DELIVERABLE REPORT

NFFA-Europe has received funding from the EU's H2020 framework programme for research and innovation under grant agreement n. 654360

 

WP1 Management

D1.2 Implementation of the online two-step proposal submission

Expected date

M3

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PROJECT DETAILS PROJECT ACRONYM PROJECT TITLE

NFFA-Europe NANOSCIENCE FOUNDRIES AND FINE ANALYSIS - EUROPE GRANT AGREEMENT NO: FUNDING SCHEME

654360 RIA - Research and Innovation action START DATE

01/09/2015

WP DETAILS WORK PACKAGE ID WORK PACKAGE TITLE

WP1 Management

WORK PACKAGE LEADER

Giorgio Rossi (CNR)

DELIVERABLE DETAILS DELIVERABLE ID DELIVERABLE TITLE

D1.2 Implementation of the online two-step proposal submission DELIVERABLE DESCRIPTION

Implementation of the online two-step proposal submission EXPECTED DATE ESTIMATED INDICATIVE PERSONMONTHS

M3 30/11/2015 5 AUTHOR(S)

Riccardo Brancaleon (Promoscience)

RESPONSIBLE PERSON FOR THE DELIVERABLE

Giorgio Rossi (CNR-IOM)

NATURE

DEC - Websites, Patent filing, Press & media actions, Videos, etc DISSEMINATION LEVEL

☒ P - Public ☐ PP - Restricted to other programme participants & EC: (Specify) ☐ RE - Restricted to a group (Specify) ☐ CO - Confidential, only for members of the consortium

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REPORT DETAILS ACTUAL SUBMISSION DATE

27/04/2016 02.00 PM NUMBER OF PAGES

12 FOR MORE INFO PLEASE CONTACT

Riccardo Brancaleon (Promoscience)

Tel. +39-040-3755692 Email: riccardo.brancaleon@promoscience.com

Version Date Author(s) Description / Reason for modification Status

01 20/04/2016 Riccardo Brancaleon Final

Contents Premise 4  

Technology 4  

Before starting the submission 4  

How to submit the proposal 4  

Step 1: Selection of the techniques 5  

Option 1: Wishlist 5  

Option 2: Technique selection from the online form 7  

Step 2: Online submission form 7  

After the submission 12  

Progress 12  

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Premise This deliverable is part of the results achieved within task 1.4, “Set-up and usage of a transnational Access structure”. Specifically, it relates to the integration of an electronic pre-submission advice and submission procedure into a Single Entry Portal, as well as the development of an electronic form for users’ proposal.

Technology The database allowing to select installations and specific tools and techniques made available by NFFA-Europe is based on the Umbraco platform and on its integration with a customized submission management tool. Therefore, the page providing guidelines for proposal submission was built, like the rest of the NFFA-Europe website pages, on Umbraco. The preliminary selection of tools and techniques is made by clicking on the “add to your wishlist” button, which is present on each single tool box. This, and the proposal submission guidelines are already explained in the report of Deliverable D1.1. The online submission tool was built through a fully customized, ad-hoc tool developed for NFFA-Europe by partner Promoscience. The database management system of the submission tool is Microsoft SQL Server, installed on AREA Science Park Cloud Infrastructure by Promoscience.

Before starting the submission Users are advised to read the application guidelines before starting the submission procedure. They can access these either directly from the home page, on the right of the header, or by clicking on their link also present at the top of the submission form, once this has been opened. Several rules, requirements and restrictions apply to the online submission, and they are indicated in the guidelines.

How to submit the proposal The submission tool is only accessible to registered users. To register, users will be required to enter their personal details, including the indication of a username and password to be then used to log on the system. Once logged on, users can submit their proposal, which is structured in two steps.

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Figure  1:  Proposal  submission  steps  

Step 1: Selection of the techniques This first step is accessible in two ways:

Option 1: Wishlist Users first browse the offer catalogue and then select the tools/techniques needed for their project. To do so, they need to click on the small starred button on the top right of each tool box, as shown below. This is also possible by browsing on the following level, providing a more detailed description of each technique, alongside other information such as the sites where it is available.

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Figure  2-­‐3:    Tools/techniques  box  with  option  to  add  in  wishlist  

Once all the relevant techniques have been selected, one can view them by clicking on the button “your wishlist” on the top right of the navigation bar. The preview of selected techniques will appear, similarly to the mode of a shopping cart on an online shopping portal. From this very wishlist summary, users can then access the second step for the submission, i.e. the completion of the application form.

 

Figure  4:  Wishlist  summary  

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Option 2: Technique selection from the online form Users can also select the techniques directly inside the proposal application form. By clicking on the “submit your application“ button in the top navigation bar, in fact, they will be automatically directed to the proposal application form, which is made of the following fields specified here below, among which the selection of techniques/tools is mandatory.

Step 2: Online submission form If not done before, users can access the proposal guidelines by clicking on their link appearing at the top of the online form. Explanations usefull to facilitate filling in the proposal form can also be displayed by clicking the “i” symbol close to the title of each relevant field. Right below this, the form is composed of several fields on the proposed research project. Users can save the draft version of their proposal as many times as they wish and return to it at a later stage.

The online form is composed of the following information groups:

• Proposal data: title, scientific field/s (categorized according to the European Research Council’s review panels), keywords, abstract, state of the art, objectives, figures to be uploaded as attached files;

Figure  5:  Basic  data  about  the  proposal  on  the  top  of  the  online  form  

• Work plan: this is the field indicating the tools/techniques made available by NFFA-Europe. If these have been previously selected through the wishlist, they will automatically appear here. Each installation corresponds to a step of the workplan. Otherwise, this field will appear empty and it will be possible to select tools and techniques from a drop down menu. The option to add more tools/techniques will also be available to those who have previously selected several ones through the wishlist. This is visible at the bottom of the workplan, under “new step”. By selecting each tool/technique, a new box opens up, requesting the following inputs: number of estimated unit of access (i.e., hours for which you will need access to that tool/technique for your experiments or number of projects for theory), and description of the work to be carried with that tool/technique.

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Figure  6:  Workplan  fields  in  the  online  proposal  form  

• Sites preferred to conduct your project, including reasons and notes, and specification on other open access grants for scheduling purposes in case of proposal acceptance;

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Figure  7:  Selection  of  sites  for  each  installation  and  motivation  of  the  preferred  choice/s  

• Name, family name and affiliation of each team member who will conduct the project in case of its approval.

Figure  8:  Team  description  

• Request for reimbursement of travel and/or subsistence costs, within the established limits that are indicated in the box and further explained in the guidelines;

Figure  9:  Request  for  reimbursement  of  travel  and  accommodation  costs  

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• Other information on the samples and security issues related to the proposed project. This information must be filled in on a downloadable template in word format, available on the online form, and then uploaded on this mandatory field;

Figure  10:  Safety  section  of  the  online  proposal.  

• Acceptance of the NFFA-Europe terms and conditions.

Figure  11:  Acceptance  of  NFFA  Europe  terms  and  conditions.  

Users can save the draft proposal and return to it at a later stage, preview the draft, or validate and submit the form, at any stage of the form completion. The option to validate and submit the proposal will only be possible once compulsory fields, marked with an orange star button, are filled in.

Figure  12:  Options  to  save,  preview,  validate  and  submit  the  form  

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Figure  13:  Proposal  preview  

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Figure  14:  Overview  of  applications  saved  and  submitted  

After the submission Once submitted, the project proposal is automatically forwarded to the relevant members of the Technical Liaison Network, a board of experts in the techniques selected in the proposal. These will first assess the project feasibility, and, in case of a positive assessment, the proposal will undergo evaluation and ranking by an external Access Review Panel, whose members are published on the NFFA Europe website under the guidelines section. Once the online tool is fully functional, proposal submission, automatic notification to the Technical Liaison Network, and in case of a positive feasibility assessment, notification to the Access Review Panel for technical evaluation and ranking, will be managed online through the customized submission management tool on NFFA Single Entry Portal (SEP): both the Technical Liaison Network and the Access Review Panel members will assess proposals by logging in to the SEP through their account.

Progress A total of 92 internal tests of the proposal submission tool were done during the testing phase, until the website went online at the official address. While the website was made public in beta version at: www.nffa.eu from 2 February 2016, thus allowing submission of first proposals, the foreseen date for the final version of NFFA Europe website going online is 11 and 12 April 2016, when the project kick-off meeting and a public launching session will take place in Milan. In this occasion, to optimize the use of the Single Entry Point, a tutorial to potential users on how to use the online submission tool will be presented.

A limited number of system administrators can access proposals made so far online (see fig. 14)