Back to eRA Home Electronic Research Administration
  
     Advanced Search
About eRA News Project Management Business Areas Tech Corner
News
Latest eRA News
Inside eRA for Partners Archives
eRA News Back Issues

Reference Shelf
Glossary
Frequently Asked Questions
Documents
Meeting Minutes
Site Index
Advanced Search

Key Links
NIH
NIH eRA Commons
IMPAC II
Invention Reporting (iEdison)
CRISP on the Web


Inside eRA, December 23, 2005 (Volume 6, Number 5)

This news update from the NIH Office of Research Information Systems (ORIS), provides the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and its partners with pertinent information about the plans and progress of the NIH Electronic Research Administration (eRA). Through its eRA and information services, ORIS supports the Department's research grants programs by using technology to reduce the costs of grants administration, to analyze and report on grant data, and to synthesize grant information into knowledge for guiding the NIH research portfolio and improving the Nation's health.

Happy Holidays from eRA

As 2005 draws to a close, OERRM Director Dr. Israel Lederhendler and eRA staff wish you happy holidays.

Supporting NIH Collaboration through Communities of Practice

Not so long ago, companies were reinvented by teams. Communities of practice may reinvent them yet again…”  Etienne C. Wenger and William M. Snyder, Harvard Business Review

What is a Community of Practice (CoP) and how does it differ from other organizational teams? How can CoPs enhance people-to-people connections at the NIH, contribute to knowledge resources, scientific innovation, and problem-solving?

CoPs and enterprise portals were the focus of the second in a series of knowledge management (KM) seminars sponsored by the Office of Electronic Research and Reports Management (OERRM) and the Office of Extramural Research (OER). OERRM Director Dr. Israel Lederhendler and Dr. Marie Zeimetzprogram lead for OERRM’s KM effort, talked about NIH CoPs and explained how they can help NIH achieve its mission. Guest speaker Richard (Dick) Warrick, associate partner, IBM Global Services and KM consultant, then told his own corporate story – how CoPs helped rescue IBM from financial disaster in the 1990s.

In his opening remarks, Dr. Lederhendler discussed the need to examine and explore new methods and new technologies that can further support and advance NIH goals: “It is important to think about different approaches in the management world….and to draw the best lessons from them. While we explore CoPs today, we must keep in mind that, in the future, there may be an evolution from CoPs to the next generation of management thinking. It is a continuing process of seeking ways to get our business done better and more effectively.”

CoPs are groups of people who have a common interest or goal, work collaboratively, and voluntarily share what they have learned from their experiences. COPs are not formally constructed; instead, members come together naturally from all parts of an organization or even from all parts of the world. They are founded on trust and socially focused. “If you are assigned to a group,” says Warrick, "it is not a CoP.”

Although they are not labeled as such, CoPs already exist at the NIH. According to Dr. Lederhendler, “NIH CoPs span business process management and research domains. They can be found in referral and review, reporting, evaluation, program management, portfolio analysis, information technology, human resources, basic and clinical research, and other areas.” As an example, Dr. Zeimetz shared her personal experience as a member of an informal referral CoP at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 2002-2003.

During that time, the NIAID CoP helped to identify and quickly resolve critical issues involved with program assignment, including the referral assignment of BioDefense applications. “These applications were complex and spanned multiple disciplines, and the existing referral guidelines and processes were not, at that time, sufficient to address the assignment of such intrinsically complex applications…” According to Zeimetz, the NIAID referral CoP quickly secured management support and brought stakeholders together to resolve the issue. “The collaboration, agility and creativity that characterized our informal CoP, enabled us to synthesize and focus staff knowledge, skills and expertise to respond rapidly, and successfully, to this mission-critical problem.”

Next, Dick Warrick explained how, in the 1990’s, CoPs at IBM effectively harnessed the abilities of its 350,000 employees to transform a company once characterized by operationally isolated silos into a very successful company characterized by a high degree of knowledge sharing and collaboration. IBM recognized the need to create virtual workspaces for their CoPs and other cooperative activities. For this purpose, they built an enterprise portal (IBM’s “On-Demand Workplace”) to connect everyone in the organization. 

Although CoPs are not established formally, they need an environment that encourages and supports them with the tools and resources people need to “connect” and “collect.” Nourishing CoPs as a management responsibility is embraced by Dr. Lederhendler and, under his direction, OERRM KM will sponsor and support CoPs in knowledge management, reporting and other areas of interest to NIH colleagues. Similarly, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) supports CoPs and has established a Web site at http://learning.hhs.gov/communities/ with information about collaboration tools such as event calendars, surveys, knowledge libraries, threaded discussions, live chats, expert feedback and member directories.

If you missed the OERRM/OER KM seminar in December, you can see the videocast at http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp. Presentation materials for this seminar are available at the OERRM KM PortalNIH staff also are encouraged to visit the portal to learn more about upcoming OERRM seminars and NIH KM activities, including: 

  • January 25 –– The NIH Learning Center will offer a full-day course Knowledge Management and Strategic Human Capital at 6120 Executive Plaza South. See http://learningsource.od.nih.gov/_show_details.asp?cd_crs=8800 for more information.        
  • February 6 –– OERRM/OER will sponsor a full-day KM conference at the Natcher Conference Center. The event will be a half-day symposium and a half-day of demonstrations including current NIH text-mining projects. Details are coming on the OERRM KM portal.

NIH community feedback will guide the development of the OERRM KM seminar series and portal. Please tell the OERRM KM team about your ideas for seminar topics and speakers, CoPs, collaborative tools, and KM opportunities. There are multiple channels for you to provide input: send e-mail to Marie Zeimetz at mzeimetz@mail.nih.gov or to oerrmkm@mail.nih.gov; or send suggestions through the feedback module on the OERRM KM Portal.

ICO Module Now Accessible on the Web

The Institute and Center Operations (ICO) module of the NIH eRA System has been converted to the new J2EE architecture and was released on November 28. J2EE architecture provides easy access to the module using the Internet. 

Here are some tips for using ICO J2EE:

  • The functionality of ICO J2EE is the same as that of the client-server version, but the screens use the same conventions as other Web sites. Therefore, there is a slightly different look and feel to the screens.   
  • You must have Adobe Acrobat 7.0 or higher to run reports.   
  • The Program Official checklist is not in ICO J2EE. You can find it in PGM.   
  • Be sure to allow pop-up windows to appear (turn off any blockers) because pop-up windows are used throughout the application.   
  • Be sure to log out by clicking the logout button (upper right-hand corner under the username). Clicking the “X” in the upper right corner of the screen closes the window but does not log you out.

The old client-server version of ICO will run in parallel with ICO J2EE while users transition to the new version. However, ICO client-server is scheduled to be shut down in January.

All users are encouraged to start using ICO J2EE immediately. For information and a link to the application, go to http://impacii.nih.gov/webapps/index.cfm. If you have questions, contact the eRA Helpdesk: 301-402-7469; helpdesk@od.nih.gov.

eRA Introduces Customizable Checklist Capability

Authorized Grants Management (GM) and Program (PGM) staff now can create IC-specific checklists for each grant type and activity code. These customizable checklists will be a useful tool for fulfilling the administrative business and scientific reporting requirements of NIH grants.

Prior to implementing customizable checklists, the eRA system did incorporate some NIH-required checklist items on GM and PGM screens and allowed each IC/agency to create a single, customized checklist for each business area. For most ICs, however, the one checklist per business area is insufficient. As a result, ICs often maintain additional checklists outside the eRA applications or include complete checklists in IC extension systems. Customizable checklists will allow ICs to maintain all their checklists in the enterprise eRA system.

Effectively immediately, the authorized checklist manager for each IC can use the Checklist Admin function of the IC Admin module (Version 1.2.1.6) to create and maintain the IC’s customized checklist questions and headers. The main Checklist Screen comprises three areas: Query Checklist, Create Checklist, and Checklist (Hitlist) Items. (See screen shot.)

  • Query enables the user to retrieve existing checklists based on IC, business area, application type and/or activity code.  
  • Create enables the user to create, edit, delete and/or resequence checklist items.  
  • Checklist Items displays a “read-only” hitlist resulting from a query

Once a customized checklist has been created for a particular grant type and/or activity code, it will display in GM and ICO for grants with the same attributes. Grants management officers, grants specialists, program officers and program analysts then will be able to answer checklist questions. 

For more details, see the IC Admin User Guide at http://impacii.nih.gov/icadminDoc/ICADMIN_UG_v.1.2.1.6_10-04-05.pdf or contact eRA Systems Analyst Cathy Walker at walkerc@mail.nih.gov.

     Feedback and Help, Accessibility, Privacy