Steering Committee Meeting Minutes
February 15, 2001

eRA Steering Committee Minutes
February 15, 2001


Attendees: Marvin Cassman, Ph.D. NIGMS, Chair
Wendy Baldwin, Ph.D., OER
Yvonne du Buy, NIDCR
Gahan Breithaupt, NINDS
Ellie Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., CSR
Alan Graeff, CIT
John McGowan, Ph.D., NIAID/OER
Ed Donohue, NHLBI
Sally Lee, NIGMS (for Martha Pine, Executive Secretary)


Dr. Cassman opened the meeting by welcoming the committee members. He then turned the floor over to Dr. McGowan, who was the main presenter on the meeting's agenda. Dr. McGowan distributed copies of the February 13 issue of "Inside eRA." The purpose of the newsletter is to report on the progress of NIH's eRA project to combine IMPAC II and the NIH Commons into a fully electronic grant application submission and processing environment. One special feature of this particular issue was an article, written by Olivia Preble Bartlett, which describes, from a user's perspective, the summary statement preparation functions of the review module in IMPAC II. Similar articles will appear in future issues of the newsletter.

Dr. McGowan then directed the group's attention to the February 15 eRA Steering Committee notebook, which contained hard copies of his PowerPoint presentation on the NIH Commons (Tab A). He highlighted some of the slides in his prepared presentation. The full presentation is attached below.

In his early slides, Dr. McGowan presented an estimated timeline for the NIH Commons effort. He mentioned that a Commons Functional Group (CFG), composed of a variety of university representatives, as well as NIH membership proposed a number of recommendations regarding the current Commons interface. For example, the group suggested that the E-SNAP pilot be stopped, and that alternatively, attention should be focused on further development of X-Train. The CFG also suggested that no additional enhancements or modifications be made to the Commons, and that efforts be directed toward refining redesign requirements based on new technology. In addition, the CFG recommended that two functional implementation teams be established. One group would improve upon the functionality in the existing NIH Commons interface so that it can be added into the new underlying technology. The second e-grants subgroup would re-engineer the business process for non-competing and competing grant applications in FY 2001-2002 and explore related application technology options and interfaces.

Referring to slide #10 in his presentation, Dr. McGowan explained that the Commons would be adopting a new three-tier architecture. Referring to slide #13, Dr. McGowan presented a 2001-2002 NIH eRA deployment timeline. It is anticipated that X-Train will be developed in the current version of the NIH Commons and will be deployed in late summer (August 2001). He also stated that "simple" competing R01 applications, meaning those that do not involve animal or human subjects, will be piloted in 2003.

Dr. Cassman commented that the committee would defer to Dr. McGowan's judgment regarding restructuring the Commons. However, Dr. Cassman felt that the group needed some assurance that technological changes would not adversely delay the proposed deployment of individual systems. Mr. Graeff responded that the Implementation Plan for the NIH Business System (NBS) includes a policy statement that assumes a limited number of interfaces and no customizations. Development and strict adherence of a similar implementation principle for the eRA project should mitigate the risks associated with "scope creep" and the cost and time variations inherent in implementing a program that becomes more complex than originally envisioned. Any exceptions should be made only after analysis of cost and schedule impact, and approval by the eRA Steering Committee. Moreover, the approval of any exception must be accompanied with adjustments to the budget and the schedule, as necessary. Mr. Graeff indicated that he would share the NBS implementation policy statement with the eRA Steering Committee members and that he would be working closely with Dr. McGowan to develop a multi-year business plan for the eRA project.

Referring to the eRA Steering notebook, Dr. McGowan directed the members' attention to several updated documents, which are briefly itemized below:

  • Tab B: FY 2001 eRA project timeline projection
  • Tab C: February 12, 2001 IMPAC II daily status report. (Dr. McGowan informed
    the members that their names could be added to this e-mail group, if they
    wished).
  • Tab D: February 1, 2001 eRA Status meeting's agenda and minutes. The eRA
    Project Plan for IMPAC II and the Commons was also included. These
    status meetings include participation by contractors, IC representatives,
    and OER staff.
  • Tab E: February 6, 2001 eRA Project Team meeting's agenda and minutes
  • Tab F: January 30, 2001 OER eRA Staff meeting minutes
  • Tab G: December 21, 2000 eRA Steering Committee meeting minutes
  • Tab H: January 12, 2001 "Inside eRA" newsletter
  • Tab I: eRA Project Management Plan (includes "ramp-up" staffing projections)

    Continuing with his PowerPoint presentation (see Tab J), Dr. McGowan then asked the group to identify the level of detail they would like to see in regards to monitoring the progress of the eRA project. Dr. Baldwin commented that she would like to know, on a monthly basis, what activities are ahead of, as well as behind schedule. She noted that while she was not particularly interested in the details surrounding the technical progress of the project, it would be important to receive regular updates as to whether activities were progressing well, from an overall perspective. In follow-up to this comment,
    Ms. du Buy noted that she was interested in being kept apprised on whether the work being conducted by contractors was on schedule, and whether associated costs were on track, relative to fiscal projections.

    Mr. Breithaupt commented that he would like to be kept abreast of planned disruptions from an end user's perspective (e.g., upgrades of software) and how such interruptions would impact NIH, as a whole. Dr. Ehrenfeld supported this idea, by citing an example where the planned migration to Oracle 8i, which was scheduled for the February 16th holiday weekend, in her opinion, may have been better communicated to NIH staff. (The migration was prompted, in part, by Oracle's decision to suspend support of NIH's current versions). The group discussed the importance of developing effective and creative ways to broadcast planned outages to end-users. By improving communications, those ICs that have extension systems may be in a better position to deal with incompatibility issues that may surface. Dr. McGowan responded that the migration to Oracle 8i was purposefully scheduled for the three-day holiday weekend, since it afforded an extra day to resolve any unexpected problems and because it followed the last IC advisory council meeting scheduled in February. Dr. Baldwin commented that IC staff need to share in the responsibility for disseminating awareness of system outages within their respective organizations.

    Dr. Cassman agreed that the committee could encourage IC input on suggestions for enhancing communication regarding planned outages, but that this role was probably not directly within the group's responsibilities. However, he did emphasize that the committee could play an instrumental role in evaluating the communications process used to disseminate information regarding the eRA effort and for promoting community buy-in of the project. In response, Dr. McGowan proposed that the committee serve as a gauge of community satisfaction, particularly as it pertains to input regarding the design, user-friendliness, and functionality of the eRA project. Since there are several venues, such as EPMC, user group, and group advocates' meetings that afford timely opportunities for individuals to raise issues/concerns regarding the eRA effort,
    Dr. Cassman proposed that the committee only discuss broad-reaching or systematic problems that are brought to its attention.

    The committee members agreed that on a monthly basis, they would like an update from the eRA project manager regarding "what's working," and "what's not." They also agreed that a list of major milestones achieved would be helpful. Key items to be included on this list of milestones include, but are not limited to budgetary issues, as well as status updates.

    Concluding his presentation, Mr. McGowan briefly reported that funds in support of the eRA project were forthcoming and that additional office space vacated by the self-service store in Rockledge II would soon be available. He also explained that more subcontracting would be occurring in support of the eRA effort and that additional OER staff would be needed to oversee work performed by contractors. An Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) contractor will monitor the overall implementation effort. CIT and NLM staff are currently interviewing possible vendors for this effort, and it will likely take 3-4 months to award the IV&V contract.

    Lastly, Dr. Cassman asked the committee members if they had any comments on the draft eRA Steering Committee Charter that had been previously distributed via e-mail.
    Ms. du Buy and Mr. Breithaupt provided written comments, which were incorporated into the final version of the charter and is attached as Appendix 1.


    Handouts

  • "Inside eRA" February 13, 2001 newsletter
  • NIH eRA Steering Committee Meeting notebook, dated February 15, 2001


    Appendix 1: eRA Steering Committee Charter, revised as of February 16, 2001

    Attachments

    NOTE:

    The attachments listed below were current as of the meeting date. Information in these documents may no longer be valid. Final versions of project documentation will be posted separately on the website.

    Many of the attachments are large Microsoft Office files. Check the file format and file size to decide if you want to download.

    Visit the external Microsoft accessibility website for more information on accessibility and Office documents. There is also a text-only version of their site available.


    Attachment File format File size
    Presentation MS Powerpoint 2000 317 k