Inside eRA for Partners, June 11, 2003 (Volume 3, Issue 4)

Visit the New Virtual eRA School on the Web

Visit eRA’s new virtual school on the Web at http://era.nih.gov/virtualschool/ to try the Financial Status Report (FSR) tutorial, the first of many planned Web-based classes for NIH staff and grantees. eRA’s goal is to offer instruction to all users anywhere, at any time. The only requirement is access to the Internet. According to Patty Austin, “principal” of the virtual school, the Web-based tutorials will serve both as alternatives and supplements to on-the-job training and formal classroom instruction. 

The underlying technology for the virtual school is RoboDemo^® software, which enables the creation of animated, interactive simulations of user applications. RoboDemo records the instructional demonstration, including mouse clicks and keystrokes, as a high-resolution, compressed movie. Training staff can enhance the movie with text annotations, audio effects, and images; users are able to participate interactively through click boxes and text-entry fields.

This calendar year, the eRA Communications and Outreach Branch (COB) plans to offer tutorials for key eRA Commons applications: iEdison, Internet Assisted Review, Status, and possibly eSNAP including Population Tracking. Classes for internal staff also will be added, starting with Committee and Grants Management, closely followed by the Review and Program modules. Future upgrades are planned. For example, next year, the tutorials will be enhanced with voice overs.

Address comments and questions about future classes to Patty Austin. Contact Jim Soden (eRA Webmaster) with technical concerns.

Internet Assisted Review Going Live

eRA will deploy IAR in production mode this July after extensive testing. Sixteen NIH Scientific Review Administrators (SRAs) from CSR, NCRR, NIAID, NIDDK, NINDS, NINR, and NLM, their 55 study sections, and more than 375 reviewers from a variety of institutions have been participating in the IAR pilot, which began in December 2002. Reviewers access the IAR Web interface through the eRA Commons.

Both NIH SRAs and Grants Technical Assistants (GTAs) and peer reviewers use IAR to expedite the scientific review of grant applications. This software provides a standard process for the electronic submission of critiques and initial priority scores prior to the review meeting. More productive meetings result when reviewers have the opportunity to examine others’ critiques online prior to meetings and to modify their own critiques after meetings.

IAR also accelerates the grants approval and funding process by enabling easier, more efficient administration of reviews. Critiques are available immediately after review meetings, and IAR generates a preliminary summary statement comprising all critiques for an application. As a result, summary statements can be released more quickly. 

At present, IAR functionality includes:

• A Control Center for the SRA and GTA to manage aspects of a reviewer’s access during all IAR phases (SUBMIT, READ and optional EDIT)  
• Ability to submit critiques in Word or text format; ability to view critiques in Adobe PDF format  
• Ability to view a matrix of initial scores with the option to designate certain applications as lower half  
• After the meeting, ability for the SRA/GTA to view and download a Word document to be used as the preliminary summary statement body

The July release is expected to implement the following enhancements:

• Ability for reviewers and SRA/GTAs to view the scanned grant application image within IAR  
• Option of including Reviewer Names in the preliminary summary statement  
• Improvements to Score Matrix sorting  
• Ability to view all critiques for a PI in one Adobe PDF file  
• Ability for all SRAs and GTAs on the roster to have access to the meeting in IAR

New Version of iEdison Premieres This Month

Version 2 of Interagency Edison (iEdison) will go into production by the end of June 2003. iEdison is a module within eRA that enables grantee and contractor organizations to electronically manage extramural invention portfolios and report inventions that are made with NIH grant or contract funding. The original version of iEdison has been in production since 1995 and is used by more than 500 grantee/contractor organizations.

The new software will support the same business processes as the current version; however, the technology upgrade will deliver improved performance and improved functionality. Behind the screens, the system will migrate from client-server architecture to the new Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Web-based platform.

The new iEdison interface will introduce enhanced functionality. Users will be able to upload all required documents for invention reporting: the written description of the invention, the government’s confirmatory license, and the government support clause that, by law, must appear in the patent. With the current client-server version, these reporting documents had to be mailed or faxed. Furthermore, all documents submitted in PDF or TIFF format using iEdison Version 2 will be displayable to users through their Internet browser.

For the benefit of institutional administrators, Version 2 will offer improved management of iEdison accounts and reports of system usage. Most importantly, iEdison will support the display of a graphical representation of any invention. This functionality will allow the user to view the hierarchical association between an invention and its related patents.

During the requirements-gathering phase for iEdison, eRA met with other government agencies through the Interagency Invention Reporting Subgroup of the Post-Award Working Group of the CFO Council Grants Management Committee. Input from extramural grantee and contractor organizations was solicited through an iEdison Working Group, made up of institutional representatives who act as liaisons through the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). iEdison currently supports the reporting of inventions resulting from awards made by 18 federal agencies.

Summary of major new features for iEdison 2 

• Upload of required PDF and TIFF documents for invention disclosure records and associated patent filings 
• Display of online PDF and TIFF documents for invention disclosure records and associated patent filings 
• Improved account management within a grantee/contractor organization 
• Graphical representation of any invention in relation to its associated patents

eSNAP Upgrades Scheduled for July

The July upgrade of the eRA Commons to Version 2.2.3.0 will include some significant enhancements to the electronic Streamlined Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP), currently in “pilot production” and scheduled for full deployment in early 2004. eSNAP is a Web interface for the submission of Type-5 progress reports. Although all grantees will be able to transmit SNAPS next year, NIH will continue to accept paper submissions for several years.

Enhancements in the upcoming release include:

• A form for the entry of the Minority and Gender Inclusion Report. The form will be pre-populated with information from the previous eSNAP, as well as with the protocol title and number used by NIH and the institution.    
• A quick way to determine if the individual sections of the eSNAP have been completed. There no longer will be a need to examine each page. The “Manage eSNAP” screen will list each page name with a status of “Complete” or “Incomplete.”    
• All Signing Officials (SOs) listed in the Administrative Official (AO) “picklist” on the Organization Info page. Additionally, if the SO for an institution also is acting as the AO, selecting the SO first automatically will populate the AO information with the same person’s name and address information.

Twenty institutions (Cornell, Dartmouth, Emory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Wayne State and the Universities of Arizona, California (Los Angeles, Davis and Santa Barbara), Florida, Michigan, Oregon Health and Science, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin) have been participating in a “production pilot.” 

With the assistance of these pilot users, the eRA Commons team has identified system bugs as well as process flows that do not conform to business practices in the extramural research community. As a result, eRA will implement many user suggestions in future releases, including:

• Allowing more than 10 results in a search result list.    
• Adding “Overdue” as a search option.    
• Allowing saves for incomplete or incorrect data. Catch errors only when user runs validation.    
• Changing default employment type to “federal” on Employment page.    
• Including SOs on AO drop-down menu.    
• Adding more space in the justification fields for SNAP questions.    
• Enabling delegation of eSNAP and PPF edit privileges at the same time.    
• Enhancing error messages to include the screen requiring correction.    
• Enabling users to determine if a submission was paper or electronic.

eRA now is taking requests from grantees who would like to participate in the pilot. These users must be willing to commit to processing at least six eSNAPs before the July deployment. If the July release goes well, eRA plans to open the pilot to as many as 100 institutions.

eRA Staff and CWG Meet to Discuss Project Progress

Representatives from 16 grantee institutions met with eRA staff to discuss the progress of the eRA Commons 2 deployment, the development of an electronic competitive grant application, and other eRA plans for the future at the April 30 meeting of the Commons Working Group (CWG) in Washington, D.C. For more than two years, the CWG has played a critical role in shaping, evaluating and fine-tuning the new eRA interface to the extramural NIH grantee community.

Highlights of Agenda

• eRA Commons Deployment Update

Dan Hall, eRA Commons lead analyst, provided up-to-date statistics on the growth of eRA Commons registration and usage: 6,500 accounts created, 84 eSNAPS and 1,900 FSRs submitted, and 230 reviewers using IAR. Dan also summarized the accomplishments of the March software release, including improvements to eSNAP and FSR, a new eRA Commons demo/training facility, merger of the IMPAC II and eRA Commons databases, and the addition of “Other Relevant Documents” to the Project Detail screen.

• CGAP/Grants.gov News

JJ Maurer, lead eRA analyst for the electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (CGAP) initiative, reported that the project team now is fully staffed and expects to proceed on schedule. CGAP documentation is available to the public on the eRA website at http://era.nih.gov/Projectmgmt/SBIR/. eRA continues to coordinate its efforts closely with the federal Grants.gov (formerly E-Grants) initiative.

•  eSNAP Pilot Discussion

The general consensus was that overall the electronic Simplified Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP) system is working well. Several of the issues raised by pilot testers were resolved. The CWG suggested that the pilot group be expanded to allow more institutions to provide feedback. (See full article in this issue.)

• FSR Module Discussion

Most thought the system was working adequately and did not need any major changes. It was noted that the government plans to adopt a common financial reporting form. As a result, there will not be any significant changes to the FSR system until the new form is issued.

• eRA Project Status Update

Dr. John McGowan, eRA project manager, announced that the NIH IT Board of Governors had approved an eRA budget increase of $6.56 million for FY 2003.

• Future eRA Direction

Dan Hall led a discussion of possibilities for how the representation of institutional hierarchies and approval could be implemented in future eRA Commons versions. The CWG was asked to provide feedback to assist with the establishment of a “best-practices” set of requirements.

• Experience of Institutions in Implementing the eRA Commons

Several CWG members, who have experience in implementing the eRA Commons, said they would share documentation they have developed to aid in this effort and offered to send these materials to the CWG mailing list. (See full article in this issue.)

CWG meetings are open to all interested persons. The next session is tentatively scheduled in conjunction with the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) meetings in Washington, D.C., on September 22-23. The exact date and location of the CWG meeting has not been finalized. For information, contact George Stone or David Wright.

New Load Balancer to Direct eRA Commons Traffic

eRA plans to implement load-balancing technology this June to ensure good performance and consistent availability for eRA Commons users. Many eRA Commons applications are scaling up in usage. Specifically, Internet Assisted Review (IAR) will be moving from pilot to production mode this summer, and the electronic Simplified Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP) pilot will be expanded. eRA Commons registration also has been growing steadily. Approximately 400 institutions and 3,000 grantees already have enrolled.

A load balancer is a server that receives incoming traffic and intelligently routes requests to the least busy computer. To the outside world, it appears that a single server handles the work, but in reality, several machines in the background may be performing the processing. Initially, eRA will have one UNIX-based BIG-IP^® load balancer on the front end directing traffic to two servers that will process the requests. eRA also will have a second load balancer for full failover capability. These load balancers will be configured in an active-passive architecture where all incoming requests will be received by the active server. If, for any reason, the active server fails, the passive server takes over the responsibility for load balancing. eRA plans to install additional application servers as the eRA Commons workload increases.

eRA also will take advantage of the SSL acceleration feature of the BIG-IP load balancer. The server has a built-in Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) accelerator that is used to generate encryption keys for secure Web transactions. The process of encryption can severely overload a J2EE application server computer resulting in fewer transactions per second. The SSL accelerator in the load balancer takes over this process, reducing the load on the J2EE application server.

During eRA’s installation of the new load-balancing technology, there were initial delays during setup and configuration. Later, troubleshooting and research resulted in discovery of a bug with the load-balancing software. The vendor has issued a fix, and, although the setback resulted in some delay, the initiative is back on schedule. At the present time, eRA technicians are testing the system using software that mimics multiple users accessing the system. By early June, they expect to implement load balancing for eRA Commons users. eRA plans to introduce load balancing for internal NIH staff at a later time.

To ensure that eRA will be able to handle the steadily increasing eRA Commons workload, load balancing must be implemented before existing modules are enhanced. As a consequence, the planned summer application deployment (currently scheduled for late July or early August) is contingent on load-balancing implementation by early June. eRA will notify the user community if the schedule changes.

Direct questions about load balancing to Stephen Hughes, eRA advocate for system architecture.

eRA Commons Workshop Scheduled at NIEHS North Carolina Campus

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) will sponsor an eRA Commons workshop (Commons 101) on Thursday, July 10. The purpose of this workshop is to demonstrate the capabilities of eRA’s interface for grantees and to discuss plans for the future. Since several new Web-based eRA Commons applications, including Interagency Edison (iEdison), Internet Assisted Review (IAR) and electronic Simplified Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP) will become more widely available in June and July, this workshop is especially timely. 

The 3 ½-hour training will be held on the NIEHS North Carolina Campus in Research Triangle Park. Due to new security regulations, advanced registration is mandatory. Registration, which is on a first-come, first-served basis, will close on July 3. You can register online at http://era.nih.gov/NIEHSworkshop/, where you also can view the preliminary agenda. 

Participants are responsible for their own transportation and lodging arrangements. For your convenience, a list of hotels in the Research Triangle Park area is posted at http://hotel-guides.us/north-carolina/research-triangle-park-nc-hotels.html. Visit http://www.niehs.nih.gov/external/south.htm for detailed directions to the NIEHS main campus.

For more information or if you require reasonable accommodation, contact Patty Austin at 301-435-0690 x617.

Grantee Institutions Share eRA Commons Know-How

Several members of the Commons Working Group (CWG), who have been pilot users and early adopters of the eRA Commons, describe their experience in implementing the new system and offer useful suggestions for other institutions.

• Stanford University

Stanford University has 3,200 externally sponsored research projects with a total budget of $828 million for FY 2002-2003. Eighty-seven percent of this funding comes from the federal government. Pamela Webb, senior director of sponsored research in Stanford’s Office of Research Administration, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the eRA Commons at her institution.

Stanford has adopted a pyramid approach to rollout. In February 2003, three central office research administrators and their managers from the School of Medicine became members of an initial eRA Commons pilot group. They received a 90-minute PowerPoint orientation and participated in designing a naming convention for Stanford eRA Commons accounts.

Each initial pilot member then worked with a PI to submit an eSNAP for the March 1, 2003, deadline. The Stanford CWG member created and managed the eRA Commons accounts for this limited pilot. One of the eSNAPs was prepared and submitted online as part of a group training exercise; the remaining two were submitted the next week.

For the April 1, 2003, deadline, the same research administrators repeated the testing with two eSNAPs each. This strategy permitted the pilot users to gain more experience with the system and to become familiar with the changes in the March 24 eRA Commons release. They formed the nucleus of an "internal expert" group in preparation for the next phase of expansion.

In May, Stanford expanded the pilot. The Research Management Group in the School of Medicine sent flyers about the benefits of the eRA Commons to all investigators with SNAPs due on May 1. The flyer also announced that these investigators would be enrolled in the eRA Commons unless they chose not to participate. For this phase of the pilot, a trained staff member in the central Office of Research Administration assumed responsibility for creating and managing eRA Commons accounts. The rest of the Research Management Group staff from the School of Medicine and the Office of Research Administration staff who routinely handle NIH grants received eRA Commons accounts and attended a two-hour, Internet-live training session about the eRA Commons in general and eSNAP in particular. Other PIs and administrators gradually will be introduced to the system as their SNAP progress reports become due.

Concurrent with eSNAP pilot activities, regularly scheduled campus meetings with departmental administrators began including presentations on the eRA Commons. A campus email group was created to disseminate eRA Commons information. In recognition of the importance of adopting the eRA Commons, Stanford formed an eRA Commons Management team that now meets twice a month to prepare feedback for NIH and to plan campus rollout activities. The team is publicizing the eRA Commons, expanding the number of individuals who can create and manage accounts, formalizing the security structure, and determining the organizational hierarchy (a future eRA Commons capability). 

The majority of Stanford PIs who participated in the pilot applaud the move to electronic submissions and generally are eager to embrace the process. The pre-population of some of the information (e.g., demographics and contact information) is especially welcome. PIs made several requests, including the ability to upload multiple publications, a “save and continue to next screen” button at the bottom of each screen, and more intuitive navigation bars. Mac users had considerably greater difficulty using the system than PC users. Overall, however, Stanford PIs are supportive of the project and look forward to its expansion and enhancement.

• M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas

M.D. Anderson, a component of the University of Texas system, was named the top cancer hospital in 2002 by U.S. News & World Report. The Center receives more peer-reviewed research grants from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) than any other academic institution in the nation. At the current time, the institution has 950+ clinical and research faculty. 

Melody Page, manager, IT and Reporting, Grants and Contract Accounting, began the eRA Commons implementation process by inviting all M.D. Anderson grant stakeholders to the NIH eRA Commons 101 workshop held in Houston in March. She designed and distributed a one-page handout containing the eRA Commons Web address, a description of the modules, an explanation of security roles at M.D. Anderson, and instructions for requesting an eRA Commons user account.

Melody then set up accounts by request for faculty and departmental administrators; thus far, 55 individuals are enrolled. When eSNAP goes into production, M.D. Anderson automatically will begin enrolling faculty, giving priority according to the due date of their next progress report.

According to Melody, the faculty and administrative staff, who have used the eRA Commons, have been very pleased with the new Status module. They not only have access to more information, but this information is available earlier in the grant lifecycle. Contact information for assigned NIH personnel is especially helpful. In addition, everyone likes the eRA Commons demo site, and post-award users are delighted with FSR.

M.D. Anderson’s biggest implementation challenge has been adapting eRA Commons security roles, i.e., senior official (SO) and administrative official (AO) to its own organization. For example, the Center would like to give certain individuals the right to see all application data without giving them the right to create accounts. M.D. Anderson will continue to provide feedback to the NIH with the hope of seeing enhancements in future versions of the eRA Commons.

• University of Michigan

The NIH is the primary sponsor of biomedical research at the University of Michigan, where the Department of Health and Human Services funded 58 percent of projects in genetics, molecular biology, arthritis and cancer research, and neuroscience in FY 2001. Jim Randolph, senior associate director of Michigan’s Division of Research Development and Administration (DRDA), has been extremely proactive in preparing the institution’s faculty researchers and grants administrators for the advent of the eRA Commons.

For several years, Jim has been attaching messages to Notices of Grant Awards (NGAs), encouraging his community to enroll in the precursor to the current eRA Commons system. As a result, hundreds already were registered when eRA Commons Version 2 made its debut. Jim also sends a weekly email to 700 faculty and administrators containing highlights from the NIH Guide, updates on eRA, and “folksy” messages to entice the recipients. When the eSNAP pilot began, Jim called for volunteers from the administrative community to learn the new system.

Jim organized a team, comprising himself, an NIH specialist, a registration assistant, the eRA manager and a training specialist, to provide two hours of one-on-one eSNAP training for each volunteer. He then moved the training from his office to the campus and invited the volunteers to bring their colleagues for small-group sessions. Ultimately, he plans to organize demos for 50 or more persons, followed by individual lessons (in order of eSNAP due date) given by the team trainer. Jim also hopes that those already trained will assist with the training of others.

As a pilot tester of the eSNAP system, Jim has provided valuable feedback to the NIH development team. At Michigan, eSNAPs are constructed by groups of people. Jim noted that eRA Commons security roles are best designed for central officials and PIs; however, more roles are needed for assistants with specific tasks and limited spheres of authority.

According to Jim, Michigan has been using FSR without difficulty. The Status module also has been well received, especially the ability to display the entire scanned application. Regarding eSNAP, Jim believes that NIH’s greatest challenge is to format the product so that it is “intuitively sensible to non-computer people.” Users then would be less reluctant to submit their progress reports electronically.

• University of California, Los Angeles

As one of the leading research universities in the nation, UCLA has tripled its research funding over the past 20 years. In FY 2001-2002, UCLA received $483 million in awards from the federal government, of which 67 percent came from HHS. Ellen Beck, eRA coordinator in the UCLA Office of Contract and Grants Administration (OCGA), has led the effort to integrate the eRA Commons into the UCLA work flow.

Under Ellen’s direction, OCGA created a website at http://www.research.ucla.edu/ocga/eracommons/eracommonspage.htm as a resource for UCLA faculty and researchers. The site contains general information about the eRA Commons and its business applications and how to register. In addition, there are user guides, developed by OCGA, on first-time eRA Commons login, using Status, the eSNAP process from the PI’s viewpoint, and how to delegate update authority.

UCLA’s eSNAP implementation plan begins with PI’s who have SNAPs due in July. In preparation, OCGA is training its public sector teams and key departmental administrators. Training sessions for PIs and support staff will begin in mid-June.