Re: Rebecca Antley 01 Feb 2007 08:25 EST

We submitted four DoEd proposals yesterday, the last was submitted at 2:39
p.m. EST (email receipt received immediately) but not officially validated
(according the G.g system) until 6:17 a.m. today. Sponsor guidelines
dictated it had to be validated by 4:30 p.m. EST yesterday... the other
three all went through from start to finish within 2 hours for each.

Rebecca Antley, CRA, Grants & Contracts Administrator
MUSC Research & Sponsored Programs

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of
Charlie Hathaway
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 5:48 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: [RESADM-L]

I sent a HRSA application today around Noon.  It took about 10 min total
from AOR hitting Submit to Agency retrieval email.

> Anyone tried to use grants.gov today--5 days before the NIH R01 deadline?
> It's taking ten minutes to log on to g.g; another 10-15 to submit the
> application; and another 5-10 to get confirmation.
>
> Maybe it's just my computer.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org]On Behalf
> Of Cull, Paula
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 4:56 PM
> To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
> Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] another article in the Chronicle on grants.gov
>
>
> Bob Beattie:
>
> Thank you, finally someone with a wider vision and lots of common sense
> who is articulate too!
>
> Paula Cull
> Grants & Sponsored Programs
> Montana State University-Billings
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On
> Behalf Of Robert Beattie
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 2:21 PM
> To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
> Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] another article in the Chronicle on grants.gov
>
> While the article is not as positive as it should be, given the
> actual whelming (not over and not over) success of the program, it is
> not all that bad. There are problems in it.  For one thing the whole
> "Find" component of Grants.gov is not mentioned.  Something with
> capability to find and then download any Federal grant application
> with a fairly standard form seems like a pretty good system. I also
> dislike words such as "maze," "anxiety," "dole out grants,"
> "stymied," "cumbersome."  Nothing was more cumbersome than typing up
> an application, checking by eyeball,  making 20 copies (are all the
> pages done right), boxing it up, carrying it to the FedEx pick up,
> filling out the labels (and hoping the truck was not in an accident).
>
> I find that most of our UM user community, typically admin staff, and
> not PIs (who should be doing science, not data entry) like the
> system.  Our grants office staff are happy with it too.  Especially
> so, now that we have the new IBM viewer for our Macs to do
> submissions.  The Mac viewer is terrific, well only in so far as it
> does what the original Pure Edge program did.  And we all know there
> are some problems there :)
>
> Counting pages is a poor metric for measuring success.  The NIH guide
> need not be printed in all 202 pages but is best kept as an online
> Word file for each searching. Likewise the other Guides.  Recall
> there was once an NIH 398 Guide and application kit that arrive in
> our office, at least, by the carton load.
>
> The real paper waster, is of course, printing an application.  An
> equal number of wasted pages for each good 424 page. This is on our
> list of things to be fixed (and the problems with multi-year
> budgets)  But then do we need to print applications?
>
> Not mentioned in the article is the fact that months will be cut from
> the review process by NIH.  Getting results a grant cycle earlier
> seems well worth the effort to learn the system.
>
> Also, a positive aspect is that we no longer, or at least should no
> longer, have to deal with 26 different agency formats and
> procedures.  Yes there are those that want extra paper, and extra
> processing, or do not want to give up all their applications to the
> new system, but can this just be attributed to those agencies only
> maturing slowly, or not appreciating how their users suffer at their
> whims.  We certainly do not want 26 different systems, even if they
> are as good, but in their own way, as FastLane.  One form, one
> system, one portal is a motto I like.  We will still have to deal
> with 26 different post-submission systems.
>
> Grants.gov is 3 years old but people have only been paying attention
> for about a year -- When NIH Talks Universities Listen. So much
> progress in that one year.  NIH has made many concession in how they
> are using the system.  Note the deadline change time, the removal of
> the PI/SO verification, the stretching out of the deadline in a
> month, removing many things that caused errors.  This whole
> electronic submission process cannot be done without a little
> compromise by both agencies and users.  Someone said it was like beta
> testing, well who better to be testing this but all of us.  If
> Grants.gov and the agencies will listen to our suggestions, we should
> soon be able to expect system which, if not perfect, should be at
> least excellent.
>
> Bob
> xxxxxx@umich.edu
>
>
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 2:36 PM, Molly Daniel wrote:
>
> http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i22/22a02501.htm
> The link above is to an article in this week's Chronicle of Higher
> Education about the underwhelming success of Grants.gov. The article
> cites a claim by NIH that the electronic submission process will save
> an estimated "200 million sheets of paper." We haven't really saved a
> forest yet, though, because those 200 million pages are likely offset
> by the 500 million printed in a several hundred offices of applicant
> organizations around the country who are trying to figure out how to
> use the system.
>
> Grants.gov Applicant User Guide - 90 pages
> NIH eRA Commonts System Users Guide - 104 pages
> Grants.gov Application Guide for the SF424 (R&R) (version 2) - 202 pages
> NIH ERA Exchange Services Notes, Tips and Validations for Grants.gov
> components - 74 pages
>
> This of course does not include the RFA/RFP, the sample completed
> SF424 R&R application or the many drafts of the "completed" form
> pages we spit out as we develop the drafts. Sure, we always have
> printed those documents, but now it seems as though the parts are
> broken up into to even more separate sheets of paper.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
> Molly Daniel
> Grants Specialist
> Planning Department
> Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center
> 1000 Health Center Drive
> Mattoon, IL  61938
> tel. 217.258.2195
> fax 217.258.4135
> email: xxxxxx@sblhs.org
> http://www.sarahbush.org
>
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 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
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 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
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