Re: FastLane Michael Ludwick 16 Sep 1997 09:57 EST

I agree 100% about sending comments to NSF about FastLane.  I have
sent them SEVERAL and they (either Bev Sherman or Dan Hofherr) have
responded in a timely manner.

As far as how we used FastLane for IGERT, I found the cut and pasting
mechanism very clumsy and I did not like the fact that I could not
see what the output was going to look like without going back in and
"printing" the document on my screen with Acrobat. Things were not
lining up properly so I would have to go back in and clean them up.
After trying to cut and paste a few things, I sacked it.  Instead I
cut and pasted stuff into Wordperfect 7.0 and coverted files to pdf
with Adobe Acrobat 3.0.  In doing this I knew my files would look to
NSF the same as they did to me on my screen, which was comforting.
Fortunately, everything turned out beautifully in the end.

Someone mentioned problems with MS Word.  The reason I do not like
MS Word is because it does not have the Reveal Codes feature like WP
does (or at least I have not been able to find it in Word).  With
that reveal codes feature you can see what codes are messing things
up and then remove or edit them.  Therefore I use WP whenever
possible.

One thing I would like to know is in how many cases did the
Sponsored Programs office compile the info to load into FastLane and
in how many cases were you able simply to go in, check it, and
submit.  In our case, the PIs were sending me stuff and I tweaked it
and loaded into the system.  Just curious how much extra work this
was for your office, whereas in the past the PIs would have done all
of this.  Our PIs were happy (and even sent a message to the
Associate Provost saying how happy they were with us) and being able
to do this provides a measure of job security (for now), so who can
complain, right? :-)

I look forward to comments from others.

Mike

Michael Ludwick, CRA
Associate Director of Sponsored Programs
Grants and Research Administration
College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA  23187-8795
phone: 757.221.3485  fax: 757.221.4910
email: xxxxxx@grants.wm.edu
website: http://www.wm.edu/AI/Grants/index.html
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