Inside eRA, May 1, 2001

NIH Workshop on Extramural Enterprise & Extension Systems at Natcher on May 10, 2001

NIH will host a workshop on Extramural Enterprise and Extension Systems on May 10, 2001 from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm at the Natcher Conference Center. The purpose of the workshop is to showcase IMPAC II modules that support our business practices and to demonstrate extension systems developed by the ICs that may be adaptable by other ICs. eRA Group Advocates will be available at workshop sessions to demonstrate their respective modules and to answer questions and solicit feedback. Demonstrations of various modules will cycle throughout the day.

Goals of the workshop are to review current and planned NIH IC extension systems that share two key requirements:

• support business practices that are common among the ICs    
• developed using software enabling them to be easily adapted by other ICs

The format of the workshop will include continuous demonstrations of the extension systems from 10:15 am through 2:00 pm with a break of one hour at noon for lunch. Each extension system will have a prepared presentation on the hour or the half hour followed by discussion sessions with the workshop participants

Systems to be demonstrated include:

• STARS-NINR    
• SCIMAX-NIDCR    
• Electronic Review -NIAID    
• Electronic Contracts Management System - NIAID    
• ECB, QVR system, and CAM - CIT    
• TABS - NHLBI    
• NEPSS - NIDA    
• SRPD - NINDS    
• Referral and Financial Management Systems - NCI

ESA credit and Grants Management Certification credit are offered for attending. Advanced registration is encouraged. For more information, contact Felicia Shingler at ShingleF@od.nih.gov). Additional information on the program is available at http://era.nih.gov/workshop

Robust eRA Test Environment Planned

The technical staff responsible for the hardware infrastructure is investigating upgrading the backend hardware. The purpose of this upgrade is two-fold -- to ensure a highly-available infrastructure for OLTP and IRDB and to create a test/development environment that closely simulates the production environment.

The problems encountered during the ORACLE 8i migration demonstrated the necessity of establishing an infrastructure for testing that parallels the production environment. Fortunately, the technical staff was already working on a hardware upgrade plan to improve the production, test and development environments.

Over the next several weeks, the proposal for a major hardware upgrade for the production platform will be finalized. Once this new hardware is in place, the present production hardware will become the operating system and application test environment. In addition, technicians are investigating software tools for production workload simulation. There are plans to solicit input from the user community as the design of the test platform evolves.

NIH Commons Architecture Tools

J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) was recently selected as the architectural model for the redesign of the NIH Commons. Information on eRA J2EE project management will be available on the eRA website in the near future. For more information on the new Commons architecture, refer to the last issue of Inside eRA and to the two draft documents available online on the eRA website: J2EE Technology Overview and Platform and Tools Recommendations or contact George Stone.

IMPAC II Training

As decided by the Steering Committee, IMPAC II training is now being made available through the Human Resource Development Division (HRDD). An increasingly comprehensive program of hands-on IMPAC II training is available at its Executive Plaza South facility. The training function was formerly funded and executed by the eRA Project. At present, this function has been transferred to HRDD with costs reimbursed by the institutes and centers.

The Grants Management module was recently added to the regular curriculum that currently includes Committee Management and Peer Review. Institute Center Operations, CRISP Plus, and xView applications QuickView, TechView and PowerView will also be available on an "as needed" basis.

The following one-day IMPAC II courses are offered during the 3rd quarter of FY 2001:

To register for a class, submit a training nomination through your institute or center using the NIH Integrated Training System (NIHITS). HRDD will confirm your enrollment by email no later than two weeks prior to the class. You may withdraw from a course up to four weeks before the start date without penalty. For more information on electronic registration, call the NIHITS II Help Line on 301-496-4556

A list of available courses will be published each quarter in Inside eRA. For comprehensive course descriptions and schedules, visit the HRDD web site at http://learningsource.od.nih.gov/. IMPAC II classes are listed in the "Computer Applications and Systems" category. To request a new class or to customize or arrange on-site classes for your organization, please contact HRDD at 301-496-6211 or email training1@od.nih.gov.

As an adjunct or alternative to formal classroom instruction, the eRA Project Team plans to develop web-accessible Computer-Based Training (CBT). According to User Support Branch Chief Tim Twomey, the first candidates for CBT will be Percentiling, Subprojects and Peer Review.

IMPAC II Documentation

Extensive systems and applications documentation is currently available to the IMPAC II community. Visit the IMPAC II online library at http://odoerdb2.od.nih.gov/oer/impac/doc/doc.htm to access general information, user guides, release notes, installation instructions and miscellaneous "how to" documentation. Most of the files at this site are in PDF format, requiring the Adobe Acrobat reader.

Version 6.0.0.0 of the TechView Volume I Manual is now available online (1700 pages). You can print TechView documents centrally at CIT by clicking on the "View/Print on Demand" link. There is a discounted rate for printing at off-peak hours. Note that you will need a CIT RACF account and password to use this function.

To request that a new document be added to the IMPAC II library, please contact the IMPAC II Help Desk at 301-402-7469 or e-mail Tim Twomey.

Look for Changes in IC Operations (ICO)

The March release of IC Operations (ICO) introduced the functionality of Council Resume Reporting and set the stage for the May release of the Subproject Maintenance module. In addition, all dual ICs can now enter Council Actions and Priorities. Prior to this release, users could only make these entries for the grant's primary and main dual IC. With the planned May ICO release, the Subproject Maintenance module will allow users to mark awarded subprojects, edit existing subprojects, create new subprojects and validate subproject data.

The ICO Module is used by Program Officials for managing their portfolio as well as for reviewing and signing off on awards. IC Referral Officers also use ICO for making Program Class Code and Program Official assignments to grant applications. Users in the Grant Payment Management area utilize the module for setting "to-be-paid" codes and "intent-to-pay-amounts" that allow for additional detailed reporting and budget tracking.

The ICO module also contains the common Grant Update Module ( GUM) that allows authorized users to make changes to certain IMPAC fields. Access to the different functions in ICO is granted based on the user's role and enforced by security rules.

Consideration is being given to splitting ICO into separate DEA and Program modules. Future issues of Inside eRA will track this discussion. Input on present or future iterations of ICO should be directed to Bud Erickson, the eRA Project Team Group Advocate for Program at berickso@exchange.nih.gov. For details on the most recent changes to ICO, see the release notes dated 3/16/2001 at http://odoerdb2.od.nih.gov/oer/impac/doc/ico_rn_2720.pdf.

NIH Commons Working Group Meeting Scheduled in Washington on May 16, 2001

Plans are being finalized for the next meeting of the NIH Commons Working Group (CWG). The CWG, comprised of representatives of grantee organizations and NIH staff, studies requirements, performs analysis and makes recommendations for the continued development of the Commons portion of the NIH eRA system.

The May 16 meeting of the CWG will take place in conjunction with the Federal Demonstration Project (FDP) meeting being held in Washington DC. The daylong CWG meeting will be divided into two sessions. The morning will be devoted to a discussion of the NIH Commons interface specifications including an update on the status of the architecture for the next version of the Commons and an assessment of plans for development and deployment. This assessment will provide a basis for further discussion of functional requirements for future versions of the Commons. The afternoon will be devoted to an analysis of changes to policy and procedures for noncompeting applications over the past ten years. CWG members will suggest ways to further improve noncompeting progress reporting such that future versions of the Commons will incorporate a more streamlined business process.

The meeting is open to all interested parties. Contact George Stone for further details.

Transition in User Support for Electronic 2271 System

Since 1996, twelve grantee institutions have used a pilot system designed to accommodate the electronic submission of Statement of Appointment Form 2271 data. This is a first-generation system that is targeted to be replaced by "X-TRAIN" later in FY2001. The grantee institutions registered to use the existing system are Baylor College of Medicine, Duke University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State University, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Francisco, Florida A&M University, North Carolina State University, Johns Hopkins University, Ohio State University, Notre Dame University, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Effective May 1, 2001, support for this pilot system will be transferred to the eRA User Support Desk at 1-866-504-9552 or helpdesk@od.nih.gov.

At the same time, the pilot system will be shifted to a new, more stable server. Please note that no new users will be registered to this system. Once X-TRAIN is deployed, new users will be accepted.

Stay tuned for more details on the deployment of the new X-TRAIN system later this year.

Budget Submission to the Board of Governors (BOG)

eRA's budget submission to the Board of Governors for FY 2002 and FY2003 did not request any budget changes. The budget is the same as projected in the planning document submitted to the BOG in FY2000. eRA supported the CIT request to obtain additional funding to build the required infrastructure for the enterprise systems.

Other Information

NOTICE: If you would like to participate in a user group, functional implementation team or JAD, please contact the group advocate for that area. We welcome people interested in helping us improve the system.