Inside eRA for Partners, November 5, 2003 (Volume 3, Issue 7)

Dr. John McGowan to Leave eRA Project

Dr. John J. McGowan announced on October 9 that he will step down from his post as eRA project manager at the end of December. Under his leadership, the NIH eRA initiative has made great progress in achieving its objective of end-to-end electronic grants administration. This fall, Dr. McGowan realized the personal goal he set when he joined the project in 1999 -- NIH successfully accepted its first competitive e-applications for the October/November cycle.

Dr. Elias Zerhouni, in his letter of commendation to Dr. McGowan, thanked him for his stellar effort and vision in leading the eRA. “Dr. McGowan’s leadership and management brought transparency and clarity to eRA. He established systems and a process to provide independent cost analysis and verification to ensure that the project produced results on time and within budget.”

Dr. Wendy Baldwin, former NIH deputy director for Extramural Research, praises Dr. McGowan as an “outstanding colleague [who] understands the culture of the NIH, the heart of the technology, the need for change management, and the hard work of supervising a complex activity.” According to Baldwin, eRA is “a massive behavior-change project as well as a technological project.”

Dr. McGowan’s success in moving the project forward is due, in large part, to his ability to unite communities with diverse interests toward a common goal. An effective manager who bridged organizational cultures and personalities to create a coherent, well-functioning team of 600 participants, Dr. McGowan established effective organizational structures to foster communication and feedback from all stakeholders. These structures include:

• eRA Advocates, volunteers drawn from 12 different NIH institutes and centers, who represent the interests of their business area on the eRA Project Team.          
• The Commons Working Group, comprising representatives from 18 grantee institutions, that plays a critical role in shaping, evaluating and fine-tuning new eRA Web-based applications for the grantee community.          
• Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awardees who are collaborating with eRA to build tools to assist grantee organizations with the creation and submission of electronic application files.          
• Grants.gov, a federal initiative supported by NIH and ten other departments and agencies that are working together to develop a one-stop electronic grant portal for full-service electronic grants administration.

For Dr. McGowan, serving as project manager has been “an honor and a privilege.” In reflecting on the past three years, Dr. McGowan commented, “I hope I have served NIH and the extramural community well.” He views his role as an enabler who brought the stakeholders together, championed the project at higher levels, and secured the funding to empower system users to set priorities and accomplish goals. Recognizing that the project was seriously under-funded, Dr. McGowan and the advocates built a business case for increasing the annual eRA budget from $15 million to $40 million in a two-year period. At the same time, the project team established the appropriate checks and balances to ensure results on time and within budget.

During Dr. McGowan’s tenure, eRA Project Team achievements include:

• Phase-out of the legacy mainframe IMPAC system.          
• Construction of all new software applications using Web-based J2EE architecture and migration of existing applications to this platform.          
• Scanning of all grant applications received by the Center for Scientific Review, virtually eliminating the costs of reproducing, distributing and storing the 60,000 annual incoming proposals for NIH staff and peer reviewers.          
• Elimination of all unscheduled downtime by introducing new technologies such as load balancing and a Storage Area Network.          
• Implementation of Internet Assisted Review (IAR), a tool that cuts the time spent in review meetings by 33 percent and reduces summary statement cycle time from eight weeks to three days.          
• Introduction of the Electronic Grants Folder that allows online retrieval of documents stored in the eRA database. This innovation will eliminate millions of pieces of paper each year.          
• Deployment of the NIH eRA Commons Version 2, a Web interface where NIH and the grantee community are able to conduct grants business electronically and to display status and reports online. Since Commons’ debut last fall, 525 institutions and 7,300 grantees have registered. eRA expects to enroll more than 65,000 additional users over the next 18 months.          
• Pilot deployment of Electronic Simplified Non-competing Application Process (eSNAP), a Web interface that enables researchers to submit their Type 5 progress reports. This is one of several areas where Dr. McGowan’s experience with biological research, knowledge of NIH policies and procedures, and technical expertise led him to lobby for business process reengineering prior to software development.           
• Pilot deployment of electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (CGAP). As indicated above, NIH has begun accepting a limited number of electronic grant applications.          
• Creation of one common database for transactions by applicants, reviewers and NIH staff for analysis of information collected on grants, contracts and intramural research.          
• Selection of eRA as the Department-wide system for research grants processing.

As Dr. McGowan prepares to leave the project, he is inspiring the project team to consider eRA’s potential beyond the original goal of electronic grants administration. At the recent Third Annual eRA retreat (see article in this issue), he urged the team to expand the eRA vision to include NIH research initiative planning, formulation of solicitations, and exploitation of Knowledge Management technology to identify subject area experts, determine scientific trends, and analyze return on investment.

After Dr. McGowan leaves the project, he will devote his full attention to his home institute NIAID, where he is the director of the Division of Extramural Activities. In this capacity, he is legally responsible for billions of dollars in extramural research awards each year. According to Dr. McGowan, this is a unique time for NIAID, whose budget has grown from $2.372 billion in FY 2002 to $4.335 billion for FY2004. In recent years, the scope of the NIAID research portfolio has expanded in response to bioterrorism, the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases such as AIDS, smallpox, Ebola, West Nile virus, malaria, tuberculosis as well as the increase in asthma among children in the United States and worldwide. 

A molecular biologist and virologist, Dr. McGowan was one of the first members of what is now NIAID’s Division of AIDS and served as associate director of the Basic Research and Development Program, with responsibility for basic research, the pathogenesis of disease as well as preclinical drug and vaccine development. Dr. McGowan received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Before joining the NIH in 1986, Dr. McGowan was an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. As an NIH grantee and contractor for the Department of Defense, he researched and published extensively on rhabdo, corona and bunya viruses, vesicular stomatitis virus, mouse hepatitis virus and Korean hemorrhagic fever virus.

eRA Will Process Live Electronic Applications this Fall

eRA currently is working with grantee volunteers who are taking part in the first round of electronic submission of live, competitive applications. The eRA pilot, which coincides with NIH’s October and November receipt dates, will accept a limited number of applications through Grants.gov and from commercial vendors participating in the project. During FY 2004, eRA will process an increasing number of e-applications for each cycle. Full production for simple, single-project applications is planned for the fall round of FY2005.

In preparation for the pilot, eRA teamed with six eRA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awardees who are building tools to assist grantees with the creation and submission of electronic applications. Electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (CGAP) project staff established a test/pilot site, successfully registered and built the computer-to-computer communications infrastructure, and processed transactions to and from the participating systems. Then, the team implemented the business rules and validations inherent in the PHS 398 application as stipulated in the NIH application kit and as required by eRA data structures.

eRA also continues to upgrade internal systems to be able to route the electronic applications through the grants administration system without reverting to paper at any point. The fall pilot supports paperless processes for receipt and referral.

To transmit an electronic application, volunteers are collaborating with a service provider (SBIR awardee) to prepare and submit a PHS 398. Alternatively, volunteers can download, complete and submit their 398’s through Grants.gov. In the future, institutions can choose to enable their own systems to meet the specifications of the CGAP interface. For these institutions, NIH will issue an information kit with sample code and details of the technology needed to communicate electronically with the eRA Exchange.

When the XML-formatted applications arrive at the NIH, they will be received by the eRA Exchange. The Exchange checks for viruses, validates the format, maps the XML to the eRA database, notifies the service provider or Grants.gov, and routes the application data to the eRA system. The Principal Investigator and Signing Official then examine and verify the application via the Commons Status interface. Status will be upgraded to provide a new inquiry function that will allow submitters to track the progress of their electronic applications through the system. 

The NIH is overseeing the applications of all volunteer participants to eliminate the risk of missed deadlines and to protect applicants from any possible “glitches.” The CGAP team is assisting applicant institutions and grantees with each step of the electronic submission.

Following is the schedule for accepting electronic applications this fall.

The vision of Grants.gov and the NIH eRA CGAP project extends well beyond support for the receipt of electronic grant applications. The notion of implementing an end-to-end, electronic grants administration business process is at the heart of all development efforts. Ultimately, all downstream grants transactions and notifications will occur electronically.

Both grantors and grantees will profit from the government-wide implementation of electronic grant applications. There will be an improvement in data quality and significant savings in paper, space, effort and time. The migration to e-applications is expected to shorten the waiting period from submission to award by more than two months. Specific benefits include:

1. Grantee interface with a single system –– the institution’s.     
2. Support for outputs for submission to multiple agencies.       
3. Application validation prior to submission.       
4. Immediate confirmation of receipt and validation.       
5. All subsequent business transactions occur between eRA and the institution system.       
6. Ability to query and retrieve data from eRA as transactions, eliminating data discrepancies and transcription errors.       
7. Automated upload of award budget and terms.       
8. Grantee ability to view application status throughout the life cycle of the grant.

Following the fall pilot, NIH will gear up for the February 2004 cycle, when eRA expects to invite more participants and to enable computer-to-computer application transmission from institutions to the NIH. At that time, eRA may allow additional application types (the fall pilot is limited to R01 Type 1 and Type 2 simple projects with modular budgets) and begin issuing Notices of Grant Awards (NGAs) via transactions. eRA currently is seeking volunteers to participate in the February pilot.

In preparation for the production deployment of single-project electronic applications next fall, eRA strongly suggests that all grantee institutions register for the Commons and become familiar with its applications. At the recent annual meeting of the Society of Research Administrators (SRA) International in Pittsburgh, Dr. John McGowan, eRA project manager, urged institutions to enter the world of electronic grants. “If you’re not registering your PIs, they’re going to be registered for you” because NIH is using the Internet for peer reviews. Reviewers will become aware of the new electronic tools and will challenge their schools with “Why aren’t we using the eRA system?” Visit https://commons.era.nih.gov/commons/ to learn how to enroll and use Commons interfaces.

For more information about eRA’s plans to receive electronic applications, contact David Wright at david.wright@nih.gov or 301-451-4349.

NIH Recognizes Electronic Files as Official Documents

Effective immediately, NIH will regard electronic documents and data stored in the eRA and Institute databases as legitimate components of the official grant file. This new policy was set forth in an August 15 memorandum from Regina H. White, former director, NIH Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration (OPERA) to the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management.

NIH’s official acknowledgment of electronic files is in accordance with HHS Grant Policy Directive (GPD) Part 3.06: Post-Award Reports and Records. Section C.2.b.(2).(e) states “Applicable documents must be included in hard copy (including electronic documents, such as e-mail requests for prior approval) or must be referenced to a separate file or repository.” By officially recognizing the eRA enterprise system as an electronic repository, the foundation is set to move forward to a less-paper environment. NIH is in the process of implementing this directive through the NIH Grants Administration Manual (NIHGAM). Part 4.3.06.206 of the NIHGAM will provide specific details on official grant files––both hard copy and electronic records.

Certifying electronic documents and data is a necessary step toward realizing the eRA goal of developing a state-of-the-art, electronic grants-processing system that will substantially reduce the need for paper during every phase of the grant cycle. The new policy also is consistent with the President’s Management Agenda and Public Laws 105-277 and 106-107. Its implementation will result in reducing paper and storage requirements and eliminating duplicative effort and administrative burden.

OPERA also investigated the legal implications of scanned signatures. Senior Attorney Paul Robertson of the NIH Office of the General Counsel referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) guide to federal agencies with respect to the legal considerations of implementing electronic processes. In essence, in order to use electronic or any other records as evidence, the government must establish that the records were generated and maintained by a “trustworthy” and reliable process. The eRA Project Management Team discussed this issue at a recent meeting and concluded that the existing eRA system meets this requirement. However, as a next step, James Cain, director of the Division of Extramural Information Systems (DEIS), will recommend that the NIH Office of Management Assessment hire an independent contractor to officially certify the “reliability” of the eRA system.

Direct questions about the new document policy to Marcia Hahn, eRA advocate for Grants Policy, at hahnm@mail.nih.gov or 301-435-0932.

Highlights of Quarterly Commons Working Group Meeting

Representatives from 14 grantee institutions met with eRA staff to discuss the eRA Commons, the electronic applications pilot, and other grant-related topics at the September 21 meeting of the Commons Working Group (CWG) in Washington, D.C. Since January 2001, the CWG has played a critical role in shaping, evaluating and fine-tuning new eRA interfaces to the extramural grantee community.

Agenda Highlights

• eRA Commons Deployment Update

Dan Hall, former eRA Commons lead analyst, provided up-to-date statistics on the growth of eRA Commons registration and usage: 525 institutions registered, 7,300 accounts created, 15,000 logins during August, 305 eSNAPS and 13,700 FSRs submitted, and 535 reviewers using IAR for October meetings. eRA expects to enroll more than 65,000 additional users over the next 18 months.

The Commons software will be upgraded on November 7. Enhancements include implementation of a new password policy; an IAR demo facility; enhancements to the Status module; and support for electronic submission of pre-award just-in-time (JIT) information and no-cost project extension requests. For more details, see the September issue of Partners.

• CGAP/Grants.gov News

JJ Maurer, lead eRA analyst for the electronic Competitive Grant Application Process (CGAP) initiative, reported on the October/November pilot with the goal of accepting and processing a limited number of e-applications. See the CGAP article in this issue for comprehensive coverage of the pilot.

The group then discussed upcoming project plans. Following the fall pilot, NIH will gear up for the February 2004 cycle, when eRA expects to invite more participants and to enable computer-to-computer application transmission from institutions to the NIH. At that time, eRA may allow additional application types (the fall pilot was limited to R01 Type 1 and Type 2 projects with modular budgets) and begin issuing Notices of Grant Awards (NGAs) via transactions. As an action item, CWG members will indicate their preferences and priorities for the creation of new data streams (e.g., for Financial Status Reports, Institutional Profiles, and Professional Profiles). 

JJ Maurer also raised several outstanding security and standards issues. The government and grantees need to agree on rules for the security of the overall system and for each transaction. Delegation of authority must be established for many interactions: between the institution and eRA system; the institution and the service provider; the institution and Grants.gov; the institution and its exchange. Likewise, eRA must establish agreements with Grants.gov, service providers, and institutional exchanges.

Regarding standards, eRA has implemented ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises to conduct business over the Internet. If adopted at the federal level by Grants.gov, ebXML would provide a standard method to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms, and define and register business processes.

• eSNAP IRB/IACUC Discussion

The initial eSNAP pilot tested the feasibility of shifting the monitoring of Institutional Review Board/Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IRB/IACUC) approval dates from grant-by-grant monitoring to systems monitoring; therefore, no IRB or IACUC approval dates were required with eSNAP submissions. The assumption at the time was that random sampling would be used, and the burden of the verification would be minimal. The NIH policy office, however, has recently determined that a random sample is insufficient. Therefore, institutions must now supply IRB/IACUC information for all applicable progress reports that have been submitted via eSNAP.

The CWG discussed whether to begin collecting the dates at eSNAP submission or to collect the required data as a post-submission process. The group agreed to the latter. As an action item, David Wright will send spreadsheets to CWG eSNAP pilot participants specifying the approval information needed for compliance.

• Ad Hoc Query Tool for NIH Staff and Commons Users

Sherry Zucker, chief of the eRA Software Analysis and Development Branch, made a proposal to add an ad hoc search option to the Commons Status module that would take advantage of Web QT, a new query and retrieval system developed for internal eRA system users. The CWG enthusiastically endorsed the idea of adding the ad hoc query option. This enhancement will be prioritized with other Commons initiatives for a future release. In the interim, grantees are invited to review prototype screens at http://era.nih.gov/UI/Commons/StatusQuery2/adhocSearch.asp and send comments to Patti Gaines at gainesp@mail.nih.gov. David Wright also is forming a Commons reporting tool focus group. The first focus group meeting was held in conjunction with the 2003 meeting of the National Council of University Administrators (NCURA) on November 2-5 in Washington, D.C. Contact David Wright at david.wright@nih.gov if you are interested in participating.

• Initiatives for the Spring 2004 Release

1. Full deployment of X-Train Version 2.0         
2. Integration of a content management system to facilitate Web site updates         
3. Security based on organizational hierarchy ( School/Division/Department/Sub-Department(s))         
4. Ability to assign meaningful names to each level (e.g., Department=Center)         
5. Improved interface for the definition of hierarchies         
6. Ability to assign rights to a level of the hierarchy         
7. Support for workflow

• Future OLAW Interface with eRA

David Wright presented a proposal from the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) to develop an interface with eRA through the NIH eRA Commons to enable institutions to submit annual report data and assurances electronically.

• New eRA Support Contracts

 (See full article in this issue.)

• eRA Deployment Strategy

Now that eRA is a more mature system, James Cain, director of the Division of Extramural Information Systems (DEIS), announced that the number of major functional releases will be reduced to 1-2 per year with bug fixes occurring every 4-6 weeks. Automated testing is a key requirement for quick turnaround of maintenance releases. Cain reported that eRA intends to implement automated testing by the spring of 2004. 

Third Annual eRA Retreat Devoted to Resetting the Vision

“Resetting the Vision” was the theme of the FY2004 eRA Project Team retreat on October 9 and 10 at the Harbourtowne Golf Resort and Conference Center in St. Michaels, MD. During the retreat, the team worked on goals for the coming year in light of the growing momentum of the electronic grants project, eRA’s expanding role in the Department, and opportunities for eRA to accelerate medical discovery in accordance with the NIH Roadmap.

At the present time, eRA is funded to provide a core transaction system for NIH research grants and a database for analyzing all research projects conducted by the intramural program and subsidized by grants and contracts. Recently, eRA’s mission has grown to supply these services to the entire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). In his opening address at the retreat, Dr. John McGowan, eRA project manager, urged participants to expand the eRA vision even further. The team should consider eRA’s potential to become an integrated solution for efficiently supporting all phases of the research endeavor.

There are three major phases in promoting scientific research:

• Planning –– Thus far, eRA has not provided support for launching a research initiative. Institutes and Centers (ICs) make recommendations, issue approvals, integrate new projects into the budget, and generate announcements and requests, among other tasks. The Office of Extramural Research (OER) announces opportunities in the Early Notification System, the NIH Guide and FedBiz Opps. eRA can build a comprehensive solution for expediting these research-planning activities.        
• Implementation –– eRA currently supports pre-award functions (receipt, referral, review and award) as well as post-award administration of research grants. In keeping with the aims of the NIH Roadmap, the implementation of electronic applications is expected to reduce the elapsed time between receipt of proposal and award by two full months. In addition, eRA can introduce new efficiencies if its role is expanded to include a contract management component, an interface for the electronic submission of OLAW assurances, and other applications. Since all HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) will be using the eRA systems, integrating functions like OLAW will significantly reduce the regulatory burden on applicants.        
• Evaluation –– eRA currently offers several grant administration evaluation tools, including CRISP, QVR, and Web QT. By the summer of 2004, eRA intends to implement Virtual Organization Layers (VOL), a new management tool for tracking and managing portfolios. Independent of the established organizational structure, users are grouped and regrouped into layers that support a specific function (e.g., security), accommodate workflow and facilitate the administration of inter-department/institute/agency and inter-disciplinary research projects. Through VOL, pre-defined privileges are assigned to each layer. eRA already has introduced VOL concepts into the design of the new Program module, which presents each program official/assistant/analyst with his/her customized portfolio. Ultimately, VOL will provide a global solution for internal staff and grantee institutions.

To supplement eRA reporting tools, many ICs also maintain their own extension systems to extract administrative information from the eRA database. Nevertheless, eRA data has not been used to greatest advantage. According to Dr. McGowan, the eRA repository is an excellent source of research information. He urged the team to explore Knowledge Management (KM) tools to optimize eRA’s assets. See article in this issue for more about KM.

As a follow-up to the retreat, the eRA Project Team is compiling a prioritized list of FY2004 goals. These goals will be categorized as “within eRA scope and budget” and “not within eRA scope and budget.” NIH management then will decide whether to provide additional funding for new requirements or to replace scheduled initiatives with new ones.

For more information about retreat outcomes, contact Scarlett Gibb, chief, eRA Communications and Outreach Branch, at gibbs@mail.nih.gov or 301-435-0690 x603.

Project Team Explores Benefits of Knowledge Management

The eRA Project Team recently explored the potential role of Knowledge Management (KM) in maximizing the utility of eRA data for promoting health research and accelerating discoveries. KM is one of the key components in resetting the eRA vision, the focus of the Third Annual eRA retreat on October 9–10. (See full article in this issue). 

Dr. Richard Morris, eRA advocate for knowledge discovery, gave a presentation on KM concepts at the retreat. KM refers to the family of text-mining tools for examining vast quantities of data to identify patterns and establish relationships. Given the exponential rate at which the world’s information is growing (estimated at 10¹⁸ yearly), KM has great potential for optimizing the knowledge assets of an organization and saving thousands of labor hours.

Among the promising benefits of KM are:

• NIH-wide level of investment analysis.     
• Timely integration of emerging scientific trends into program formulation.     
• Better access to clinical data for interpretation of research and assessment of discoveries.     
• Accurate and efficient referral of incoming proposals for review.

eRA already has demonstrated proof of concept that KM can successfully identify qualified reviewers for an incoming application. Dr. Bob Lewis of Mitretek Systems described a recent pilot during which eRA “fingerprinted” (profiled) each incoming research proposal using the National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH^®) Thesaurus. MeSH is a database of hierarchical (e.g., “ankle” is subordinate to “anatomy”) and cross-referenced topics (e.g., “for vitamin C, see ascorbic acid”), which permits searching at various levels of specificity. The fingerprint for each research plan comprised the most appropriate MeSH terms.

The other sources of input for the pilot were databases (internal and external) of reviewer biosketches. Once the biosketches were fingerprinted, locating subject-matter experts consisted of comparing proposal profiles with expert profiles to produce the best matches. Thus, KM enabled NIH to transform raw text (research plans and biosketches) into useful information.

Dr. Arthur Petrosian, an SRA at the Center for Scientific Review (CSR), then presented the Computerized Reviewer Assignment and Search Program (CRASP^®) that he and his son developed. They designed the program to locate for reviewers for specific ad hoc diagnostic imaging study sections. CRASP searches for reviewers based on keywords in CRISP and PubMed. In addition to expertise, CRASP considers other factors such as diversity, gender, geographical balance, and potential conflicts of interest. 

eRA also can use similar KM techniques to ascertain similar research plans (from proposed and already funded research) and to create opportunities for scientific collaboration by identifying experts with common interests. These and other KM applications are expected to improve NIH performance and efficiency by facilitating data sharing, verifying facts, informing decisions, shortening grant cycle times, and reducing costs. NIH also hopes to realize qualitative gains.

Implementation of KM is not included in the current eRA budget. In the near future, Dr. McGowan will make a presentation to NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni to establish a business case for purchasing a commercial KM product for NIH-wide use.

eRA Awards New Contracts for Operations, Integration and User Support

eRA awarded three critical support contracts in September and October. IBM will begin providing systems integration services, RNSolutions will take over operations functions, and RS Information Systems will staff the Helpdesk. In addition, requests for quotes (RFQs) are out to vendors for software design and development services. eRA expects to make these awards in the immediate future.

With its Northrop Grumman Information Technology (NGIT) software development contract about to expire on November 30, eRA decided to terminate its other IT support contracts and issue new solicitations based on current project needs. eRA has developed into a large and complex, high-profile system that requires mature processes and rigorous oversight.

When the IMPAC II project (eRA’s predecessor) began in 1994, there were two contracts, one for development and the other for Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V), and 35-40 contractor staff. By 1999, the required software applications were developed and deployed, and the project progressed to the production stage. As NIH staff moved off the legacy mainframe system and began using the new graphical interfaces on their desktops, they identified problems, and demanded more functionality and better accountability. It was at this time that Dr. John McGowan stepped in as project manager. Recognizing that the project was seriously underfunded, he succeeded in obtaining a much greater share of the NIH budget. 

As the project expanded during 2000-2003, eRA solicited support services as they were needed. Contracts were awarded for analysis, architecture, outreach, help desk, data quality, integration, operations and planning; the number of contractors grew to more than 200. In some cases, multiple contractors supplied the same services. Facing the upcoming expiration of the NGIT contract, eRA leadership decided to reevaluate the entire support environment and develop an acquisition structure compatible with project status and goals.

The new contract configuration consists of four categories:

Integration	1 contract for analysis, architecture & integration testing.
Operations	1 contract for system, data, & network administration.
User Support	1 contract for Helpdesk services.
Design/ Development	4-5 contracts for specific tasks.

The eRA team has made every effort to minimize the impact on services throughout the transition to the new contracts. There will be a period of overlap during which old and new contractors will work together. For example, the upcoming November 7 deployment will be conducted by the old staff with the new staff observing. Although there will be a change of vendors, eRA architecture, database environment and functionality will remain constant.

eRA asks for your patience during the upcoming months as we move to a better contract configuration. Direct questions about eRA contracts to James Cain, director of the Division of Extramural Information Systems (DEIS), at cainj@mail.nih.gov or 301-435-0920. Report problems to the Helpdesk.

eRA Forms Advanced Technologies Special Interest Group

Dr. Steven Hausman, eRA advocate for Advanced Technologies, has formed an NIH special interest group to identify advanced and emerging technologies with the potential for improving extramural research business processes. The group plans to disseminate promising ideas through lectures, seminars and a new Web site. The Advanced Technologies Special Interest Group (ATSIG) is one of about 100 NIH inter-Institute interest groups comprising scientists with common interests.

The precursor to ATSIG was the eRA Paperless Business Practices group, also led by Dr. Hausman. This group explored the use of imaging technology and paved the way for the successful scanning of all incoming competitive grant applications. The scanning process virtually eliminated the costs of reproducing and distributing the year’s 60,000 incoming paper applications for NIH staff and peer reviewers. Now, the PDF version of the application shows up in the online Grant Folder within days of its arrival at the Center for Scientific Review. Users can retrieve applications on demand, search the database by many different variables, and access the information concurrently. Given that professionals generally spend 50 percent of their time looking for pertinent data, they will be much more productive with scanned material.

ATSIG, also under eRA auspices, is broader in scope and will explore many ways to change the way we will work in the future. For example, the group plans to look at nanotechnology and grid computing. In the area of nanotechnology (i.e., working in the 1-100 billionth of a meter range), IBM has developed a computer chip using “molecule cascade” circuitry that holds 25 million bytes in the space of a postage stamp, 260,000 times smaller than existing circuits. Grid computing refers to the simultaneous use of resources from many computers in a network. This virtual sharing capability may become the backbone of a world-wide infrastructure for communications, research education and commerce.