Inside eRA , September 14, 2004 (Volume 5, Issue 4)

eRA Accepts 31 Electronic Applications for the January 2005 Council Round

eRA successfully completed its third electronic application (e-application) pilot in June and July by accepting submissions for the January 2005 council round. NIH accepted 17 electronic, new, modular, competing applications for the June 1 due date. For the July 1 deadline, NIH received a total of 14 applications: 1 full-budget, competing, continuation; 7 revised, modular, competing applications; and 6 modular, competing, continuation applications. This was the first time that NIH accepted full-budget e-applications.

For all the pilots thus far, eRA has worked with a group of six Service Providers (SPs) who have submitted applications on behalf of grantee institutions. These SPs won Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards to develop e-application products and services. Other commercial companies and institutions currently are working with eRA to become SPs.

During the pilots, there was no exchange of paper. After accepting each e-application, NIH converted the data into an electronic application image and stored both the image and data in the eRA database. From receipt to referral, NIH staff will process these applications electronically.

Next Steps

• For the October/November 2004 receipt dates, eRA plans to conduct its fourth and final pilot for electronic, modular R01, R03 and R21 grant applications. At the same time, eRA will perform its second limited pilot for full-budget applications. eRA also is developing the capability to handle applications responding to Requests for Applications (RFAs) and Program Announcements (PAs) for supported types and mechanisms.

Unlike other competing applications, responses to RFAs do not go to the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) for review; instead, the announcing Institute/Center performs the review. Electronic receipt holds great promise for reducing the processing and review time for these applications. In these cases, upon receipt, there is the possibility of referring the applications automatically to the IC review group rather than waiting for CSR to perform the processing and routing. NIH currently is identifying RFAs that are good candidates for the upcoming pilots. 

• In the third quarter of 2004, eRA intends to perform system-to-system testing with Grants.gov to determine the feasibility of conducting a live pilot in February/March 2005. Commons Working Group members will assist with the fall tests using previously submitted application data.  
• In January 2005, eRA will achieve a major milestone when receipt of simple, modular grants (new, competing continuation, and revised) goes into full production.
• In early 2005, eRA plans to develop a transaction for sending the Notice of Grant Award (NGA) as a data stream to SPs and research institutions that have implemented a system-to-system interface with NIH. The NGA transmission will allow grantee institutions to load award data directly into their local grants management systems for internal use. The electronic NGA will be an important step toward establishing two-way, post-award communication through the NIH eRA eXchange, eRA’s architecture for handling system-to-system transmissions. 

Outreach

Throughout the fall, eRA will launch a campaign to promote e-application awareness and community involvement. In addition, NIH will encourage more commercial organizations and research institutions to become electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (eCGAP) Service Providers. NIH is expanding the membership of the eCGAP Focus Group to include Grants Management, Policy, and more Program representation. 

Technical, Policy and Coordination Issues 

Although the eCGAP project is making excellent progress, a great deal of work remains to be done. In the upcoming months, the team will turn its attention to these outstanding issues:

• Electronic Signatures –– Establish a method of validating a “signed” application for a system-to-system transmission. There must be a formal way for the institution to delegate submission authority to a Service Provider.   
• Service Provider Certification –– Formalize the certification process for Service Providers at the transaction-type level. Automate the tracking and management of Service Provider certifications.   
• Support for Service Providers –– Provide a stable test environment and adequate technical assistance for SPs. This fall, the eRA Helpdesk will assume responsibility for this technical support. Also, eRA is developing the means to allow SPs to set up their own data in the eRA test environment. The eRA team also is exploring ways to integrate the SP test environment with the Commons demo facility or, alternatively, to create a Commons environment for SP testing and training of all the steps from the submission of the electronic application to verification in the Commons.   
• Corrections –– Define the business process and develop the technical capability for grantees to submit updates and other corrections to their e-applications after verification by the Principal Investigator and Signing Official. This includes handling multiple versions of electronic applications.

Preparing for the Future

• New Task Order Award –– eRA recently awarded a task order to AC Technologies to provide NIH with a technical evaluation of software and approaches for implementing additional Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language (ebXML) capabilities. ebXML is an international standard for specifying the electronic exchange of business information between electronic trading partners. Its message service supports the secure exchange of business data via the Internet; its registry enables business partners to find one another, define trading capabilities and execute trading agreements. ebXML can be used for any type of transaction content and is not limited to grant administration.

The contractor will install and compare the ebXML message service of three off-the-shelf software packages with the current eRA solution. The evaluators also will evaluate each registry’s ability to manage the growing number of SPs and types of transactions. After creating prototypes and running test scenarios, the contractor will recommend the best technical choices for eRA.

• Error Handling –– The eCGAP team is defining and developing business-rule validations, mechanisms for handling error messages via the Commons, and restricting application types for applications arriving through Grants.gov, whose system does not perform business-rule checking.   
• NCRR GCRC Progress Reporting –– The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) has begun a development effort to support system-to system transmission of progress reports from the General Clinical Research Centers (GCRCs). The eRA team and NCRR are planning to use the eRA eXchange for this initiative.

Direct questions about the eCGAP project to Jennifer Flach, eCGAP team leader, at flachj@mail.nih.gov or 301-435-5092.

NIH Establishes Central Mail Address for All Paper, Non-competing Progress Reports

NIH will centralize the receipt and initial processing of all paper, non-competing progress reports due on/after October 1, 2004. Guide Notice NOT-OD-04-054, dated July 23, 2004, announced this business process change. On September 2, NIH issued a separate Guide Notice NOT-OD-04-063, providing grantees with the new, central mailing address for the submission of forms PHS 2590 and 416-9 to all Institutes and Centers (ICs). This fiscal year, NIH will receive nearly 37,000 Type 5 (non-competing continuation) progress reports.

When NIH receives non-competing progress reports at the new address, NIH will scan and store them in the eRA database. Extramural staff will be able to view the scanned images in the Grants Folder; grantees will be able to view them through the Commons Status module. The scanning of incoming progress reports, like the scanning of paper grant applications, is an interim step toward the goal of end-to-end electronic research administration.

Centralized receipt, logging and scanning offer several advantages:

• Enable NIH staff and grantees to display progress reports from a shared database within six business days of receipt  
• Ensure the consistent indexing of all NIH progress reports  
• Reduce addressing errors and misdirected progress reports  
• Facilitate the expanded use of electronic, Simplified Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP) progress reports and the eventual transition to electronic submission of all progress reports  
• Simplify follow-up on overdue progress reports  
• Standardize quality control  
• Help to achieve the migration of functions to the Division of Extramural Activities Support (DEAS)  
• Enable Institutes and Centers (ICs) to develop one, consistent, paperless business process for all Type 5s

The centralization initiative is a collaborative endeavor of the NIH Grants Management Administrative Restructuring Advisory Committee (ARAC), eRA, and the new DEAS. Mike Loewe, eRA Advocate for Grants Management, was part of the team that drafted the new DEAS Standard Operating Procedures and has conducted a Type 5 pilot at his home IC, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Joe Ellis, as head of ARAC, provided policy guidance for the consolidation.

DEAS will assume responsibility for receiving and opening progress reports, entering receipt information into the eRA system, and routing a paper copy to the Office of Research Services (ORS) for scanning. The Office of Policy for Extramural Research (OPERA) has negotiated with ORS to expand its current scanning, indexing and optical character recognition (OCR) services to include Type 5s. Costs will be charged back to the ICs.

Grantees must continue to mail progress reports due prior to October 1 directly to the funding IC. Grantees that report to other Department of Health and Human Services agencies that use the PHS 2590 and/or 416-9 forms must continue to send their forms directly to those agencies.

For additional information, see the IC Information sheet found on the Grants Management Infonet at: http://odoerdb2.od.nih.gov/gmac/sources/pol_centralizing_T_5_receipt.doc or contact grantspolicy@mail.nih.gov.

New eRA Working Group Explores Technology-Assisted Disease Coding

eRA is collaborating with representatives from eight Institutes and Centers (ICs) to evaluate the use of advanced text-mining technology to improve NIH’s reporting on funding by disease. In his testimony to the House Appropriations Labor/Health and Human Services (HHS) Subcommittee on April 22, NIH Director Elias Zerhouni said that NIH would implement “intelligent data mining” to provide better accounting to Congress and the public on NIH’s investment by disease.

Currently, NIH must prepare agency-wide reports on more than 230 diseases, conditions and research areas. With the dual objectives of standardizing definitions and automation, the NIH Director’s Steering Committee requested that eRA form a working group to test the feasibility of using specific text-mining tools to accurately and consistently assist with disease coding. The Knowledge Management Disease Coding (KMDC) Working Group, which began meeting in April, will present its findings to the Steering Committee this month.

About Collexis® Technology

Collexis® refers to a family of intelligent, text-searching tools for examining vast quantities of data to identify patterns and establish relationships. As bio-medical data grows to petabytes (millions of gigabytes), managing this data becomes increasingly important. Intelligent text mining holds promise for promoting health research and accelerating discoveries by automating the integration of multiple data bases to find linkages and make hypotheses.

In January 2004, NIH procured a site license for Collexis software. This software is based on the principle of “fingerprinting” each piece of text that contains relevant information, such as an article in a scientific journal. The fingerprinting process makes use of the professional terminology of a particular field. For example, the system can fingerprint an article based on the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH®) Thesaurus. Collexis then can condense the fingerprints of all of the researcher’s publications into a knowledge profile of that individual.

Once Collexis has completed the fingerprinting/profiling of all sources of input, the system can make associations based on criteria established by the user. Consider this application. A busy Helpdesk receives several hundred e-mails daily that require responses from an expert. KM helps the Helpdesk by building knowledge profiles of all its employees. From then on, routing an incoming email is a matter of matching its fingerprint with the catalog of employee knowledge profiles.

Progress of Disease Coding Working Group

The KMDC Working Group, led by Richard Morris, has made significant headway over the past four months. The group completed the following tasks:

• Established contracts with Collexis and Mitretek to support the KMDC initiative. Patti Gaines is the eRA task-order manager.  
• Set up a policy sub-group to draft an NIH KM basic principles and Implementation document for presentation to the Steering Committee in September.  
• Created a test database, comprising the research plans for FY2003 R01 competing applications.  
• Fingerprinted 12 disease categories using a variety of methods:

1. Grants that IC-experts had previously assigned to the disease codes  
2. Articles by experts in each disease category  
3. Trans-NIH definitions  
4. MeSH Thesaurus  
5. Combination of method 1 and method 4  
6. Method 1 modified by IC coding experts

• Tested the accuracy of the fingerprints in several trials. Used lessons learned from successes and failures to fine tune the fingerprinting process.  
• Established a Web portal where group members can test the KMDC system.  
• Developed draft algorithms for converting the percent relevant of disease-code fingerprints to dollar amounts for budget reporting.

Previous NIH Pilots

Several earlier pilots at NIH demonstrated proof of concept of KM’s promise for optimizing eRA knowledge assets and shortening grant cycle times. According to a statement by CSR Division of Biologic Basis of Disease Director Elliot Postow on May 17, the introduction of electronic grant applications and referral technologies could reduce the review cycle by six to eight weeks.

• KM-Assisted Reviewer Selection (1) –– In the spring of 2003, Dr. Arthur Petrosian, a scientific review administrator at the Center for Scientific Review (CSR) used his Computerized Reviewer Assignment and Search Program (CRASP) to assist Scientific Review Administrators (SRAs) in locating reviewers for specific ad hoc diagnostic imaging study sections. CRASP matches fingerprints based on keywords in CRISP and PubMed with reviewer profiles. Although there was no systematic evaluation of this pilot, SRAs found the tool encouraging.  
• KM-Assisted Reviewer Selection (2) –– Mitretek Systems developed a Grant Reviewer Selection (GRS) prototype using 60,000 candidate reviewers drawn from CRISP and MedLine and 30,000 FY2003 R01 research proposals. Collexis software generated fingerprints for each reviewer and for each proposal. GRS then served as a user interface to match: (1) reviewers to a given proposal, (2) other reviewers to a given reviewer; and (3) other proposed or funded research to a given proposal. Mitretek demonstrated GRS at the Third Annual eRA Symposium in April 2003. See presentation materials for more details.  
• KM-Assisted Referral –– In the spring of 2003, CSR used KM to fingerprint 86 randomly selected R01 research plans for the October 2003 council round. KM technology then matched the fingerprints to CSR Integrated Review Group (IRG) descriptions to generate referral recommendations. In 35 percent of cases, the top-ranked KM referral matched the top-ranked human referral. In 64 percent of cases, one of the top three KM recommendations matched the top-ranked human referral. Testers believe that they will achieve better results using study section descriptions, which are more specific.  
• KM-Assisted Self-Referral ––Last winter, Tom Tatham led a CSR effort to explore the possibility of using Collexis to profile study sections. The ultimate goal is to enable Principal Investigators (PIs) to input their abstract or research plan and have Collexis return a list of suggested study sections. Using KM to help PIs recommend a study section will save time and promote appropriate referrals.  
• KM-Assisted Scientific Trends Detection –– In the spring of 2004, Mitretek Systems developed several KM prototypes to identify trends among 206 scientific poster proposals submitted to the Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative (BISTI) Symposium, “Digital Biology: the Emerging Paradigm” (November 2003). The prototypes include: (1) data visualization (graphic representation) of emerging concepts and their inter-relationships; (2) individual poster-level analysis, aimed at identifying concepts present in each poster for descriptive and comparative purposes; (3) author profiling to create a composite profile of an author's expertise by mining their poster abstracts; and (4) distribution of major concepts in a collection of documents, as well as the relative frequency of their occurrence. Mitretek’s presentation about these prototypes received favorable comments from the BISTI user group.

For more information about the eRA KM initiative, contact Richard Morris at RMorris@niaid.nih.gov.

New Division of Extramural Activities Support To Begin Operations Next Month

The NIH has restructured its extramural support services into a Most Efficient Organization (MEO) named the Division of Extramural Activities Support (DEAS). Under the leadership of Mary Frances Deutsch, DEAS will be open for business on October 3, 2004, the first day of FY2005. When fully staffed, DEAS will be NIH’s largest division with about 600 employees.

DEAS was conceived as part of the NIH proposal to justify retaining Peer Review, Grants Management and Scientific Program Management activities in-house. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76 establishes federal procedures for determining whether certain tasks should be performed under contract with commercial sources or by government employees. NIH’s proposed “most efficient organization” vied with bids from the private sector and won the A-76 competition. 

NIH’s MEO strategy is to improve organizational effectiveness, efficiency and accountability through the centralization of Peer Review, Grants Management and Program functions. This strategy represents a major departure from NIH’s current structure, through which each Institute and Center (IC) carries out its own extramural activities support services. By contrast, DEAS, part of the Office of the Director, will provide extramural activities support services to all ICs but will not be aligned with any one IC. Thus, the implementation of DEAS introduces a major “culture” change at NIH.

DEAS Director Deutsch spoke about other challenges at the eRA Team meeting on June 22. In her view, the largest challenge is transitioning the workload from the ICs to DEAS without interrupting on-going NIH business. Ms. Deutsch was appointed by Dr. Norka Ruiz Bravo, NIH deputy director for Extramural Research. Ms. Deutsch joined the NIH from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Health Services where she earned the DHHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service for improving the lives of persons with disabilities. She holds a Juris Doctorate from the Creighton University School of Law and is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Association. 

Interim eRA Manager Dr. Israel Lederhendler is committed to working with DEAS to carry out the NIH mission. At the June 22 meeting, he noted that the critical intersection between eRA and DEAS is through a common set of working procedures. He invited Ms. Deutsch to appoint a DEAS representative to the eRA Team. In turn, she pledged to incorporate DEAS workflow requirements into the eRA architecture and not to build a new standalone system.

For the latest information on the transition to DEAS, visit http://extramuralmeo.nih.gov.

eRA Awaiting Decision on Its $45 Million FY2005 Budget Request

NIH Director Elias Zerhouni is expected to issue eRA’s FY2005 budget allowance letter in September. His decision on eRA’s $45 million request follows five months of evaluation by the NIH Management and Budget Working Group, the Extramural Information Technology Steering Committee, and Institute and Center (IC) directors.

Earlier this year, Interim eRA Manager Dr. Israel Lederhendler presented eRA’s funding request to the new NIH Information Technology Working Group (ITWG). eRA estimates that it will require $45 million to maintain system and data quality, support electronic applications, enhance the end-to-end life cycle of grants, and implement Knowledge Management. These are eRA’s highest priorities for FY2005. See the article in the June 24 issue for a  budget breakdown.

eRA also receives funds from the Department’s Office of the Secretary and other Operating Divisions, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Health Resources and Services Administration. If NIH funds the requested $45 million, eRA’s total budget for FY2005 is projected to be about $48.6 million.

Address questions about the eRA budget to Donna Frahm at frahmd@mail.nih.gov or 301-594-9747.

HHS and OMB Scoring eRA’s FY2006 OMB 300 Submission

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) currently is evaluating eRA’s FY2006 “Capital Asset Plan and Business Case,” which is due to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) this month. This report, defined in Section 300 of OMB Circular No. A-11, requires that federal agencies demonstrate a strong business case for their major information technology (IT) investments. Last fall, eRA achieved a passing score that was the highest earned by an NIH enterprise IT initiative.

eRA received 35 out of a possible 50 points for its FY2005 OMB 300 submission. OMB rates each major IT project by assigning between 1 and 5 points to a standard list of criteria, including investment management, enterprise architecture, acquisition strategy, alternatives analysis, performance-based management system, security and others. Projects that fail to achieve an overall score of 31 and at least a 4 on the performance-based management system and security sections are placed on a “watch list” and risk losing their funding.

Improving eRA Performance

As the Department’s enterprise extramural system, eRA has worked to submit a stronger performance justification for FY2006. Regarding security, eRA completed its Certification and Accreditation (C&A) in March, which should enable eRA to raise its security score from “3” to “4.” Regarding acquisition strategy, the Program Management Office (PMO) is improving measurements to confirm that eRA’s contractors are getting the work done on time and within budget. 

The PMO also is making a diligent effort to fully implement an Earned Value Management System (EVMS) in accordance with the ANSI standard approved in 1998. The essence of an EVMS is the requirement for a specific budget for each element of work. As the project team completes each element of work, the element earns its budget. This methodology quantifies work progress; the earned value becomes a metric for measuring what was spent and what was scheduled to be completed. The EVMS also provides a sound basis for problem identification, corrective actions, and change control.

The current eRA OMB300 submission includes very strong actual performance results for 2004. It also contains updated goals for FY2005–FY2008 that reflect eRA’s expanded vision.

Purpose of OMB 300 Reporting

The purpose of OMB 300 reporting is to ensure that federal agencies invest public resources wisely. Efficient planning, acquisition and management of capital assets must guide the budget decision-making process, and agencies need to comply with the results-oriented requirements of the following federal legislation:

• E-Government Act of 2002 –– furthers the President’s Management Agenda regarding the use of IT    
• Government Paperwork Elimination Act –– requires that agencies make its transactions electronic, when practicable, by October 2003    
• Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 –– calls for sound investment through capital planning that is tied to agency missions and strategic goals    
• Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 –– mandates attention to security in all agency applications and accountability to OMB and Congress    
• Privacy Act –– establishes the foundation for federal policy for protecting and sharing personal information    
• Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act –– ensures accessibility for all users

Address questions about the eRA OMB 300 report to Robert Lagas at lagasr@mail.nih.gov or 301-451-5966.

eRA Opens Web Query Tool (Web QT) for General Usage

Effective July 15, 2004, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invites all extramural staff to begin using Web QT. To access this new search facility, available at http://apps.era.nih.gov/webqt, users should enter their current IMPAC II username and password.

Web QT has been designed for ease-of-use, flexibility, and quick response. Users are able to:

• Run queries using user-defined search parameters   
• Save, retrieve, edit and delete queries   
• Print hitlist results   
• Export hit list results to Microsoft Excel   
• Create zip files containing selected documents (e.g., abstracts)   
• Merge selected documents into one PDF file for viewing   
• View/print the Grant Snapshot report   
• Access the Grant folder and view/print its contents

The implementation of Web QT is part of eRA’s plan to migrate all applications from the client/server platform to the Web and to offer one comprehensive enterprise query tool. After Web QT achieves full functionality, eRA plans to retire redundant products, including QuickView and ICSTORe.

eRA and the Center for Information Technology are scheduling Web QT classes. Visit http://training.cit.nih.gov/CoursePicFull.asp?cnumber=744&term=04S for details.

To learn more about Web QT, go to http://impacii.nih.gov/applications/apps_webqt_about.cfm or contact Tina Milner at milnerta@mail.nih.gov.

NIH Pioneer Award Candidates Apply through Grants.gov

The successful receipt of 241 electronic applications for the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (NDPA) marks a major milestone in eRA/Grants.gov collaboration. After evaluating approximately 1,300 nominations for the new NDPA, NIH invited 250 nominees to apply through Grants.gov.

Although eRA has been collaborating with Grants.gov since its inception, this was eRA’s first experience with live applications from the federal site. Furthermore, the NDPA application form (SF 424), which departs significantly from the Public Health Service (PHS) 398, posed an additional challenge. As discussed below, NIH continues to work with Grants.gov to establish a single, effective electronic entry point for all applicants.

NDPA applicants used PureEdge™ software, available at Grants.gov, to download, complete and submit the required SF 424 (Application for Federal Assistance) form and attachments. The NIH then retrieved the application packages, created online grant images, and assigned reviewers. Previous NIH pilots (see article in this issue) accepted the electronic equivalent of the Public Health Service (PHS) 398 application. In accordance with federal standardization objectives, NIH is preparing to process both the 398 and an expanded version of the 424.

The NDPA application package comprises several other new components. In addition to the SF 424, applicants submitted a personal essay and a copy or description of their most significant achievement in PDF format. Applicants also had to log on to the NIH Roadmap site to enter contact information for three references.

Carol Alderson and other staff from the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA), under the leadership of Joe Ellis, were instrumental in structuring the new application package. Scarlett Gibb, chief of eRA’s Planning, Communication and Outreach Branch, worked closely with Alderson to design the pilot process and to answer applicants’ questions prior to the receipt date.

“We did a lot of hand holding to make sure that everyone's application was submitted and accepted and that technical issues did not create barriers,” commented David Wright, chief of eRA’s Requirements Branch. 

In addition to the new application process, the NDPA introduced an entirely new grant mechanism, the DP1. Conceived by NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, the NDPA will fund exceptionally creative investigators who have an idea for achieving a major breakthrough in biomedical or behavioral research. Since the NDPA is a concept award, applicants do not have to submit detailed scientific plans. 

After reviewing the 241 NDPA applications, a panel of outside experts will interview a subset of the applicants in August-September 2004, and the Advisory Committee to the Director will provide additional input. NIH then will select 5 to 10 for award. Each 2004 grant will receive up to $500,000 per year for five years. NIH expects to name the awardees in late September. For more information on the NDPA, see the NIH Guide Notice issued on January 23, 2004.

Address questions about Pioneer Awards to pioneer@nih.gov.

eRA Accommodates Roadmap Tracking and Changes to JIT Mailers

On August 20, eRA released a mandatory new version of the Review Module (REV) in support of changes to Just-in-Time (JIT) mailers. The deployment also included non-mandatory updates to Crisp Plus (CP), Web Query Tool (Web QT), Institute and Center Operations (ICO) and the Grant Snapshot Report. These updates accommodate the processing and tracking of NIH Roadmap-associated grants.

In accordance with a request from the Extramural Program Management Committee, NIH will issue hardcopy score/percentile mailers to all applicants one day after their score is released or changed. If an award is likely (less than or equal to the 20^th percentile), NIH will request “Just-in-Time” information by email to the Principal Investigator, institution business office and other specified recipient 15 days after the score is released. See the release notes for REV 3.0.10.0 for more information.

In support of the Roadmap initiative, eRA has collaborated with the Query/View/Report (QVR) team to make the following accommodations:

• Created a virtual Institute/Center called “RM.” Roadmap applications will have an RM secondary assignment.     
• Devised new five-character Program Class Codes (PCCs) for the RM secondary assignment. The format of the RM PCC code is as follows:

• Set up a unique set of Common Account Codes (CANs) for each IC for the funding of Roadmap applications.     
• Added the following statement to Roadmap Notices of Grant Award (NGAs): “THIS AWARD IS FUNDED AS AN NIH ROADMAP INITIATIVE.”     
• Created a new Roadmap section on the Grant Snapshot Report.

For more information, see the eRA NIH Roadmap Overview and the release notes for CP 3.5.6.0, ICO 2.8.6.0 and Web QT 3.2.1.0. Send questions about the deployment to the eRA Helpdesk at helpdesk@od.nih.gov.

Program and Population Tracking User Groups To Receive NIH Merit Awards

NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni has invited members of the eRA Program Users Group (ePUG) and the eRA Population Tracking User Group to attend the Office of the Director Honor Awards Ceremony, where they will receive NIH Merit Awards. The ceremony will take place on September 17 at 1:30 p.m. in the Natcher Auditorium. A reception will follow.

In his letter to awardees, Dr. Zerhouni wrote: “Congratulations on your outstanding accomplishments. Your efforts have brought exceptional recognition and distinction to you and to the National Institutes of Health.”

eRA Program Users Group

ePUG is a cross-Institute/Center group that meets monthly to discuss Program issues and to provide insight and suggestions in the development, enhancement, training, and future direction of relevant eRA software. ePUG input was instrumental in the development of a new Program Module that enables Program Officials (POs) to conduct NIH research administration using the paperless processes mandated by Congress. The Program Module serves as a gateway to biomedical research and eRA information and allows POs to monitor and administer their assigned grant applications through all phases of the grant lifecycle.

ePUG Award Winners

Chiiko Asanuma	Carol S. Martin
Carlos E. Caban	Robert A. Musson
John S. Cole, III	Paul Nichols
Rory A. Duncan, Sr.	Blanch O’Neill
Burdette W. Erickson	Chanath A. Ratnanather
Robert Fay	Jose Serrano
David B. Finklestein	Roger Sorenson
Richard S. Fisher	Amy Swain
Thorsten A. Fjellstedt	Derrick Tabor
Anne K. Heath	Catherine D. Walker
Israel Lederhendler	Janna P. Wehrle

Population Tracking Users Group

The Population Tracking User Group is responsible for providing leadership in the development, enhancement, training, and future direction of the eRA Population Tracking Module. In April 2001, the eRA Steering Committee approved plans for a new IMPAC II Population Tracking module to comply with a Congressional mandate that the NIH collect data on the inclusion of women and minorities in NIH-supported clinical research. The User Group was instrumental in the creation of the new module, which was deployed in May 2002. The group continues to meet to discuss population-tracking issues and to offer suggestions for improving the module.

Population Tracking Award Winners

Martha Barnes	Angela Lingham
Karen Bashir	Jack Manischewitz
Angela Bates	Michael Martin
Penelope Colbert	Sharry Palagi
Clarissa Douglas	Marie Parker
Donna Frahm	Mary Lou Prince
Julie Gulya	Susan Schafer
Della Hahn	Sandra Seppala
Dan Hall	Meredith Temple
Melissa Hirsch	Michael Whelan
Margaret Holmes	Kim Witherspoon
	Diana Yerg