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After "tenure review" or "committee meeting," "grant application" has to
be the most dreaded two-word phrase on the modern university campus.
Often, you have to dust the cobwebs off the last typewriter in your
department and do the tedious work of filling out forms.
But that's only after the gargantuan task of remembering and preparing all
the information necessary for the form: everything from assembling biographical
sketches to calculating fringe benefits.
But a couple of software packages -- FastLane and Coeus -- now are
available so that those old typewriters can stay in storage.
And Bob Lowman, the associate vice provost for research, said the software
will create a "paperless environment" that will help eliminate hours of time
preparing paperwork for grant applications. The result: more time for
research.
The first of the programs, FastLane, is a proposal preparation software
package developed by the National Science Foundation for its exclusive
use.
Grant writers, who also are known as principal investigators or PIs, now
are encouraged to use the software. Starting Oct. 1, the foundation will
require all grants it accepts to be submitted using FastLane.
The software has minor glitches but still beats the inefficiencies of a
typewriter, said Beverly Wiggins, associate director for research at the Odum
Institute for Research in Social Science.
Some of the problems: a missing budget form needed for one program, an
inability to read some of the fonts embedded in grant applications.
One of the software's features that outweighs such problems is the ability
of FastLane to employ the computer to perform routine processes automatically,
Wiggins said.
"FastLane puts the whole proposal together for you," Wiggins said. "It
will let you know if you've listed a co-PI and failed to put in a bio-sketch
for that person. And it won't let you list someone in the budget as a co-PI and
not have them listed on the cover page."
Such conveniences have made FastLane a welcome change for University
faculty who write grants to the National Science Foundation, said Edith
Hubbard, the associate director of the University's Office of Research Services
(OSR).
"For the most part, they (NSF staff) are very helpful and FastLane works
just fine," she said.
Coeus, unlike FastLane, can be used to submit grant proposals to any
agency, said Sandra Shirley, Carolina's project leader for Coeus.
Developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Coeus boasts an
impressive range of administrative features.
For example, when preparing a grant application, a researcher puts in his
or her ID number, the beginning project date and the percentage of time devoted
to the project.
Coeus also will do the necessary calculations, consulting University
payroll records to calculate the amount that should be charged to the grant,
adding correct fringe benefits and even calculating the appropriate salary
increase if the project starts in the next fiscal year.
A project team with representatives from the OSR, Contracts and Grants,
Administrative Information Systems, and Systems and Procedures is working
closely with MIT to implement Coeus.
It's the future of grant preparation, and the University has the advantage
of being there at the beginning, Shirley said.
For more information on Coeus, see
http://www.unc.edu/depts/coeus/GMS-Background.html
Sponsored by the Technology in Context Consortium
http://www.unc.edu/faculty/tic
Writer: Kevin O'Kelly
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