Enrollment in the NIH eRA Commons 2 is proceeding as planned for former Commons 1 and IMPAC I FSR users. Thus far, 46 grantee institutions and 469 individuals have registered for the new version. Enrollment will be extended to members of the Federal Demonstration Partnership, and finally to all institutions. Open enrollment, likely to begin in January 2003, represents a major milestone in achieving eRA’s mission of paperless grants administration.

On December 6, the NIH eRA Commons was upgraded to Release 2.2. The new release includes Internet Assisted Review (IAR) and several interface changes and bug fixes to eSNAP and FSR. See release notes for details.

• eSNAP is a Web interface for the submission of electronic Simplified Non-competing Application Process Type-5 progress reports. Four Commons Working Group (CWG) pilot users already have successfully transmitted progress reports, an achievement that marks eRA’s first fully electronic end-to-end integration of a business process. The pilot will be extended soon to additional users; the target for full deployment is March 2003.    
• FSR enables the electronic submission of Financial Status Reports. The new Web-based FSR system replaces the IMPAC I dial-up/terminal-based program, which is slated to be turned off on December 31, 2002. Several grantees and Office of Financial Management (OFM) staff currently are piloting the system. When functionality has been verified, eRA will open the FSR interface to all registered NIH eRA Commons 2 users.    
• IAR will facilitate the scientific review of grant applications by standardizing the electronic submission of critiques and initial priority scores and enabling reviewers to examine each other’s critiques online prior to meetings. The IAR pilot, which began on December 9, will be limited to several NIH review meetings. Participating Scientific Review Administrators (SRAs) and Grants Technical Assistants (GTAs) will invite reviewers assigned to these meetings to enroll in the NIH eRA Commons 2 and submit their critiques through IAR.

For the latest news on the pilots, visit the NIH eRA Commons support page. For more information about NIH eRA Commons 2, contact the NIH eRA Commons Helpdesk at commons@od.nih.gov or 866-504-9552.