I think that the system was to be available for funding agencies to use
as they saw fit.  Do note that time passes quickly; it has been over a
year since Grants.gov was implemented, in November, 2003.  By now there
have been some 1500 submissions through the system.  Moreover, my
impression from recent Department of Energy guidelines is that both
Grants.gov and IIPS were an option.  The requirement for use will be
agency driven.

We have done some other agency applications where G.g was mandatory.
My first step was to buy a PC for our grants office( that has 50 Macs).
I have not had problems recently with the Pure Edge option.  In the
summer of 2004, we did have problems with the large NIH Director's
Pioneer awards but did end up submitting ok.  I have been speaking out
against the lack of platform options since the system was first
announced as PC only, in summer of 2003.  Strange, isn't it that the
feds take Microsoft to court as a monopoly and then require us to use a
windows platform?

I think there are no plans (never were any plans) to add more
platforms.  My estimate of local Mac usage is that 30% of our faculty
use them.  Most of the UM administrative units got rid of them in order
to use PeopleSoft.  The G.g solution for large institutions is their
System to System (S2S) versions that links the electronic proposal
management system of a university to the G.g system.  This became live
in January.  Of course, you need to have your local system ready to
link :)

There is a good presentation about the plans for S2S at the FDP website
http://thefdp.org/Meeting_May2004.html

 There is more recent information at
http://www.grants.gov/DoingBusinessApplicant

I think we have a couple of options for dealing with G.g:  continue to
complain about the lack of flexibility with Pure Edge, ask sponsors to
not require G.g, and begin to plan for S2S.  I think there are vendors
who will soon offer solutions for the latter as a short term solution
for those who cannot deal with Pure Edge.  It might be cheaper to buy a
PC.  The Grants.gov staff have heard the Mac complaints for 2 years and
not acted on them.  Why should we expect a change.  I do not want each
agency to continue to use its own system, no matter how Mac friendly
they might be.  That is the biggest nightmare of all.

Bob

(personal aside to Rich -- perhaps we can talk about this at the
forthcoming MI-SRA meeting)
__________________________________
Robert Beattie
Managing Senior Project Representative
 for Electronic Research Administration
Division of Research Development and Administration
University of Michigan
3003 S. State Street   Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1274
office: 734 936-1283    mobile: 734 717-6281
xxxxxx@umich.edu

On Mar 9, 2005, at 4:46 PM, Richard Magyar wrote:

Hi,

Has anyone come across a submission in which using the new grants.gov
process was MANDATORY?

My understanding was that the grants.gov system would be phased in
gradually, with only voluntary participation for at least the next year
or
so.  Imagine my surprise when we found out that our latest DOE grant
REQUIRES the grants.gov submission mechanism.

The problem, for us, is in the software grants.gov requires us to use.
The
“PureEdge” viewer is incompatible with Macintoshes, and the company
developing that software (PureEdge Solutions) has no plans to ever
create a
Mac solution.

They recommend using VirtualPC, which is awkward and unreliable
workaround.

I’d originally hoped that grants.gov would mature as a service in the
next
year or so, and eventually expand it’s support to  multiple platforms.
"Fastlane" is a good example of exactly that kind of success through
graduate service roll-out.

But if we are all to be required to use this new service more-or-less
immediately, then waiting for the bugs to be worked out will NOT be an
option.

Anyone else in the same boat?
Anyone have any insight on grants.gov or solutions to these platform
issues?

--
Thanks for your time,

Rich Magyar
Systems Administrator
Eastern Michigan University
Graduate Studies & Research
734-487-3090
xxxxxx@emich.edu

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