the concept of flexible role designations that Dr. McGowan had presented at the NIH eRA Enterprise Workshop. This concept would allow the grantee institutions flexibility in assigning specific roles regarding access to and use of the Commons. The Workgroup also discussed the move to J2EE architecture and the use of portal technology to build a transaction alert system. As an aside, Dr. McGowan explained that the eRA project will have to migrate all IMPAC II modules to the J2EE architecture over a period of time, but that in the meantime, the project plans to use some computer tools that will give the user the new look and feel even prior to the conversion of all of the modules. (Slide 23 highlights some aspects of the J2EE architecture.)

Dr. McGowan then spent a few minutes demonstrating the portal technology to which he had earlier alluded. He said the goal is to have this operational in 2003 or 2004. The sample portal page he displayed might be used by a program director to easily see lists of grants in his/her portfolio pending review, pending award, and pending sign-off and to examine the IRG meeting dates and rosters that s/he needs to be aware of. The advantages of portal technology include the fact that it is web-based so is not tied to the employee's desktop p.c.; it is a way to gather important information into one convenient package; and both the external community and the NIH could see the same data in real time. (Slides 25-46)

Referring to slide 47, Dr. McGowan then explained that attendees at the May 10 workshop had urged the project team to think about several key areas, among them considering adapting the NIMH grant close-out extension system for broader use in IMPAC II. This is being actively studied, although one issue of concern is that the system was programmed using ColdFusion, which in previous releases was not compliant with J2EE architecture. If the study suggests pursuing this, it may be possible to add grant closeout functionality in FY2002. Workshop attendees also urged the eRA project team to consider trying to incorporate some of the attractive features of the NCI, NHLBI and NIAID extension systems into the ICO portion of IMPAC II. Doing this might save many ICs a good deal of money and may greatly enhance use of IMPAC II itself. Similarly, workshop attendees urged IMPAC II project management to consider adapting some aspects of the coding and reporting functionality of the STARS and PARIS systems into IMPAC II. Dr. McGowan said that this might be doable as part of the revisions to the IRDB. He said that the project team will seriously consider the possibilities for taking advantage of the excellent ideas and functionality of a number of these IC extension systems as plans for the project and the related budgets are developed for FY2003.

Dr. McGowan next asked the Committee if they preferred the Gantt chart display of progress toward completing the budget priority areas that the Committee had endorsed or if they would like a chart that simply displays projected completion dates. The Committee endorsed the Gantt chart approach, with members explaining that they felt these displays might better show progress toward the scheduled completion date. They reiterated that they would also like to know if each budget priority area is moving toward completion within budget. The Committee also suggested that the Project send to EPMC members, Executive Officers and IC Directors lists of the participants in all of the various Project efforts, in order to remind key staff about the level of involvement with the eRA project, and the communication avenues to the eRA project open to each IC.

Dr. McGowan discussed the idea of giving awards to appropriate staff in those ICs whose extension systems have been or may be leveraged into use in the eRA effort. Among these are the Internet-assisted peer review tool (NIAID), the electronic Council book (NIEHS) and the Query View and Reports tool (NIMH). The Committee thought that this might be a good idea and that presenting these at an EPMC meeting made sense.

Slides 55-59 present some key recommendations and areas of discussions that surfaced at the May 16 Commons Advisory Workgroup meeting. The recommendations include:

• adopting the DUNNS numbers to identify institutions; and
• using one profile, a so-called "single point of ownership," for each principal
• investigator with accompanying flexibility for one proxy.

The Workgroup also discussed whether to change the nature of grant progress reports to simply reflect scientific progress with no budget report and no institutional signoff. The Workgroup decided to discuss this again at the August meeting. Also discussed was the possibility of unlinking from the progress reports the certifications and assurances. Instead certifications and assurances would be handled at the institutional level with any change in these raised and reported whenever there is a change or an "event" that triggers added dialogue and scrutiny. Because of the significant changes in the way the NIH conducts its grant business implicit in these Commons Advisory Workgroup discussions, the Project Team is summarizing the ideas and discussing them in various NIH venues, including the PROG, the EPMC, RPC and GMAC. A "white paper" may be prepared before the August Commons Workgroup meeting. Another possibility being considered is holding a consensus conference, so that a more broad-based discussion of these significant ideas/issues could be held.

Dr. McGowan then turned the Committee's attention to the two handouts regarding the movement to IMPAC II as the sole repository for grant summary statements. One handout, entitled "IC Usage of IMPAC I Summary Statement Notification and Distribution," captures IC responses to a recent survey designed to capture important information about IMPAC I use and IMPAC II functionality. The other handout, entitled "Summary Statement Phase-in," delineates progress toward and plans for achieving the full transition to use of IMPAC II for summary statement uploads and retrieval. Dr. McGowan conceded that there are some difficulties remaining, such as printing and tying some other important functionality to IMPAC II, that will have a bearing of whether the goal of October 1, 2001, implementation can be met. He said that he could report further on these at the next steering committee meeting. The Committee members asked that he also clarify what the ICs' responsibilities are to prepare to be ready to meet the target date.

Dr. McGowan said that he would send to the Committee members the narrative he had prepared in response to the FARB's request to the CIO and the BOG to transmit budget options should the hoped for FY2002 and FY2003 budgets need to be reduced by either 5% or 10%. Dr. McGowan said that the narrative explains that the effect would be delay of some important functionality and increased costs.

After praising Dr. McGowan for his leadership, energy, and vision, as well as for the many accomplishments of the eRA project since he took over the Project Manager's position, the Committee then asked whether the scope of the project had grown so large and was so demanding that the Committee and Dr. McGowan needed to think about whether or not other resources are now needed to help manage the project. The steering Committee thought that so much is vested in him as the project manager, in essence as a "one person show," that this might no longer be appropriate. A number of the attendees felt that the project is vulnerable with so much resting on one person's shoulders. Dr. McGowan said that he is considering having a deputy project manager, but that finding the right person would be a major challenge. Also the structure of the project continues to take shape decreasing the level of commitment required during the last year and that additional contract staff are coming on board to help with some of the management aspects of the project.