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Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

  • 1.  Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-17-2021 10:28
    Edited by Audrey Wineglass Foster 11-18-2021 06:27
    Hi, everyone!  I hope you're all safe and looking forward to the holidays.  I know I am.  The holidays can't come fast enough.  Currently, people in our office are the only folks uploading documents to Cayuse.  We're small and can do that with $6.3 in awards.

    However, it's always been my intention to have faculty begin uploading their proposals to Cayuse.  I had a plan to do so prior to COVID19.  We know how that went.  I was going to start with a small group and then roll it out to the rest of the faculty...perhaps in phases.  What approach did you take?  I have some faculty who are technology savvy and others who are not.  Are your faculty fully immersed and able to do the uploading or do you upload for them?  Did you get direction/support from Cayuse?  At some point, I plan to do this.  I would like to hear from others how you approached this or was it faculty inputting into Cayuse from the start.  Thanks in advance for any feedback/suggestions you can provide.

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    RISING STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-17-2021 17:22

    Hi Audrey,

    Here at UC Irvine, the faculty do have the option to upload/complete their own proposals in Cayuse. We had that option right from the beginning when we first implemented 424. When we implemented, we scheduled weekly training sessions for both faculty & admin staff together. We had great turn out at those sessions. We're several years into use of 424 (now Proposal) and continue to allow faculty & staff to complete the proposal package. Since Covid, we haven't had the in-person training sessions; instead we've held a couple ad hoc training sessions over Zoom when requested. We did not reach out to Cayuse for any specific training as we felt we had enough expertise in-house with using the system.

    And for those faculty that aren't tech savvy or are too busy, then we have their admin staff do the uploading/completing of proposal packages. We leave it all up to the departments.

    Let me know if you have any questions!

    Jonathan



    ------------------------------
    Jonathan Lew
    ERA Officer
    University of California, Irvine
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-18-2021 06:22
    Edited by Audrey Wineglass Foster 11-18-2021 06:26
    Jonathan, thank you very much for your response.  Very helpful.  I like the approach of giving it as an option and also training support staff to upload/complete proposal packages.  I'm trying to create a culture on campus where not just our office knows how to do everything related to grants and this is a great path forward from where I sit.  Thanks!  -- alwf

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    RISING STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-22-2021 08:49
    Edited by Lyndal Arceneaux 11-22-2021 08:50
    We at Texas A&M University operate like this as well; faculty and support staff are provided the permissions to be able to upload documents to their respective proposals, but it is by no means required. We have quite a few faculty members who prefer to upload their own documents, and we definitely allow that as an option.

    The training, though, we are still in the process of providing. For the most part, our RA staff are doing the majority of uploading (though this isn't much different from pre-Proposals (S2S)).

    ------------------------------
    Lyndal Arceneaux, MRA, CRA
    Sr. Proposal Administrator II, Team Lead
    Texas A&M University
    College Station, TX
    979-862-2465
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    RISING STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-18-2021 06:21
    Hi Audrey,

    Yes, I agree, the holidays cannot come fast enough! Here at Lamar, the PI's complete and upload their document in Cayuse. Our pre-award people oversee the entire process and give direction and guidance if needed. However, our office does finalize the routing. This became a necessary item as multiple Co-PI's pull in multiple approvers and sometime the routing steps are a bit muddled. We launched SP and Proposals right at the beginning of Covid when everyone was sent home. So our office created a training video and placed it on our website to assist our PI's. And we held Teams meetings as well. Since we have been back on campus, we have had one training session but we are planning for more in the Spring. Like you, we have some PI's who are great with technology and others who require a bit more assistance. But, I have to say, Cayuse is very easy to use and once those who were challenged received some guidance, it has been easier for them. I hope this helps and enjoy your holidays!

    ------------------------------
    Beverly Kemp
    eRA Research Coordinator
    Lamar University
    Beaumont 77710
    409-880-7670
    brkemp@lamar.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    RISING STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-18-2021 06:22
    Hi Audrey,

    We operate very similar to what Jonathan described at UC Irvine.  At UA, our PI's always had the option to upload documents to their proposal in 424.  A lot of our departments have admins that they use to upload for them.  For those departments that do not have grant admins and PI's who do not want to upload their own documents, our central office uploads them.  One caveat is to make sure that everyone is on the same page about finalized documents.  In my experience, when the PI's upload the documents, they tend to swap out versions more often so it makes it hard to review finalized documents unless you have a hard cut-off date.

    We also provided training initially on a larger scale and then as new faculty or admins join, it is more individual training.  Since 424 is so similar to the workspace and assist packages, we have found that we do not need to provide a lot of additional assistance.

    Good luck with the transition!

    Jennifer

    ------------------------------
    Jennifer Mills
    Senior Grants and Contract Specialist/ERA Administrator
    University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-18-2021 06:33
    Thanks for this feedback, Jennifer!  I'm really leaning towards this.  The actual development of individual documents is sometimes occurring in Google Docs and while it facilitates collaboration, it is difficult finding final versions of documents.  I never wanted to start using Google Docs for this purpose but was pressured to join everyone moving forward into the 21st century...lol.  But I'm seeing that it can be problematic with some faculty.  I'm thinking of having faculty email the final documents to us rather than us pulling them from Google Docs for uploading.  All of that would be with the intention to teach faculty how to upload their own documents in the future.  Thanks again!

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-19-2021 05:51
    Oh, my - NEVER use anything from Google docs for a proposal!!! When you download it from the cloud, you get something that looks nothing like the text everybody was working on. Formatting is all over the place, weird characters appear, and so forth. I tried it, once. Never going to do it again: I had to spend so much time cleaning up and reformatting documents to get them in a sponsor-compliant format that I nearly missed the deadline.

    ------------------------------
    Michael Spires
    Research Development Officer
    Oakland University
    Rochester, MI
    (he/him)
    mspires@oakland.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-19-2021 06:06
    I agree that Google Docs is not ideal and I really don't like that it's become the way things are done on my campus now.  Oddly enough it hasn't been an issue regarding formatting for us because we do not make a practice of modifying documents for our faculty.  They have to upload it to Google Docs in final form as a PDF.  What becomes problematic for us is making sure we are choosing the right version of the document from Google Docs and uploading to the agency system and Cayuse.  We just recently had a mess because of this and I'm going to revisit our policy.  Thinking about making it so that faculty can work in and save to Google Doc all they want but the final version must come to us as an email attachment for uploading.  Sigh...

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    SUPERSTAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-22-2021 10:16
    Completely agree about Google Docs.   Box, on the other hand, is VERY useful, and fidelity is maintained within the native Word or Excel files.  I've been able to simply use the free account, even for collaborative P01 and U19 projects with multiple components.  Even if more space is necessary, the institutional license is just something on the order of $50/user.

    cheers,
    -Lisa

    ------------------------------
    Lisa Churchill
    Director, Grants Administration
    The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-22-2021 10:28
    Box?  I never heard of that.  Thanks for letting me know about it.  Will have to check it out.  -- alwf

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-18-2021 10:01
    Hi Audrey!

    At Ball State, our SPA pre-award staff will upload all documents related to a proposal in 424/Proposals & SP approx. 99.98% of the time. We have like 2-3 faculty at the whole U that are comfortable with uploading their own documents to these systems. We have a robust pre-award staff compared to other institutions our size so we provide a lot of hands-on service for our faculty. Of course, there's the flip side to letting them upload, and that is if they truly mess it all up and there's not much time to fix it! The stuff of nightmares.

    I have dreams, though, of training our faculty that WANT to learn how to do these things to give them the option and also set them up for success if they decide to move on to a larger institution that wouldn't provide such service. I would be interested to know if anyone has a curriculum or training outline (slide deck?) to give an example of how you trained your people.

    ------------------------------
    Augusta Isley
    Senior Proposal Manager
    Ball State University
    amwray@bsu.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-18-2021 10:56
    Augusta, thanks for your feedback.  How large is your university in terms of faculty, students, and grant awards for the last fiscal year.  A rough, guestimate?  I would also love to see video, slide decks, outlines, curricula for how people trained their faculty.  Thanks for inquiring about that!  -- alwf

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    STAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-18-2021 14:59
    Glad I could help!
    We have about 21,000 students, 1,300 faculty (FT & PT), we typically are awarded $20-25M in external funding (in a regular year - CARES bumped that quite a bit last FY), and an open portfolio of awards that is between $80-90M.

    The SPA office is about 25 strong: two directors (development and administration), two associate directors (compliance and strategic initiatives), three compliance staff, seven pre-award proposal managers, six post-award grant managers (one position is posted to fill), one secretary, and three student assistants. All under the Vice Provost for Research, and our Research Compliance (IRB, IACUC, etc) is a separate office.

    ------------------------------
    Augusta Isley
    Senior Proposal Manager
    Ball State University
    amwray@bsu.edu
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-18-2021 15:27
    Thanks, Augusta! --alwf

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    SUPERSTAR CONTRIBUTOR
    Posted 11-29-2021 13:04
    Well, this is me, being Miss Cranky Pants.

    Technically, our faculty can upload documents, start records, and some do choose to do that.  But I hate it.  Now, me being me, I frame this as "we want our office to be as faculty-facing as possible.  We can create records faster and better than PIs.  We can't do the science.  Let's eliminate even the small burden of updating Cayuse from the PIs' plates."  And I mean that, actually.  I do.  But also.....  as a data wonk who's pushing 424 to the limits in terms of what we can report out to the campus, it's really important to me that our data be valid and reliable.  At least when we enter records, most of the time it's done right - or at least consistently.  But I can't say to PIs, "let us do it because ya'll are bound to mess it up and you're causing us extra work."  While also kind of true, that's a harder sell ;)

    And, here's my biggest fear about a PI starting a record.  They think that doing that somehow pings us that a proposal is there, waiting for someone to bring it across the finish line.  What if they think they're notifying us and we miss it?  I hover like a wild person over the Proposal Created status to make sure that all the proposals are claimed by a Grants and Contracts Officer.  But.... it scares me.

    Andrea

    ------------------------------
    Andrea Buford
    Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
    Oakland University
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Principal Investigators Uploading to Cayuse

    Posted 11-29-2021 13:09
    You're poking fun that we all need, but you raise some good points here. I appreciate your feedback/warning and the chuckle!  -- alwf

    ------------------------------
    Audrey Wineglass Foster
    Assistant Dean for OSP + Research Svcs
    Gallaudet University
    ------------------------------