Announcements

Based on user feedback, two new enhancements have been incorporated into Rascal Proposal Tracking (PT) 3.0:

1. Ability for an administrator to select a Rascal proposal as a Parent when creating a child proposal, regardless of whether the individual was listed on the original proposal. 

As a reminder,Parent records include New, Competitive Renewal, and Transfer In proposals. Child records include Non-competing Continuations, Supplemental Requests, and Cost Extensions.Administrators with access to the Rascal PT departmental reports can also see all parent proposals in their departments. There are two ways to provide administrators with this access:

• The department dean or chair can complete an Authorization Request for RASCAL Departmental Reports form in Rascal. See Job Aid: Authorization Request for RASCAL Departmental Reports form for step-by-step instructions; or

• The department dean or chair can send an email to [email protected] with a listing of the different departments codes the administrator needs access to in Rascal PT, plus the UNI and name of the administrator needing access.

Note in both cases every department code in the department hierarchy needs to be provided. Administrators can assist deans or chairs in completing the form (however, it must be submitted by the dean or chair), or administrators can create an email listing all the department codes, route the email to the dean or chair for approval, and send back to [email protected].

2. Budget: Refresh Award Information
   There may be times when you are unable to select the appropriate Budget Period on the Rascal Budget screen when creating a child proposal. The most common scenario is preparing a Rascal PT request for a Non-competitive Continuation for an inbound subaward where the subsequent budget period is not available for selection.  In these situations, you should:
   1. Explain the issues with the Budget Screen to the SPA Project Officer. Be sure to include the Rascal PT number of the child proposal. SPA will then make edits to the awarded budget.
   2. Once SPA has updated the awarded budget, the SPA Project Officer will instruct you to go back into the Rascal PT record and click “Refresh Award Information”, a new button on the Budget Screen that will refresh the screen with new awarded budget information.
   3. The Budget Screen will reflect the changes in order to proceed completing the information on the screen.

For questions concerning these new procedures, please reach out to your SPA Project Officer. All Rascal PT training materials and job aids are posted on our dedicated webpage, Rascal Proposal Tracking (PT).

Per NIH notice, NOT-OD-23-161, effective for applications submitted for due dates on or after October 5, 2023, NIH has eliminated the single cost line item in the R&R Budget Form for detailed budgets. However, NIH will continue to require applicants to specify estimated DMS cost details in a designated section of the “Budget Justification” attachment of the R&R Budget Form.  The updated instructions for the R&R Budget Form state:

"Provide a brief summary of type and amount of scientific data to be preserved and shared and the name of the established repository (ies) where they will be preserved and shared. Indicate general cost categories such as curating data and developing supporting documentation, local data management activities, preserving and sharing data through established repositories, etc., including an amount for each category and a brief explanation. Specify in the justification if no costs will be incurred for Data Management and Sharing, if applicable. The recommended length of the justification should be no more than half a page."

The instructions for Modular budgets remain the same.

NIH just updated their detailed budget application instructions to reflect these changes, and updated their DMS Budget/Costs FAQs. We have updated our Guidance on the NIH Data Management & Sharing (DMS) Policy, with Budget Justification guidance to reflect these changes. f you have any questions, please reach out to your SPA Project Officer, or contact [email protected].

Dear Colleagues,

We hope the new academic year is off to a good start.  We are writing to all of you, who have a role in the academic personnel leave process, to let you know about a new requirement for faculty and officers of research who plan to take an unpaid leave from the University with a duration longer than three months.  

Funding agencies, and Columbia policy, require the principal investigator and other senior/key persons to obtain prior approval from the agency before disengaging from a project for more than three months. When faculty or officers of research take an unpaid leave from Columbia, they typically will receive full salary from another entity. If that is the case, the presumption is that they must disengage from their Columbia research projects. In such cases, the University may need to notify the agencies and seek prior approval for an interim principal investigator or request effort adjustments for other senior/key persons. Even if there are multiple principal investigators already on a given project, if they plan to assume responsibilities held by the faculty/officer of research taking the unpaid leave, the agency still must grant prior approval before such changes are implemented.

To ensure that the University obtains all necessary prior approvals from the funding agency, principal investigators and other senior/key persons on sponsored projects who plan to take unpaid leaves from Columbia must complete a new form. The form asks the faculty or officer of research to describe their proposed plan for ensuring the project continues to progress appropriately during the period of their unpaid leave.

The Provost’s Office will not approve unpaid leaves for individuals with sponsored research unless this form is completed.

In contrast with an unpaid leave, during sabbatical, faculty members who have sponsored projects are expected to remain engaged in such research during the sabbatical unless they have prior agency approval to disengage. This means that while on sabbatical, the faculty member must continue to expend the appropriate amount of effort on their sponsored projects, and receive an appropriate amount of Columbia salary.

More information about handling the short-term or long-term leaves of absence of a principal investigator is available in the Sponsored Projects Handbook, chapter IX.C.3.

Please feel free to contact Bill Berger, Naomi Schrag or Eugenia Lean with questions about this process.  Thank you.

William Berger
AVP for Sponsored Projects Administration

Eugenia Lean
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Naomi Schrag
Vice President for Research Compliance, Training and Policy

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will mandate the use of SciENcv for the preparation of the biographical sketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support information, effective with new proposals submitted or due on or after October 23, 2023. On that date, NSF applicants will no longer be able to use the NSF fillable-PDF forms, and they will no longer be accessible.

If you are planning to prepare an NSF proposal and haven’t already begun to use SciENcv we strongly recommend you become familiar with it now. Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA) will offer three webinars to researchers and administrators to walk through the system. You can register for any of the following sessions (please use your Columbia-affiliated email address):

• Tuesday, August 15^th, 10:00 – 11:30am
• Wednesday, September 13^th, 2 – 3:30pm
• Friday, October 6^th, 1 – 2:30pm

We will record these sessions and subsequently send materials.

For information and resources on completing the NSF biosketch and Current and Pending (Other) Support, refer to our webpage NSF Researcher Disclosure Requirements.

Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA) hosted a webinar on July 26, 2023 featuring Dr. Stephanie Rolin, a researcher at Columbia and recipient of an NIH Loan Repayment Program (LRP) award. Dr. Rolin is also an LRP Ambassador. The slides from that webinar are available at NIH LRP webinar, 7/26/2023.

Dr. Rolin will be hosting a six-week online workshop from August 16^th – October 11^th to provide direction and strategy to prospective applicants. This workshop is ideal for first-time applicants (though all are welcome to participate) and will provide practical resources to ensure applicants are staying on target to meet the submission deadline. LRP applications will be accepted by NIH from September 1 until November 16, 2023. You can sign up for her workshop on this workshop registration form.

Email Dr. Rolin at [email protected] if you'd like more information about this workshop. For more information about the NIH LRP, see their website NIH Loan Repayment Program.

Dear NSF Researchers,

If you plan to submit an NSF proposal on or after July 31, 2023, please read this message carefully.

Congress has mandated a new training requirement in responsible and ethical conduct of research (RECR) for all NSF-funded faculty and senior personnel. This message contains important information about how to meet this new requirement.

What is the new RECR training requirement?

In 2022, Congress mandated that faculty and senior personnel supported by NSF must complete RECR training. This training requirement has applied to NSF-funded undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs since 2010. Congress has mandated that RECR training for faculty and senior personnel must include training on mentoring and mentorship. Other topics include: safeguarding intellectual property, authorship and publication, research misconduct, and peer review. RECR training need be completed only once; there is no refresher training requirement.

How am I affected?

If you are listed as faculty or senior personnel on an NSF proposal due on or after July 31, 2023 and the proposal is awarded, then you must complete RECR training before the award can be set up. If you do the training now, you will avoid delays when your next NSF project is awarded. This requirement does not apply to proposals for conferences, symposia, workshops, or travel. Finally, this requirement does not apply retroactively to projects submitted and awarded before July 31.

How do faculty and researchers fulfill the RECR training requirement?

You may complete the RECR training requirement through the Rascal Training Center, Course No. TC7000. There are nine relatively brief modules. It is not necessary to complete all modules in one session, but the modules must be completed in sequence. There are quizzes at the end of most modules. Including the time needed to read through the material, we estimate that completing all the modules will take around 2.5-3 hours. If you are very familiar with the material, you have the ability to skim and scroll to the quizzes. If you need help navigating to the training, please review the step-by-step instructions posted on the Research Compliance and Training website.

How will this requirement be communicated to faculty and researchers?

The Office of Research Compliance and Training (RCT) will assign the training in Rascal to any identified faculty, senior personnel, postdoc, or student supported by NSF. This means that the training will appear automatically in the My Training To-Do List, in the Rascal Training Center. In addition, over the next several months, RCT will send regular reminders to NSF faculty and senior personnel who have not completed RECR training. At award setup, Sponsored Projects Administration will confirm that all faculty and senior personnel named in the proposal have completed RECR training and will inform those who have not completed RECR training that they must do so. The award will not be set up until all faculty and senior personnel named in the proposal have completed the training.

Will you hold award set-up until students and postdocs complete RECR training?

No. Award set-up will only be held until faculty and other senior personnel named in the proposal complete the training. The Office of Research Compliance and Training has a separate process for students and postdocs.

Responsible and ethical conduct of research is important.

We know that researchers must complete many administrative and compliance responsibilities, and mandatory RECR training adds to this burden. However, the topics covered in these trainings are essential to the integrity of the research process. Researchers can take advantage of the opportunity to review the same materials as their students and postdocs. This shared understanding of the fundamental principles and norms that underly our work will help promote a cohesive research environment.

Questions regarding the NSF RECR requirement may be directed to the Office of Research Compliance and Training, 212-854-4261, or [email protected].  Information is also available on Columbia’s Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research webpage.   

Sincerely,

Jeannette M. Wing
Executive Vice President for Research
Professor of Computer Science

Naomi J. Schrag

Vice President for Research Compliance, Training and Policy

Anderson P. Smith, Ph.D.

Assistant Director for Research Compliance Education

Dear Colleagues,

NIH has issued importance guidance that prohibits the use of ChatGPT or other similar programs in the peer review process:

NIH prohibits NIH scientific peer reviewers from using natural language processors, large language models, or other generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies for analyzing and formulating peer review critiques for grant applications and R&D contract proposals. NIH is revising its Security, Confidentiality, and Non-disclosure Agreements for Peer Reviewers to clarify this prohibition. Reviewers should be aware that uploading or sharing content or original concepts from an NIH grant application, contract proposal, or critique to online generative AI tools violates the NIH peer review confidentiality and integrity requirements.

For those of you who serve on NIH study sections, please be sure to abide by this requirement and all confidentiality obligations that govern peer review. 

Please review NIH’s Notice No. NOT-OD-23-149, The Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence Technologies is Prohibited for the NIH Peer Review Process for more information.  Thank you.

We are writing to let the research community know there are two new templates that can be used to create NIH Data management and Sharing (DMS) Plans that are in DMPTool. NIH plans to implement one of these templates across all NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs) sometime next year.

Background:

Columbia University is a member of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP), an association of universities, research institutions, and federal agencies collaborating together to examine ways to reduce administrative burden associated with the management of federally funded sponsored projects.

The FDP, in collaboration with NIH, is currently conducting a pilot (aka, the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot) to test the two new NIH DMS Plan templates and seeks researcher input.

The goal of the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot is to:

• Save time for researchers to complete their DMS Plans by providing templates with clear fields and instructions;
• Reduce time to finalize the DMS Plan during Just-in-Time (JIT), which in turn, reduces time to the issuance of a Notice of Award; and
• Promote standardization of the information collected in DMS Plans that meet the needs of the different NIH ICOs, therefore, preventing significant variations in ICO-specific requirements.

At the end of the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot, the NIH will select a template(s) and this pilot aims to inform the final template(s). Researchers have the opportunity now to inform what the future template will be.

The two NIH DMS Plan templates:

NIH will accept either of the two pilot templates, or the standard NIH DMS Plan format in grant applications requiring a DMS Plan. The two pilot templates are available in DMPTool, or the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage and are available for anyone to use.

If downloading the templates from the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage, the options are:

• FDP Pilot Template Alpha - a prescriptive, fillable PDF template designed to limit the need for free text entry.
  • Note – when downloading the Alpha template from the FDP/NIH DMS Pilot webpage, the template will not open in a web browser; it must be downloaded and opened in a licensed version of Adobe (cannot use the free version of Adobe). 
• FDP Pilot Template Bravo – a Word doc which aims to provide detailed prompts as well as more options to include free text responses as necessary.

If using DMPTool, both of these templates, as well as the general NIH DMS Plan format (labeled as the NIH-GEN DSMP (2003)) are available for use. No need to obtain the licensed version of Adobe.

Providing feedback to NIH:

If using either the Alpha or Bravo templates, please provide feedback to NIH. Simply complete this short survey.

Questions:

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach us at [email protected]. For more Columbia-specific resources and FAQs on the NIH DMS Policy, see Columbia’s NIH Policy on Data Management and Sharing Plan (2023) webpage.

The Shared Research Computing Policy Advisory Committee (SRCPAC) is happy to offer the Columbia research community the option to buy into the next shared high performance computing cluster. For more details and pricing, see the full 2023 HPC Buy-in Announcement.

Please fill out our shared HPC order form between Monday, May 22, 2023 and Friday, June 16, 2023. All orders will require a chartstring account code. Please ensure that your chartstring is properly budgeted and will be valid until the end of the calendar year. We plan for the equipment to go live in late Fall 2023.

For any questions or to schedule an information session please contact ​John Villa, Manager of CUIT High Performance Computing, at [email protected]​.

The number of servers purchased by a research group defines a share of the total system (expressed as a percentage) that will ​determine job priority. System policies that determine job priority are approved by a faculty operations committee consisting of representatives of ​the ​participating research groups and are implemented by CUIT staff.

Please fill out our shared HPC order form by Friday, June 16. You may purchase one or more servers. A server will have a 5-year lifespan, and the purchase price will include racks, network switches, job scheduling software, user support, and other infrastructure-related costs. A research group can consist of one or more users.  

Dear Members of the NIH Research Community,

In preparation for the upcoming NIH proposal deadlines, we are resuming Data Management Office Hours. Office hours will be available to address questions and concerns related to writing a data management and sharing plan, selecting repositories, and general consultation about the new NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy. Registration is not required for these sessions, which are held over Zoom (link below).  

• Next session: Thursday, 5/25/2023; 1:00pm – 2:00pm Eastern Time
  Zoom link to join the call
  Meeting ID: 990 0144 3412
  Passcode: 274588

We have also created a Quick Guide to NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy, with updates, clarifications, and resources to assist you with these requirements.  The Quick Guide covers: 

• Applicability of the DMS Policy and whether your proposal requires a DMSP
• Policy Expectations
• DMS Plan vs. Resource Sharing Plan
• Steps for Selecting a Repository
• Resources for Writing the DMS Plan, including some new resources developed by VP&S
• Frequently Asked Questions about Data Sharing and Intellectual Property
• Important information about budgeting for DMS costs and how to avoid budgeting $0 in this section, including a new sample budget justification

Columbia’s answers to frequently asked questions are available on our dedicated NIH DMS webpage (FAQs).

Finally, we remind you of this previously-issued clarification regarding Dryad: Columbia affiliates can deposit data at no cost, but there is an upload limit of 300 GB per publication through the web interface. Submitters should contact Dryad for assistance with larger datasets.

Please feel free to send questions to [email protected], as always.

As mentioned a couple of weeks ago via our listservs, NIH is going to launch a newly redesigned xTrain on March 30^th. xTrain is used to manage appointments, reappointments and terminations for institutional training grants (Ts), individual fellowships (Fs), institutional career development awards (K12), and some research education awards (such as the R25).

NIH released additional information about the new xTrain, which can be read here. In addition, they created a high-level, six-minute video walking through the new xTrain. Their detailed, online user guide won’t be available until after the release on March 30.

We will keep you posted on xTrain as more information becomes available.

This is a reminder that Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), in collaboration with Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT), will be launching Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0, anticipated to be released the start of April. We will be hosting webinars beginning next week.

What is Rascal Proposal Tracking?

Rascal Proposal Tracking is currently required to register any new or competing renewal grant or contract proposals with SPA.  It captures critical proposal and compliance details used by your SPA Project Officer for proposal review and submission to a sponsor. Rascal Proposal Tracking is also used to register proposal resubmissions, transfer applications, non-competing continuations, supplemental requests, and cost extensions.

What’s changed?

Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0 has been modernized with new functionality to make it easier to identify, sort, and filter projects. Several data entry fields have been removed to reduce burden, while others have been enhanced to improve data collection and reporting. New validations have been created to highlight missing or potentially inaccurate information. It is easier to identify changes that have been made in Rascal Proposal Tracking throughout the registration and finalization process in close collaborations with the SPA Project Officer.

Will there be training?

Yes! We have scheduled two webinars to provide the research community with an overview of Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0. The sessions will be recorded. You can register for one of the following dates:

• Wednesday, March 22, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern Time
• Wednesday, March 29, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern Time

In addition, we will be holding weekly office hours in April 2023 to assist you and answer your specific questions. To register for office hours:

• Tuesdays, April 4 – April 25; 9:30 am – 10:30 am Eastern Time

We will provide more detailed information and resources as we get closer to the release of Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0. For questions, please contact your SPA Project Officer.

Sponsored Projects Administration (SPA), in collaboration with Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT), is excited to announce Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0, anticipated to be released the end of March 2023.

What is Rascal Proposal Tracking?

Rascal Proposal Tracking is currently required to register any new or competing renewal grant or contract proposals with SPA.  It captures critical proposal and compliance details used by your SPA Project Officer for proposal review and submission to a sponsor. Rascal Proposal Tracking is also used to register proposal resubmissions, transfer applications, non-competing continuations, supplemental requests, and cost extensions.

What’s changed?

Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0 has been modernized with new functionality to make it easier to identify, sort, and filter projects. Several data entry fields have been removed to reduce burden, while others have been enhanced to improve data collection and reporting. New validations have been created to highlight missing or potentially inaccurate information. It is easier to identify changes that have been made in Rascal Proposal Tracking throughout the registration and finalization process in close collaborations with the SPA Project Officer.

Will there be training?

Yes! We have scheduled two webinars to provide the research community with an overview of Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0. The sessions will be recorded. You can register for one of the following dates:

• Wednesday, March 22, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern Time
• Wednesday, March 29, 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Eastern Time

In addition, we will be holding weekly office hours in April 2023 to assist you and answer your specific questions. To register for office hours:

• Tuesdays, April 4 – April 25; 9:30 am – 10:30 am Eastern Time

We will provide more detailed information and resources as we get closer to the release of Rascal Proposal Tracking 3.0. For questions, please contact your SPA Project Officer.

We have two important clarifications for PIs regarding: (1) the use of DMPTool and NIH’s formatting requirements, and (2) when the Resource Sharing Plans are required in addition to the Data Management and Sharing Plan.

1. DMPTool - When using DMPTool to create the DMS Plan, the Plan must comply with all of NIH’s formatting requirements. Otherwise, the application is at risk of getting withdrawn. This includes font size, margins, and no URLs or hyperlinks are allowed.  You should download the Plan created in DMPTool as a Word document to make sure you can meet all formatting requirements.  See this one-page DMPTool Formatting Guide for NIH Proposals.
2. Resource Sharing Plan(s) - When the new DMS Policy took effect on January 25, 2023, it eliminated the requirement to include a Data Sharing Plan (under the 2003 policy), or a Genomic Data Sharing Plan, in the Resource Sharing Plan(s) section of the application. Instead, only one DMS Plan is needed (even if subject to the Genomic Data Sharing Policy), which is included in the Other Plan(s) section of the application. See Writing a DMS Plan, which contains additional instructions for applications subject to the Genomic Data Sharing Policy.

A Resource Sharing Plan(s) is required only when the PI plans to create the following two items:

• • Model Organisms –unique model organisms, including unique mammalian and non-mammalian models ; and/or
  • Research Tools – unique research resources that can be useful for many others and many projects.

See NIH Instructions on Resource Sharing Plans for FORMS-H.

For questions about DMPTool, or the contents of the DMS Plans, please contact [email protected]. You can also contact your SPA Project Officer for questions concerning the preparation of your NIH applications.