Hi, dear colleagues,

We had a very frustrating experience Monday (5/9) in trying to submit a
US Department of Education proposal electronically via grants.gov.  I am
wondering if others encountered similar problems with that USDEd program
(Opportunity Number ED-GRANTS-032305-002) or any others in that
timeframe.  (Feel free to skip to the last paragraph if you wish!)

Aware of the issues others have written about, I made sure to register
early, including receiving confirmation that I had passed the "security
clearance," and we thought we were set to submit.  Although I am a newly
authorized official for our institution, our office had been registered,
my registration was acknowledged and my director received a message from
grants.gov that she was the only person authorized to approve me as an
AOR, and by April 25 we understood that she had done what she needed to
do to approve me.

After working with the PI throughout the day on May 9 (the USDEd due
date), I hit the submit button with more than half an hour to spare --
but could not get the submission to go through.  After finally getting
someone on the telephone from grants.gov, who walked me through a final
step that I had not known was applicable to me individually (through the
business section of the registration module, I was told I had to
authorize myself to be the authorized official, despite what we had
earlier been told).  Then I was to be fully able to submit -- but still
the submission would not go through.  By this time the 4:30 deadline had
passed, but we didn't give up.  The USDEd web site was down every time I
checked that day (and had been most times I tried to check it over the
previous two weeks), so I was unable to see who might be program
contacts other than the Education Program Specialist listed on the
proposal package.  Since I could not look her up on the web site to
phone her and only had an email address for her, on the same domain as
the inaccessible agency web site, I tried emailing her.  By this time
more than an hour had passed since the deadline, but in the email
message I requested authorization to submit the proposal on paper rather
than electronically, due to the series of problems we were encountering;
I commented that I would be surprised if we were the only people
experiencing similar issues.  Becuase we had spent so much time and
energy trying to use the grants.gov submission system, The PI and I were
worn out, and he didn't feel he could get the elements of the proposal
ready to mail out until the next day, so we waited to hear.

Tuesday morning I received a message from the Program Specialist, who
reported that she had spoken with the chief administrator.  Their
position was that since the program did not require electronic
submission of this proposal, they could only accept a paper submission
if it were postmarked by midnight Monday, the deadline.  Of course we
had missed that deadline.  But we wouldn't have missed it had we known
the scope of the difficulties we would encounter with teh electronic
submission process.

It seems to me that it is unreasonable to expect folks to use a method
of submission that seems so unreliable or too complex for intelligent
people to use.  I am a former Federal Grants Specialist, so I understand
the issue of fairness to all applicants.  Not having used the grants.gov
submission module before, I could not have anticipated the level of
difficulty that we would experience, and could not make a reasonable
recommendation to our faculty member about method of filing.  I am also
far from a techno-phobe.  The lesson I take from this is to make sure
future submissions are made on paper and not to even bother with the
electronic process -- but I know that option is being phased out.  Maybe
there should be a grace period for grants.gov first-timers (look at all
the anxiety out there among RESADM posters on the subject!)...  Before
we make any further attempts on behalf of our faculty member to plead
for acceptance of his proposal, can anyone offer any suggestions?

Thanks,
Susan

--
Susan Anderson

Assistant Director
Office of Research & Grants Administration
66 George Street
Charleston, South Carolina 29424
843-953-4973 (voice)
843-953-6577 (fax)
xxxxxx@CofC.edu
http://www.orga.cofc.edu/

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