Places Please: Get Better Prepared by Getting Organized

A person uses their smartphone to take a photo of a paper document.

January is Get Organized Month.

A new year is a popular time to make resolutions, like to get more exercise or quit tobacco. Another common one is to get organized.

Getting organized can help you prepare for emergencies and stay calm in stressful and time-sensitive situations, like an evacuation. Here are a few ways to get organized and improve your emergency preparedness at the same time.

Digitize to Minimize

Getting organized can require you to minimize. A good way to minimize paperwork and paper items, like family photos, is to digitize them. Collect and take steps to protect documents, like insurance cards and medical and vital records before an emergency.

Saving digital duplicates of original documents makes it easier to share and access the information in the documents, preserves the original (handling a document can damage it), and ensures that you have a backup in case the original is destroyed.

Here are some tips on how to get organized by going digital.

  1. Sort through your paperwork and paper items to identify which items you want to scan or photograph and which you can safely throw away. Do not discard originals of important paperwork because digital files have preservation risks and can get lost.(1)
  2. Use consistent and descriptive language to name your digital files and folders to make it easier to find the information you want later.(2)
  3. Backup your files. Save a copy on your computer, a copy to an external hard drive, and a copy to a secure cloud service.(3)

Get squared away

People in South Central Pennsylvania have a saying, “redd up.” It means to tidy up or put things in their proper place. The perfect spot for your emergency supplies depends on what they are. Here’s are some categories of supplies and suggestions on where to keep them.

Food

Store at least a three-day supply of non-perishable food, such as canned foods, dry mixes, and other staples. Keep food in a dry, cool, dark place, like a basement, that is accessible to your family. Transfer food packaged in boxes or paper cartons to waterproof, airtight containers to it protect it from pests.(4)

Water

Store at least 1 gallon of water per person per day for 3 days, for drinking and sanitation. Keep your emergency water supply in a place with a constant cool temperature of 50°F to 70°F. Do not store water containers in direct sunlight or in areas where toxic substances, like gasoline or pesticides, are present.(5)

Prescription medications

Keep medications and vitamins in labeled, child-proof containers. Put the containers in a cool, dry place that does not experience extreme temperature changes or humidity and is up and away and out of children’s reach and sight.(6)

Break it into checklists

Checklists are a way to break large jobs down into smaller, more manageable chores. They are as useful at home as in the workplace to help people stay on task, cut down on mistakes, and remember the “little things” that need to get done. Checklists can help you pack for a trip, grocery shop, and even prepare for emergencies.

Organization experts describe two kinds of checklists. One kind for performing a new task one step at a time for the first time and another for familiar tasks that are second nature.(7)

Read-Do checklists

A Read-Do checklist is often compared to a recipe. It gives step-by-step instructions on how to complete a task. If you were using this kind of checklist to help you stock up on emergency supplies, it would explain the type of supplies you need to stock up on, where to get them, and what to do with them. A checklist for gathering personal needs might say to “store at least 1 gallon of water per person per day for 3 days, for drinking and sanitation” and go on to provide tips for how and where to store the water.

Do-Confirm checklists

A Do-Confirm checklist is for jobs that are so familiar that you could perform them from memory. This kind of checklist can help you complete the important job of reviewing your supplies every six (6) months (or as the needs of your family change). You should remove, use, and replace any food, water, and other supplies before they expire.

Tips and tricks for staying organized

As if getting organized isn’t difficult enough, there’s the added challenge of finding the motivation to stay that way. Even the most organized people need to work at it. Here are five ideas that can help you remain organized throughout the year:

  1. Use to-do lists to help you plan your days.
  2. Break down difficult or intimidating tasks by using a checklist and calendar. If part of getting organized is to get prepared, the Do1Thing program and the concept of doing “1thing” each month to improve personal preparedness can help.
  3. Know how and where to safely discard expired things, including emergency supplies. Sometimes, we hold on to things because we are not sure how to get rid of them. In the case of prescription medications, follow FDAs advice for how to dispose of unused medicines.
  4. Stick to a schedule. Make time in your schedule to organize.
  5. Create a system for paperwork that comes into your house. Have a plan for how to decide what paperwork to toss, what paperwork to keep, and what paperwork to digitize.

For more suggestions on how to prepare your health for emergencies, visit https://www.cdc.gov/prepyourhealth/.

Resources

References

  1. https://www.archives.gov/preservation/family-archives/digitizing
  2. https://library.stanford.edu/research/data-management-services/data-best-practices/best-practices-file-naming
  3. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/944307272/heres-how-tech-experts-recommend-organizing-your-photos
  4. https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/f&web.pdf
  5. https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/emergency/creating-storing-emergency-water-supply.html
  6. https://www.cdc.gov/medicationsafety/protect/campaign.html
  7. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryancollinseurope/2018/08/02/two-powerful-types-of-checklists-you-must-use/?sh=55db72437044

Thanks in advance for your questions and comments on this Public Health Matters post. Please note that the CDC does not give personal medical advice. If you are concerned you have a disease or condition, talk to your doctor.

Have a question for CDC? CDC-INFO (http://www.cdc.gov/cdc-info/index.html) offers live agents by phone and email to help you find the latest, reliable, and science-based health information on more than 750 health topics.

The Power of Preparedness: Prepare Your Health

Group of people kneeling around a CPR dummy.

The devastating hurricanes of 2017 reminded us how important it is to prepare for disasters. These potentially life-threatening situations have real impacts on personal and public health. During Hurricane Irma, existing medical conditions and power outages increased the likelihood of death. Being prepared with supplies and an Emergency Action Plan can help you protect the health of your family until help arrives.

September is National Preparedness Month (#NatlPrep), and the perfect time of year to remind people of The Power of Preparedness. This year’s call-to-action of Prepare Your Health (#PrepYourHealth) and four weekly themes highlight the roles that individuals, state and local public health, and CDC play in creating community health resilience. It takes everyone “pulling in the same direction” to create families, communities, and a nation that can withstand, adapt to, and recover from personal and public health emergencies.

The first week focuses on personal preparedness, and the importance of nonperishable food, safe water, basic supplies, and the personal items you need to protect your health until help arrives.

Personal needs

A large-scale disaster or unexpected emergency can limit your access to food, safe water, and medical supplies for days or weeks. However, nearly half of adults in the U.S. do not have an emergency kit for their home; they don’t have the provisions, supplies, and equipment necessary to protect the health of their families in a disaster. This list will get you started:

  • Special foods—such as nutrition drinks—for people with dietary restrictions, food sensitivities and allergies, and medical conditions such as diabetes.
  • Prescription eyeglasses, contacts and lens solution
  • Medical alert identification bracelet or necklace
  • Change of clothes
  • Emergency tools (e.g., manual can opener; multi-use tool; plastic sheeting; etc.)
  • Durable medical equipment (e.g., walkers; nebulizers; glucose meters; etc.)
  • Medical supplies, including first aid kit
  • Pet supplies
  • Baby and childcare supplies

Prescriptions

The hands of an elderly man holding a pill organizer

Many people need daily medications and medical equipment. Nearly half of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and a quarter of Americans take three or more medications. A large-scale natural disaster, like a hurricane, could make it difficult to get prescription and over-the-counter medicines.  You and your family may need to rely on a prepared emergency supply. There are some basics to include:

  • A 7 to 10 day supply of prescription medications stored in a waterproof container.
  • An up-to-date list of all prescription medications, including dosage and the names of their generic equivalents, medical supply needs, and known allergies.
  • Over-the-counter medications, including pain and fever relievers, diuretics, antihistamines, and antidiarrheal medications stored in labeled, childproof containers.
  • A cooler and chemical ice packs for storing and keeping medicines cold in a power outage.

Paperwork

Over half of Americans do not have copies of important personal paperwork. Collect and protect documents such as insurance forms, and medical, vital, and immunization records. Here are some of the basics:

  • Health insurance and prescription cards
  • Shot records
  • Living wills and power of attorney forms
  • Vital records (e.g., birth and death certificates; adoption records)
  • User manuals, model and serial numbers, and contact information for the manufacturer of medical devices (e.g., blood glucose meters; nebulizers)
  • Hardcopies of your Emergency Action Plan

Power sources

A portable generator sitting outside in the snow.

A power outage can close pharmacies, disrupt medical services, and can be life threatening for over 2.5 million people who rely on electricity-dependent medical equipment. Be ready for a lengthy blackout with an emergency power plan and back up. You will need alternative power sources for your cellphone, refrigerator , and medical equipment. Here’s a checklist:

  • Extra batteries, including those for hearing aids, in standards sizes (e.g., AA and AAA)
  • Fully-charged rechargeable batteries for motorized scooters
  • Hand-crank radio with USB ports
  • Car chargers for electronic devices, including cell phones and breast pumps
  • A generator

Practical skills

Finally, it’s important to know some basic do-it-yourself skills to stay healthy and safe until help arrives. Here are the basics to get you started:

  • Call 911 in a life-threatening emergency
  • Get trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). If you do not know CPR, you can give hands-only CPR—uninterrupted chest compressions of 100 to 120 a minute—until help arrives.
  • Learn how to use an automated external defibrillator (AED).
  • Learn Handwashing is one of the best ways to protect yourself, your family, and others from getting sick.

The good news is that it is never too late to prepare for a public health emergency. You can take actions, make healthy choices, and download free resources to help you prepare for, adapt to, and cope with adversity.

Reminder: Preliminary Proposals Due January 23

DEB Core Programs and LTREB

Preliminary proposal submissions for DEB Core Programs and Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) are due by 5:00PM (submitter’s local time) this January 23rd, 2017.

Please see our past post for updates to the DEB Core Programs and Long Term Research in Environmental Biology solicitations.

IOS

The deadline for preliminary proposal submissions for the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) is different from DEB Core Programs and LTREB.  The IOS deadline for preliminary proposals is January 19th, 2017. Be sure and check out their blog for any updates.


Preliminary Proposal Evaluation Survey Reminder

TL;DR

Check your inbox.

Check your spam folder.

Complete the survey!

End the reminder messages.

 

Background (if the above doesn’t make sense to you).

This is about the Preliminary Proposal system in use in both NSF BIO’s Division of Environmental Biology and Division of Integrative Organismal Systems.

We are in the midst of an external evaluation of the effects of this system on the merit review process.

We posted an initial notification letter about stakeholder surveys. And, copies of this letter were sent out to everyone in the sample ahead of the formal invitations.

The formal survey invitations with the active survey links were sent out by mid-September from the evaluator, Abt Associates.

Reminder emails are also coming out and will continue to do so at regular interviews while the survey remains open and incomplete.

If you have been receiving these messages, please complete the survey. If your colleagues have been receiving these messages and have not completed the survey, encourage them to do so.

If you received an invitation to take the survey,

  • Please take the 10 or so minutes to register your responses via the link in the email.
  • Remember that these are single-use individualized links.
  • Your response matters. This isn’t a census: your invitation is part of a stratified random sample selected for inference to the population.

Thank you for your participation!


Prepare Now! Don’t Panic Later. [Updated x2]

Questions and Reminders about DEB’s Prepropsoal Deadline

We’re starting to get calls in noticeable volume relating to the upcoming preproposal deadline, and a few common questions are sticking out. So, to make sure everyone has access to these answers, we’re posting them for all to see, below. If your question isn’t addressed here, please leave a comment or send us an email and we’ll respond to you and post the response here if it’s sufficiently generalizable.

Q: How does the DEB deadline, January 25, 2016 relate to the FastLane Notices about policy changes, also on January 25, 2016?

A: There are two major points of this policy change to keep in mind for your DEB preliminary proposals:

  • FastLane is going to be absolutely strict about the deadline. It is supposed to reject anything that comes in to the system from 5:00PM onward (after 4:59:59) according to the institution’s official time zone. Your Authorized Organizational Representative (the person in your institutional research office who signs off on grant paperwork) will have to provide final sign off on your submission before 5:00PM on January 25, 2016. Otherwise the submission will not be complete and will not be received by FastLane. FastLane used to give the organizational representative five days to complete signatures; this is no longer the case.
  • Starting Jan 22, 2016, FastLane should be checking for and blocking submission of full proposals with extra pages, missing documents, etc. If you are following the DEB Core Programs Solicitation and properly submitting a preliminary proposal, you should not encounter any problems with submission errors due to these automated compliance checks because they are not supposed to apply to preliminary proposals. However, you need to be aware of this change and the potential ramifications in the event something goes awry:
    1. The content and formatting directions, limits, and requirements for preliminary proposals are described in our solicitation. However, FastLane is not set up to provide any sort of check or warning for the specific requirements of preliminary proposals. The lack of an automated error does not mean a preliminary proposal submission is correct. (Some submitting officials may think the system is applying checks when, in our case, it isn’t.)
    2. A mistake on your cover page or, conceivably, a problem with the website roll-out could lead to the opposite problem where your submission is incorrectly held to policies that are not supposed to apply to a preliminary proposal. It is important to leave yourself enough time to check and respond if you do encounter a submission error[i].

Background: As of this writing, the NSF FastLane proposal submission website is scheduled to begin stricter automatic enforcement of both new and continuing proposal submission policies on Friday, January 22, 2015. The good news is there will be less work compliance checking- the system should do a better job of checking and not allowing proposals to go through that Program Officers would typically reject for formatting and similar problems. The bad news is a computer will now be making these initial determinations; the machine has no compassion for your circumstances.

 

Q: Which Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) is relevant for my DEB preliminary proposal submission?

This question usually comes to us via your institutional grant support/sponsored research officer. Since you may be reporting back to someone else, we’ll provide a couple of different versions of answers that will all get you to the same result. Hopefully one of them clicks with you:

A1 (the simple pragmatic answer): This question is irrelevant. DEB preliminary proposals are submitted to the DEB Core Programs solicitation (NSF 15-609). Follow the solicitation and you will be fine.

A2 (the more technical answer): The new GPG, NSF 16-1, comes into effect in FastLane on Monday, January 25, 2016 and will apply to any DEB preliminary proposals received that day. If you complete and submit a DEB preliminary proposal prior to that date, then the previous (current as of this writing) version of the GPG, NSF 15-1, will still be in force reflected by the prompts in FastLane, even though the newer GPG (NSF 16-1) is in effect for these proposals. In either case, the directions in the DEB Core Programs solicitation (NSF 15-609) are already in force, right now, and apply to the preliminary proposals. These instructions are compatible with both versions of the GPG: follow the solicitation and you will be fine.

A3 (the “I still need more assurance” answer): You can read about the changes to the GPG in the new GPG publication, NSF 16-1. We also went through and identified the major relevant points of these coming changes on this blog, here and here. You can compare them to the current DEB Core Programs solicitation, here. The big thing you should notice is that all of the changes to the format and content of proposals described in the new GPG match language already in force in the DEB solicitation. This was intentional. We recognized the potential for confusion stemming from the GPG revision and wrote our solicitation to ensure that the same set of instructions would apply to all of the preliminary proposals regardless of when the new GPG came into force. Further, many of the “changes” in the new GPG (uploading a collaborator list, revised biosketch format, template for letters of collaboration [relevant to full proposals only]) were already part of the DEB solicitation going back two or three years. Follow the solicitation and you will be fine.

Background for those of you totally confused by the above: The major document spelling out NSF grant policy for applicants is called the Grant Proposal Guide (GPG). An update is released every year or so and typically brings with it several tweaks, revisions, new submission rules, etc. Each new edition is published several months in advance of when it comes into effect so everyone can see the changes before they have to put them into practice. So, each year, there’s a period of overlap when the current GPG is still in place, but the “next” GPG has been published. We are in the period right now and the next GPG is set to replace the current GPG on the same day as our DEB preliminary proposal deadline.

 

Q: Do you have any advice for when to submit?

A: The worst thing you can do is wait until late on Monday Jan. 25, 2016 to begin pressing the submit buttons. If something goes wrong then, you’ll have little recourse.

If you follow the DEB Core Programs solicitation carefully, then we encourage you to submit early and beat the rush. That maximizes your chances of being able to address any problems and get a response to any questions you may have.

At the very least, you should plan to submit early in the day on Jan. 25, 2016 so that you and your institutional officials can get through any problems that you run in to with FastLane.

Remember, you are responsible for ensuring your submission comes through complete and on time. The best practice of submitting early enough such that you can look at your submitted proposal and double-check that everything came through as intended is especially important because of the hard-wired, strict 5:00PM deadline.

 

Q: What has changed in the preliminary proposal since last year?

A: Very little has changed. Most of the changes implemented in the new solicitation, affect only full proposal submission. However, there are three minor changes worth close attention:

  • We’ve clarified the terminology related to project roles by replacing “lead senior investigator of a sub-award” with “PI of a subaward”. The new text is consistent with labels you see when creating a subaward budget in FastLane. This doesn’t affect submission limits at all, just the labels.
  • We’ve specified a 2-section format for the Personnel page at the start of the project description to better distinguish those individuals whose involvement falls under the submission limit from those who do not.
  • The Collaborators & Other Affiliations list (aka, your reported individual and institutional Conflicts of Interest) is now a Single Copy Document. This is to ensure consistency between our preliminary proposals and the way this requirement was incorporated for all proposals into the new GPG.

 

 

[NEW] Q: How should I format the Collaborations & Other Affiliations Information for the “Single Copy Documents” section?

A: The 2016 GPG doesn’t define a specific format and neither does the DEB solicitation.  Generally, you should put them into an organized list. This document may be organized in text or table forms as long as it is clear to which person on the project team each of the collaborators and other affiliations are linked. Also, as long as they are uploaded under single copy documents, it doesn’t matter whether you bundle together or upload separate documents for each member of your project team.

 

[NEW] Q: Who goes on my cover page?

A: For the FastLane “cover page” specifically, it’s up to your institution, see our prior post on this specific topic: https://nsfdeb.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/the-whos-who-of-grants-addressing-myths-about-cover-pages-status-and-credit/.

For the “Personnel” page of the Project Description, follow the solicitation:

I. Personnel (This section is limited to one page. Any remaining space should be left blank.) Provide a list of project personnel; any individual for whom a biographical sketch is included in the preliminary proposal must be included. Indicate the institutional affiliation for each individual, and provide a minimal description of that person’s role(s) in the project. The description of role(s) may not exceed two lines per person and cannot include external links. You should not list students or technicians. Divide the list into two sections:

The first section of the list should be labeled “Key personnel” and must contain all PIs, co-PIs, and PIs of intended subawards for what is envisioned to be the full proposal, including those from all parts of a collaborative proposal. This constitutes the list of key personnel subject to the submission cap of no more than two preliminary proposals.

The second section of the list should be labeled “All other personnel” and must contain any other personnel whose biosketches are included in the preliminary proposal (i.e., other senior personnel or postdoctoral scholars). This section of the list should not include any individual that will be listed on the cover page of the full proposal submission or cover pages of any associated non-lead collaborative full proposal submissions (i.e., no PIs or co-PIs should be listed). This section should also not include any individual who will be receiving a subaward through the planned budget of the full proposal (i.e., PI on a subaward).

The individuals listed on the personnel page should match the listing of personnel submitted by email using the debpersonnellist.xlsx template (see below). If there is any discrepancy between the listing of personnel on the submitted template and the proposal personnel page, the template listing will be considered definitive for purposes of enforcing the individual cap on preliminary proposal submissions and for the allowed role of individuals on the full proposal submission. Please keep in mind that preliminary proposals in excess of the submission cap for any person will be returned without review in the reverse order received. It is the responsibility of the submitters to confirm that the entire team is within the eligibility guidelines. Changes to the team post-submission to meet the eligibility limits will not be allowed.

 

[NEW] Q: How do I add biosketches for people who aren’t a PI/Co-PI on the cover page?

A: If they are listed on the personnel page, but are not Co-PIs on the cover page, add them under “Add/Delete Non Co-PI Senior Personnel”, see our previous discussion (with screen grabs) here: https://nsfdeb.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/the-whos-who-of-grants-addressing-myths-about-cover-pages-status-and-credit/#_ednref5.

 

[UPDATED] Q: When will I hear about my Fall 2015 full proposal so that I can decide if I want to submit a revision or a new idea for January?

A: Decision letters are currently being processed, so you should hear as soon as possible. You can check on your proposal status in FastLane. However, we cannot release your review materials until the recommendation is complete; time spent on phone calls providing you with the stock answer just delays getting the actual paperwork done. We aren’t making any awards yet since we don’t have an appropriation for the year, but we are working to process all declines and contact intended awardees as quickly as possible. As with last year, we’re also trying to get each program’s decisions out close together so everyone in a particular area of competition has roughly equal time to respond.   Results of the Fall 2015 proposals have been communicated to PIs. Double-check your FastLane account if you’re still looking for the news. Awards are starting to be processed.

 

 


 

[i] These checks are supposed to ignore preliminary proposals, but you may see some sort of “warning” message that encourages you to double-check your work against the solicitation before proceeding. If you do get an unexpected hard-stop error that prevents submission although you are sure you have done things correctly, call FastLane immediately. Also, immediately send an email to your favorite Program Officer or DEBQuestions@nsf.gov to document the situation.


Myths and FAQs about Project Reporting

Annual and final reports have changed quite a bit over the years. Twenty years ago annual reports and final reports were distinct requirements (see section 340) for which you printed out a form, filled it out and mailed it in. In the early 2000s reporting moved online to FastLane; this allowed a degree of integration with other electronic systems and also brought about the creation of a single template that applied to both annual and final reports. Some people took this to mean that the final report was just another annual report, and others started treating each annual report like a cumulative final report. However, since 1) most reports during the FastLane era were uploaded as unstructured PDF narratives they could be reviewed but weren’t useful for systematic analysis (data mining) and 2) both approaches provided the necessary record of activity, there was no pressure to enforce a standard either way on whether the content was annual or cumulative.

The most recent move, to Research.gov, came with a more structured web-form-based report template that enables further integration of reporting requirements into companion systems. The structured report data improves compatibility between grant data systems across agencies (e.g., NASA data in Research.gov search results) and adds records to a database of project results that can automatically compile the cumulative outcomes for any project without the PI having to regurgitate the same items over and over in an ever-expanding list. Once we get beyond the rough period of adjusting to the change, structured reporting of data can be easier to enter and provide greater value for analyses of all types, including those to make a case for future investments in research.

The purpose of this post is to help you shorten the learning curve of Research.gov reporting, answer some of the common questions we hear from you, and debunk the persistent myths and old habits that no longer fit with current practice.

  1. What does DEB do with project reports?

Reports are required because we need to maintain a record regarding how our investments in research are spent. We use them to make the case to various audiences that funds are being spent on good and important work. Your Program Officers (POs) are responsible for overseeing those funds and need to be able to document that they were used for the approved purposes in an appropriate fashion. Because failure to show that grant money was used productively makes it very difficult to justify sending you more money, POs review each report and will request additional information if critical aspects are weak or missing. Failure to report at all places a flag on your file for missing a requirement of your grant that will block further funding until it is cleared. In short, reports are a necessary component of financial stewardship.

With structured data available via the Research.gov reporting form, we are also gaining the ability to better quantify research outcomes and ask new questions about our portfolio, our decision-making, and the effects of different approaches to supporting science.

  1. What should I put in my project report, and how much of each thing?

This is a really common question and a big part of the change from FastLane reporting to Research.gov reporting. The old “upload a PDF” days imposed no limitation whatsoever on reporting and inconsistent requests for more or different information from POs in various programs encouraged a narrative-intensive “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to the report. This resulted in the expenditure of a lot of time and effort by PIs to compile and present all that information and by POs to wade through it to check if the critical pieces were all there.

Please take this to heart: The volume of report text is not an indicator of the quality of the work. A report is also not a journal article.

What we want is an efficient description of what happened/was accomplished during the reporting period. A lot of this comes down to discrete counts of the inputs, activities, and outputs of the project and providing enough detail about each that we could verify the count if needed. The Research.gov template seeks to encourage this by providing clear fields to generate list-style report items with consistent detail requirements.

There are some places with paragraph-sized text boxes for narrative explanations. Some are optional and some are required. Responses to any of them are most helpful when clear and direct. Research.gov imposes character-limits on text boxes where narratives are required/allowed by design.

  1. What are the most common problems that cause POs to return a report for revision?
  • Failure to list participants and collaborators who are mentioned/described in narrative sections of the report text (See Questions 4, 5, and 6).
  • Multiple typographical errors; apparent cut and paste errors (incomplete sentences or paragraphs).
  • Listing items that fall outside of the reporting period.
  1. Who should I list in the Participants section? The other collaborators section?

Between the three “Participants/Organizations” sections, please list everyone who has been engaged in the project within the previous 12 months. This includes students, volunteers and those paid through other sources. As long as their activities were related to the objectives (Intellectual or Broader Impact) of your award, they “count”. A rule of thumb in deciding which section to report under is that individual “participants” carried out the work of the objectives, “organizational partners” directly enabled the work done by the participants, and “other collaborators or contacts” would include indirect supporters or beneficiaries of the work (e.g., schools at which your student conducted a demonstration). Please note that “other collaborators and contacts” are entered into a plain narrative text-box; it doesn’t include any specific structure or data requirements.

If participants worked less than a total of ~100 hours (2.5 weeks), enter “0” under Nearest Person Month Worked. (Yes, zeros count, too.) If they worked far less than 100 hours trust your own judgment about whether to list them as participants– i.e., whether you think their participation was meaningful, or might be better listed as an “other collaborator or contact”.

  1. I have multiple sources of funding and people in my lab often work on overlapping projects. In the Participants section, what should I enter for Funding Support?

If a participant was paid from a funding source other than your current NSF award, please list that source of support. Do not enter anything if the participant was paid solely from your current NSF award or if they were a volunteer.

  1. I have an RCN or workshop award (or any other type award that may involve dozens of participants). Do you really want them all listed as Participants?

Yes. The list of participants provides an increasingly valuable database that NSF can use to quantify the impact of its investments. A common alternative to listing participants individually in the Participants section has been to upload a pdf document under “Supporting Files”. Please keep in mind that NSF cannot search the data provided in those documents, except by opening them one-by-one, and they will generally be ignored in official analyses and comparisons. Hence we always prefer that Participants be entered one-by-one in the Participant section.

  1. I have a collaborative award. How should my reports differ from those of my collaborators?

Obviously, you and your collaborators will have at least some shared objectives and impacts; some overlap in reports is expected. Your report should focus on the components of the project and the personnel unique to your institution.

  1. Are Annual Reports cumulative? Is the Final Report cumulative?

No and no. Current NSF Policy and the Research.gov reporting system instruct PIs to report only on the previous year of work, including for the final report. Except for “Major Goals” and “Impacts”, there should be little or no overlap from one report to the next. The Final Report should be written as an Annual Report – there’s nothing special about it other than it being the last report on a given project.

You may have done it differently in the past or received outdated advice from a colleague because it was different in the past and old habits are tough to shake, but the rules were clarified and the system changed to enforce them when reporting was moved to Research.gov.

  1. What is the Project Outcomes Report?

The Project Outcomes Report is a third reporting requirement (in addition to annual and final reports) that is due at the same time as your final report. It is a counterpart to the “public abstract” of your award. The abstract was written at the start of the project and explained what you planned to do and why it was important. The Project Outcome Report summarizes the overall goal(s) and accomplishments of the project upon its completion. It is provided directly to the general public as a permanent record and justification for our investment of taxpayer dollars in your research. Please write it carefully, paying particular attention to the major accomplishments and general significance of your work; avoid jargon and grammatical errors. Do not cut-and-paste text from your Annual or Final Reports because you wrote them for a very different audience.

  1. What happens if I don’t submit my report?

You and any Co-PIs will not be allowed to receive any new funding (e.g., annual increments, supplements, or new grants) or process any other actions (e.g., no cost extensions, PI changes) until the report is submitted and approved. Your annual report is due starting 90 days before your award anniversary, your final report is due within 90 days after your award end date. After either of those 90 day windows, the report is considered “overdue” and the block is automatically put in place. Even if you aren’t overdue when you submit a report, waiting until late in the 90-day window risks delaying timely release of annual funds and possibly going overdue before we’ve had a chance to review, receive any needed corrections, and approve the report.

  1. I submitted my Annual Report, but there’s still a block in Fastlane preventing me from receiving new funds from NSF. Why?

It’s most likely that your report still needs to be approved by the managing Program Officer; new money cannot go out the door until reports have been submitted and approved. If your report has been languishing, it’s appropriate to ask the managing Program Officer to take a look at it. (Although we enjoy learning about your discoveries, annual reports can pile up when our priorities must be placed elsewhere.)

  1. Can I submit a proposal if I have an overdue report?

Yes. Be aware, however, that every time we attempt to access any of your proposals (submitted or already awarded), we’ll be redirected to a warning message on a separate screen that tells us we cannot approve any money for the proposal because of a missing or overdue report(s). We’re required to acknowledge this by clicking a “Continue” button before we’re allowed to see any of the proposal contents. The effect of those irksome messages on Program Officers is worth keeping in mind.

  1. If one of my collaborators has an overdue report on an award that I’m not associated with, what are the consequences for me?

If that collaborator is a PI/co-PI (i.e., listed on the cover page) of a proposal or award on which you are a PI/co-PI, you will be blocked from receiving any new funds from NSF or processing any other actions in relation to that shared proposal/award. Any proposal that shares a person on the cover page with the cover page of a proposal that has a missing or overdue report is subject to the block.

  1. Why am I being asked to submit my report in June or July when it’s not overdue until August or September (or later)?

Because we don’t want you to miss your annual funding increment. If you have received an award in the last quarter of our fiscal year (the fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, so July, August, or September) and are scheduled to receive that grant in annual increments then you have likely encountered this situation: a program officer calls you up and says “hey, can you get your report in this week” but when you look at research.gov it says it won’t be past due for a month (or two or three).

All annual reports are due 90 days before the anniversary of the award: this provides the time to review and process everything in order to get your annual increment released to you by the actual anniversary. Frequently, reports are submitted much closer to the anniversary or even late. This pushes the start of the approval process later and often pushes the release of money to after the anniversary. But, if that anniversary date is late in the fiscal year, any sort of delay — even within the allowed “reporting window” — can push back the processing time over the year-end deadline, at which point the money is no longer available to be released. That’s not a happy state of affairs for you or for us! So if your award was made and started on September 1, the report “due date” would be June 1 of the next year and your PO would probably be hounding you by July 1 to make sure you don’t lose your funding.

This is a little bit annoying, but generally makes sense when the project begins immediately upon receipt of the award. However, some awardees request a later “start date” for the project that is well after the actual award is made (someone receiving money in September might schedule a start date for December or January). At this point things get complicated. Following the September 1 award/January 1 start example: we need an approved report in order to release funds for the second year by the September anniversary of the award being made, otherwise we run out of time within the fiscal year to actually distribute the money. But, the reporting system is, for whatever reason, blind to this and tells you to file a report based on the “start date” so the very beginning of the “due” period is in October and after the point at which our ability to send you the money due upon receipt of that report has been canceled.

So, two lessons here: 1) don’t ask for a start date way after your award is available, especially if doing so crosses the Sept./Oct. dividing line, and 2) if your PO calls and asks you to submit a report RIGHT NOW, please do it; we’re trying to give you the money we promised and not doing it can really muck things up.

 

Additional Reporting Resources

More detailed answers to many of these questions and accompanying screen shots from Research.gov are available in a pdf guide available here (click to follow, but caveat emptor: there appear to have been some additional updates since the file was posted).

If you’re really into this, a long list of guides, tutorials, templates, and demonstrations related to Project Reports is available here .


Myths and FAQs about Project Reporting

Annual and final reports have changed quite a bit over the years. Twenty years ago annual reports and final reports were distinct requirements (see section 340) for which you printed out a form, filled it out and mailed it in. In the early 2000s reporting moved online to FastLane; this allowed a degree of integration with other electronic systems and also brought about the creation of a single template that applied to both annual and final reports. Some people took this to mean that the final report was just another annual report, and others started treating each annual report like a cumulative final report. However, since 1) most reports during the FastLane era were uploaded as unstructured PDF narratives they could be reviewed but weren’t useful for systematic analysis (data mining) and 2) both approaches provided the necessary record of activity, there was no pressure to enforce a standard either way on whether the content was annual or cumulative.

The most recent move, to Research.gov, came with a more structured web-form-based report template that enables further integration of reporting requirements into companion systems. The structured report data improves compatibility between grant data systems across agencies (e.g., NASA data in Research.gov search results) and adds records to a database of project results that can automatically compile the cumulative outcomes for any project without the PI having to regurgitate the same items over and over in an ever-expanding list. Once we get beyond the rough period of adjusting to the change, structured reporting of data can be easier to enter and provide greater value for analyses of all types, including those to make a case for future investments in research.

The purpose of this post is to help you shorten the learning curve of Research.gov reporting, answer some of the common questions we hear from you, and debunk the persistent myths and old habits that no longer fit with current practice.

  1. What does DEB do with project reports?

Reports are required because we need to maintain a record regarding how our investments in research are spent. We use them to make the case to various audiences that funds are being spent on good and important work. Your Program Officers (POs) are responsible for overseeing those funds and need to be able to document that they were used for the approved purposes in an appropriate fashion. Because failure to show that grant money was used productively makes it very difficult to justify sending you more money, POs review each report and will request additional information if critical aspects are weak or missing. Failure to report at all places a flag on your file for missing a requirement of your grant that will block further funding until it is cleared. In short, reports are a necessary component of financial stewardship.

With structured data available via the Research.gov reporting form, we are also gaining the ability to better quantify research outcomes and ask new questions about our portfolio, our decision-making, and the effects of different approaches to supporting science.

  1. What should I put in my project report, and how much of each thing?

This is a really common question and a big part of the change from FastLane reporting to Research.gov reporting. The old “upload a PDF” days imposed no limitation whatsoever on reporting and inconsistent requests for more or different information from POs in various programs encouraged a narrative-intensive “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to the report. This resulted in the expenditure of a lot of time and effort by PIs to compile and present all that information and by POs to wade through it to check if the critical pieces were all there.

Please take this to heart: The volume of report text is not an indicator of the quality of the work. A report is also not a journal article.

What we want is an efficient description of what happened/was accomplished during the reporting period. A lot of this comes down to discrete counts of the inputs, activities, and outputs of the project and providing enough detail about each that we could verify the count if needed. The Research.gov template seeks to encourage this by providing clear fields to generate list-style report items with consistent detail requirements.

There are some places with paragraph-sized text boxes for narrative explanations. Some are optional and some are required. Responses to any of them are most helpful when clear and direct. Research.gov imposes character-limits on text boxes where narratives are required/allowed by design.

  1. What are the most common problems that cause POs to return a report for revision?
  • Failure to list participants and collaborators who are mentioned/described in narrative sections of the report text (See Questions 4, 5, and 6).
  • Multiple typographical errors; apparent cut and paste errors (incomplete sentences or paragraphs).
  • Listing items that fall outside of the reporting period.
  1. Who should I list in the Participants section? The other collaborators section?

Between the three “Participants/Organizations” sections, please list everyone who has been engaged in the project within the previous 12 months. This includes students, volunteers and those paid through other sources. As long as their activities were related to the objectives (Intellectual or Broader Impact) of your award, they “count”. A rule of thumb in deciding which section to report under is that individual “participants” carried out the work of the objectives, “organizational partners” directly enabled the work done by the participants, and “other collaborators or contacts” would include indirect supporters or beneficiaries of the work (e.g., schools at which your student conducted a demonstration). Please note that “other collaborators and contacts” are entered into a plain narrative text-box; it doesn’t include any specific structure or data requirements.

If participants worked less than a total of ~100 hours (2.5 weeks), enter “0” under Nearest Person Month Worked. (Yes, zeros count, too.) If they worked far less than 100 hours trust your own judgment about whether to list them as participants– i.e., whether you think their participation was meaningful, or might be better listed as an “other collaborator or contact”.

  1. I have multiple sources of funding and people in my lab often work on overlapping projects. In the Participants section, what should I enter for Funding Support?

If a participant was paid from a funding source other than your current NSF award, please list that source of support. Do not enter anything if the participant was paid solely from your current NSF award or if they were a volunteer.

  1. I have an RCN or workshop award (or any other type award that may involve dozens of participants). Do you really want them all listed as Participants?

Yes. The list of participants provides an increasingly valuable database that NSF can use to quantify the impact of its investments. A common alternative to listing participants individually in the Participants section has been to upload a pdf document under “Supporting Files”. Please keep in mind that NSF cannot search the data provided in those documents, except by opening them one-by-one, and they will generally be ignored in official analyses and comparisons. Hence we always prefer that Participants be entered one-by-one in the Participant section.

  1. I have a collaborative award. How should my reports differ from those of my collaborators?

Obviously, you and your collaborators will have at least some shared objectives and impacts; some overlap in reports is expected. Your report should focus on the components of the project and the personnel unique to your institution.

  1. Are Annual Reports cumulative? Is the Final Report cumulative?

No and no. Current NSF Policy and the Research.gov reporting system instruct PIs to report only on the previous year of work, including for the final report. Except for “Major Goals” and “Impacts”, there should be little or no overlap from one report to the next. The Final Report should be written as an Annual Report – there’s nothing special about it other than it being the last report on a given project.

You may have done it differently in the past or received outdated advice from a colleague because it was different in the past and old habits are tough to shake, but the rules were clarified and the system changed to enforce them when reporting was moved to Research.gov.

  1. What is the Project Outcomes Report?

The Project Outcomes Report is a third reporting requirement (in addition to annual and final reports) that is due at the same time as your final report. It is a counterpart to the “public abstract” of your award. The abstract was written at the start of the project and explained what you planned to do and why it was important. The Project Outcome Report summarizes the overall goal(s) and accomplishments of the project upon its completion. It is provided directly to the general public as a permanent record and justification for our investment of taxpayer dollars in your research. Please write it carefully, paying particular attention to the major accomplishments and general significance of your work; avoid jargon and grammatical errors. Do not cut-and-paste text from your Annual or Final Reports because you wrote them for a very different audience.

  1. What happens if I don’t submit my report?

You and any Co-PIs will not be allowed to receive any new funding (e.g., annual increments, supplements, or new grants) or process any other actions (e.g., no cost extensions, PI changes) until the report is submitted and approved. Your annual report is due starting 90 days before your award anniversary, your final report is due within 90 days after your award end date. After either of those 90 day windows, the report is considered “overdue” and the block is automatically put in place. Even if you aren’t overdue when you submit a report, waiting until late in the 90-day window risks delaying timely release of annual funds and possibly going overdue before we’ve had a chance to review, receive any needed corrections, and approve the report.

  1. I submitted my Annual Report, but there’s still a block in Fastlane preventing me from receiving new funds from NSF. Why?

It’s most likely that your report still needs to be approved by the managing Program Officer; new money cannot go out the door until reports have been submitted and approved. If your report has been languishing, it’s appropriate to ask the managing Program Officer to take a look at it. (Although we enjoy learning about your discoveries, annual reports can pile up when our priorities must be placed elsewhere.)

  1. Can I submit a proposal if I have an overdue report?

Yes. Be aware, however, that every time we attempt to access any of your proposals (submitted or already awarded), we’ll be redirected to a warning message on a separate screen that tells us we cannot approve any money for the proposal because of a missing or overdue report(s). We’re required to acknowledge this by clicking a “Continue” button before we’re allowed to see any of the proposal contents. The effect of those irksome messages on Program Officers is worth keeping in mind.

  1. If one of my collaborators has an overdue report on an award that I’m not associated with, what are the consequences for me?

If that collaborator is a PI/co-PI (i.e., listed on the cover page) of a proposal or award on which you are a PI/co-PI, you will be blocked from receiving any new funds from NSF or processing any other actions in relation to that shared proposal/award. Any proposal that shares a person on the cover page with the cover page of a proposal that has a missing or overdue report is subject to the block.

  1. Why am I being asked to submit my report in June or July when it’s not overdue until August or September (or later)?

Because we don’t want you to miss your annual funding increment. If you have received an award in the last quarter of our fiscal year (the fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, so July, August, or September) and are scheduled to receive that grant in annual increments then you have likely encountered this situation: a program officer calls you up and says “hey, can you get your report in this week” but when you look at research.gov it says it won’t be past due for a month (or two or three).

All annual reports are due 90 days before the anniversary of the award: this provides the time to review and process everything in order to get your annual increment released to you by the actual anniversary. Frequently, reports are submitted much closer to the anniversary or even late. This pushes the start of the approval process later and often pushes the release of money to after the anniversary. But, if that anniversary date is late in the fiscal year, any sort of delay — even within the allowed “reporting window” — can push back the processing time over the year-end deadline, at which point the money is no longer available to be released. That’s not a happy state of affairs for you or for us! So if your award was made and started on September 1, the report “due date” would be June 1 of the next year and your PO would probably be hounding you by July 1 to make sure you don’t lose your funding.

This is a little bit annoying, but generally makes sense when the project begins immediately upon receipt of the award. However, some awardees request a later “start date” for the project that is well after the actual award is made (someone receiving money in September might schedule a start date for December or January). At this point things get complicated. Following the September 1 award/January 1 start example: we need an approved report in order to release funds for the second year by the September anniversary of the award being made, otherwise we run out of time within the fiscal year to actually distribute the money. But, the reporting system is, for whatever reason, blind to this and tells you to file a report based on the “start date” so the very beginning of the “due” period is in October and after the point at which our ability to send you the money due upon receipt of that report has been canceled.

So, two lessons here: 1) don’t ask for a start date way after your award is available, especially if doing so crosses the Sept./Oct. dividing line, and 2) if your PO calls and asks you to submit a report RIGHT NOW, please do it; we’re trying to give you the money we promised and not doing it can really muck things up.

 

Additional Reporting Resources

More detailed answers to many of these questions and accompanying screen shots from Research.gov are available in a pdf guide available here (click to follow, but caveat emptor: there appear to have been some additional updates since the file was posted).

If you’re really into this, a long list of guides, tutorials, templates, and demonstrations related to Project Reports is available here .


Paperwork, paper pushing policies push people past pressure points

So I am going to make this simple here.  Paperwork at UC Davis is driving me batty these days.  One thing in particular does not make much sense to me. When I or anyone who works in my lab go on trips associated with work, we have to collect all the receipts for the trip and then these need to be submitted in an intemized way for reimbursement.  With a lot of people going on a lot of trips, this amounts to a lot of work for us, for my administrative assistant, for the UC Davis Genome Center administration, and for the UC administration.  At other places I have worked, and in other situations, people can get reimbursed using a per diem calculation.  Such calculations save an absurd amount of work for people even if they come with some "risks" such as people getting reimbursed for more than they actually spent.  Personally, I would take a 50% per diem to save everyone the trouble associated with all the reciepts and submitting them and checking them and such.

So - the reason I am writing is to ask - what happens at other institutions?  Does everyone have to submit all the receipts?  Or does anyone out there do per diems?






Embedding some responses on Google Plus: