NIMSS Regional System Administrators Teleconference February 7, 11am Eastern

Meeting Notes

1. Update since the Oversight Committee conference call – Rubie

1/12/06 ASSIGNMENTS Ask other EDs to ask their MRCs (or equivalent) to discuss the Done Eric addition of a proposal section on interaction of the project with outside entities, such as stakeholders. Delete the regional list serves in the notification and use only the Done Judy USDA list serve Share the summary of recommendations from the survey with the Done Nikki committee members and also discussed with Rubie and Judy for prioritization. Add a mandatory box in the meeting authorization form for the start Done and end time of the meeting. (see comments) Rubie/ Send out notification that a project has terminated and the new project Done Judy that replaced it Change “Linkages” to “Participating States/Institutions”, and In progress categorize between “Land Grant” and “Non Land Grant”.

Adding the start and end time in the meeting authorization form had proved to be cumbersome and resulted to the coding getting convoluted. The programmers are now looking for other ways on how to include this in the form without making the e-mail notification confusing. No time will be listed if none is provided. Nikki will discuss this with Dr. Lund and the Oversight Committee member who requested it.

2. NRSP Review Committee Assignment in NIMSS - Nikki As a reminder, the NRSP Review Committee is made up of both current and past MRC/MAC/RCIC members. When I tried to update the NRSP Review Committee list, I ran into some problems updating the regional reps. Judy explained that NIMSS will track current or past MRC members, but you have to have the dates of service entered for each person you want the system to track. For instance, if a region removes someone from their MRC/MAC/RCIC, the dates on that person's name should be changed to reflect the actual dates he/she served. However, if you click "delete" to remove that person's name from the list, all the information for that person will be lost (hence NIMSS will not be able to track the person's name).

In addition to changing the regional reps to the committee, I also needed to update the ECOP rep. When I deleted the current rep from the list however, they system did not

1 allow me to input another name because there is no set list of "ECOP" people in the system from whom to choose. I assume this would also be the case when our CARET rep changes (although this will not take place for at least a few more years). My suggestion is that, if it is easier for Judy to program, the NRSP Review Committee listing should be similar to choosing MRC/MAC/RCIC members for each regional association, or choosing project editors. In other words, we would be able to choose the NRSP Review Committee members from all registered NIMSS users rather than from a set list of people that needs to be tracked.

Judy will include everyone in the dropdown as suggested above.

3. Recommendations from Nikki’s survey and Job Jar – All

 Training: i. Refreshers course at the CSREES Admin meeting in May ii. Customized training at regional level via teleconference (OK for all regions) iii. Training Video – what format, who will do it, who will cover costs? Nikki will take care of this task and will explore if there are students who might be willing to take this on as a project. All agreed that only the basic NIMSS functions will be included in the video. These functions are—user registration, search, proposal submission, Appendix E, meeting authorization, and annual reports submission.

 Report dates – need to standardize to avoid confusion. Should we give them options on the period covered: i. 1/1/05-12/31/05 ii. 7/1/05-6/30/06 iii. between meeting dates The system administrators agreed that there should be one reporting period used, the federal fiscal year: October 1 to September 30. Rubie will check with Bart Hewitt if CSREES would prefer this. The EDs will be consulted before this change is implemented.

 List of blank forms - will be converted to PDF so users will know that this is for printing. Present format for review forms confuses users as they think they could fill them in. Printable forms will be a separate session in the green menubar. i. Request to write proposal ii. Appendix A – multistate proposal iii. Appendix B – CC, ERA, NRSP iv. Appendix E – participation v. Appendix F – rapid response vi. Appendix D – SAES-422 Annual and termination reports vii. Appendices H, I, J1, J2, K - Review Forms

2 All IEG designations will be changed to ERA. Appendix J1 is only CC, Appendix J2 is only for ERAs and Appendix K is for both CC and ERA. Corrections will be made in NIMSS.

 Keyword search - do we really want this? It will be time-consuming. I will ask Judy and Natalie if there is a way to make it faster. The programmers will continue to explore an efficient/fast way of doing this, but this is not a top priority.

 HTML tags - this is a problem. How can we help those who are not familiar with basic html tags? Will prompt boxes help or a simple list on the left bar that they can refer to while filling in the text boxes? As a quick fix, basic HTML tags will be included in the sidebar as a reference while the user is completing the proposal/report. Judy will explore editor software that will allow users to paste text “as is”.

4. Other business  A brief explanation of NIMSS, similar to the heading in the “welcome page” will be added in the login page. (Done)  For Appendix E submissions, an additional page will be added so that the users could view the completed form before submitting. They will also be given a chance to go back and edit.  Initials/acronyms will be spelled out whenever possible for users who are not familiar with these terms.  A template for a new menu/sub-menu navigation is being developed and will be shared with the system administrators before implementation. Hopefully, this will solve the concern expressed by some users about the sub-menus not being intuitive.  Harriet gave some information about the CSREES Administrative Meeting in South Dakota. The announcement has not been sent out by CSREES but information can be found at— http://agbio.sdstate.edu/csreesconf/  The next meeting Tuesday, March 14 at 11:00am (EST). Harriet will host the meeting.

3 Job Jar For the Recommendations Collected From the NIMSS Survey

*indicates suggestions made by station office assistants

Possible Immediate Fixes Resposible Party More training needed. Reg. system administrators Light blue on Project Homepages difficult to read (NCRA Natalie – change color to dark projects).* blue or navy Done Make sure links in the emails work. Natalie Add homepages to “Project” submenu. Natalie Done Report dates confusing (meeting-meeting; 1/1-12/31; fiscal year Reg. System administrators beginning to fiscal year end). Have a set of dates from which users can choose and just fill in a radial button? Include regional and SAES webpages in the directory.* Judy Difficult to know who has and has not registered when inputting Rubie: To be included in new participants. training. Main Page – include information on the usefulness of NIMSS, its Done. A brief explanation functions, what the system holds, etc.* similar to the welcome page was added on the login page.  Submenus not always intuitive (include down-arrows? Judy and Natalie are looking at clickable green bar instead of mouse-over?). ways to improve the navigation through the submenus. Modification is underway.

Initially proposed menu drop vertical change, but going to have to rethink this, found out the issue with IE and the dropdown list overlaying with the dropdown menu

A template is being developed and will be shared with the system admin. before implementation.  Often items are clicked by mistake because the menus are similar and close together. The screens often look very similar to one another. ie. Project > Draft/Edit and Participant > Draft/Edit are often confused by users.*  Include sub-submenus (what is offered under the Projects > View screen?). Include a site map. Natalie Done Make confirmation screens more clear (“ok” – ok what?).* Judy and Rubie

4 More “how to” information on screens.* Natalie (not urgent) Include hard-copies of all submission forms. Rubie, Judy and Natalie (Review forms DONE. Proposal forms in progress.)

Potential Future Updates Create a historical list of officers and meeting locales. To be included in the project homepage. Include keyword searches on projects (not just the title word Doable, but the downside is it search). will a long time for the system to perform the search. Do we really want this? HTML problems (tags and funny characters). No solution at the moment except that basic html tags can be included on the sidebar or some warning that special formats need to be coded in html. Create a cross-reference to see what other projects participants Projects will be added in the may participate on. “User Profile” in the Directory - Judy Create a “Coaching Section” – Help > Steps to submit Prompt boxes will be added, see forms/process. “How to” information screens above. - Natalie Create a self-teach course. Develop a 15-min. video

Items to Ponder  Some NIMSS terms are not meaningful to those who do not use the system on a regular basis or who aren’t involved in MRF research. NIMSS is a proprietary software for specific users, just like finance and admin. software in our universities. Familiarity to the jargon or acronyms is needed when completing forms. Sections that guests can view are pretty straightforward, if not, please specify which sections.  NIMSS “power” overwhelms beginners; however, this improves with more use.*  Some like what NIMSS can do, but hate how it does it.*  When an office assistant can’t find a person in the system, he/she will enter the person again often leading to duplicate user registrations.* Training on how to determine if people are registered should cover this. First thing user need to look into is the Directory.  Many users maintain their own email lists of project participants because they’re too confused by NIMSS. Perhaps they are just not familiar with the “Contact Participants” function where they can pick and choose who they want to contact.  The participant invitation emails may be TOO complete. Too many people are entering participants (i.e. both participants and SAES directors).*  Assigning editors is too cumbersome. This is simple once you get the hang of it.  Make sorting more intuitive.* Natalie is looking into this.  Make “Help” more intuitive and obvious.

5  Make Scientists need to input more information into NIMSS to become more familiar with the system. This may also increase their system-usage.  Keep information up-to-date (reports, participants, etc.). This is the responsibility of SAES Directors, participants and Administrative Advisors (accountability).  The system is “function centered” unlike the previous version, which was “project centered.” It would be more helpful if the system’s function were linked together better.*

Other Items (Do we want/need to do anything with these?)  The sounds are annoying Sounds were deliberately included in the design so the users will know that icons are clickable. Judy will work on this.  Only show approval functions when there’s something/someone to approve.* Judy  Finding project number: sometimes, NIMSS doesn’t accept the format entered (NC1, NC-1, NC001, NC(space)1. This was already fixed, but Judy will doublecheck.  Trouble approving previously rejected participants.* This was already fixed.  Limited space on forms. Which sections, be specific.

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