eRA Project Team Meeting

Date: October 17, 2000
Time: 9:00 am
Location: 6700B Rockledge, Room 1205

Attendees:
John McGowan, Sherry Zucker, Thor Fjellstedt, Jay Silverman (Logicon), Bonnie Ellis, George Stone, Andy Greenleaf (Logicon), Donna Frahm, Bob Moore, Ken Dillon (LTS), Carol Martin, Jim Tucker, Jim Cain, Carlos Caban, Tim Twomey, Pete Morton, Kirt Vener, Cassandra Gibbs, Carla Flora, Belinda Seto, Larry Morton, Gregory Milman, Dave Carter, Michael Cox, Chip Groh, Zoe-Ann Copeland, Cassandra Gibbs, Richard Panniers, Marcia Hahn, Claire Benfer, Megan Columbus

Meeting Notes (main items):

Reminder the Next Meeting is scheduled for November 14, 2000

1. Information: GM users found the amount of information in the eRA presentation overwhelming. We need to focus on highlights only. Most users mainly want to know how eRA will affect them.

2. Newsletter: The first issue went out to 6,200 NIH staff. Only a few unsubscribed. Suggestions for articles are welcome, including for the Module Report section.

3. Central Printing: CIT is starting with ECB requests. It expects that each IC will designate just a few users. Issues include whether to change every IMPAC II application to include central printing, whether we really need central printing of summary statements, the cost of providing and maintaining drivers in ICs, and what non-IMPAC II printing will be done centrally. Action: John McGowan will query EPMC; Logicon will do a cost analysis; and Advocates will solicit user group input.

4. Delayed Budget Items: The principle was established that eRA would not carry out any work that is not funded. This applies to SITS and to portals. eRA can benefit from low-cost/high-impact portal collaboration with CIT, but we must have the resources to follow up. Action: Pete Morton will arrange for Don Preuss or some other CIT representative to brief the Project Team on CIT's portal strategy. Jim Cain will follow-up directly with Don in the interim on what could be done.

5. Scanning: A presentation by Kirt Vener of scanning at NCI and the ensuing discussion had the following highlights:

• The initial impetus for scanning at NCI was the desire to enable staff to telecommute. As the project developed, different parts of NCI identified other needs for scanning, in part because scanning conveys a range of benefits. In turn, this meant that there was a wish to scan the entire application.
• A contractor can do scanning at 8 cents per page. OCR and indexing are more expensive but are attractive because they add functionality that mere scanning lacks.
• There is a need for designing PHS-398 to be scanner-friendly. Two desiderata are last name first (for identification) and gray-scale images. It is also important to ensure that applicants do not alter the forms. We need to insert these issues into the current process of revising the PHS-398.
• Accuracy rates are estimated at 95 to 99 percent. We need to find out where the errors are occurring to see if they are something we can live with.
• Sending 75-100k files to telecommuters may cause a bandwidth problem.
• NCI's CDs are providing excellent quality in PDF and are searchable.
• We need to distinguish between scanning, OCRing, and indexing. Different people can perform each at different times, or they can be omitted as ICs prefer.
• eRA can collaborate with NCI and other ICs on scanning-for instance, by applying IMPAC II class codes and providing access to images in the database. NCI would be happy to get out of the scanning business if it could be done on an NIH-wide basis, but each IC will have to decide whether to index.

Action: FDC and OER staff to meet and discuss costs and feasibility for options in scanning to present to the Project Team and to engage EPMC and the Functional groups on the concept of moving to scanning if funds become available.

Attachments

No attachments.