General Discussions

Hi everyone.
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

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Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
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Hi Sarah,

This is exciting news! When we rolled out Human Ethics (IRB), I actually did a kick off email to our top users letting them know what was coming. We also posted it on our website. We deployed SP and Proposals in January 2020 and of course because of the pandemic we weren't able to do anything face to face but I posted it on our website and gave updates right up to deployment. Here is a link to Lamar University's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs webpage. There is information about Cayuse on the main page and on several of the other pages. Please let me know if you have questions, I'll be more than happy to help.

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Beverly Kemp
eRA Research Coordinator
Lamar University
Beaumont, TX 77710
409-880-7670
brkemp@lamar.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-14-2021 04:34
From: Sarah Pratt
Subject: Information for campus community during implementation

Hi everyone. 
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

------------------------------
Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
------------------------------

Hi Sarah,

We had updated from an older version of the IACUC (Animal Oversight) module to a newer one to address input our users had provided to surveys that queried them on their pain points.  When communicating about the new implementation, which was done via Town Halls and emails, we made sure to highlight the ways in which the upgrade would specifically be addressing their expressed needs--as well as informing them of other efficiencies being introduced to make their lives easier.

I know this is quite what you asked about, but there's inevitably going to be a period of downtime during the transition, if you're migrating information from one system to another.  Being sure you have some efficient workarounds in place to keep things moving offline in the interim can help to keep some resentments from developing.

Good luck with your implementation!

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Cheryl Cheney, CPIA
IACUC Coordinator/Compliance Specialist
Biogen
Cambridge, MA
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-14-2021 04:34
From: Sarah Pratt
Subject: Information for campus community during implementation

Hi everyone. 
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

------------------------------
Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
------------------------------

Hi Sarah!

When Ball State was gearing up to roll out and switch systems, we reached out to admins, chairs, and 'frequent flyer' faculty to come to initial trainings. We also created some materials that explained the system and what information they could find within. After rollout, I was hosting pretty regular trainings to the campus, but attendance and demand dropped off. Because of our process, much of the activity within SP is done by our central office (rather than the faculty) so the trainings were more informational (How do I find .....?) than action (Here is how to fill out the form).

To what Cheryl mentioned, definitely communicate that there may be some lag / oopsies / transitional pain to your audiences. I feel like with any system rollout the more transparent and honest you can be, others will provide some grace. :)

Good luck and take care! 

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Augusta Isley
Senior Proposal Manager
Ball State University
amwray@bsu.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-14-2021 04:34
From: Sarah Pratt
Subject: Information for campus community during implementation

Hi everyone. 
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

------------------------------
Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
------------------------------

Hi Sarah,

I wish we had created a webpage to share progress and information about our Cayuse implementation.

When we implemented cayuse our eRA admin held meeting for the different groups in our RA community and had focus groups that included department admin, PI and central administration stakeholders. In hindsight more involvement from department/school RAs could have made the transition smoother. I recommend identifying a couple RAs at school level to help advocate and keep their school community excited about the system implementation. They can also feed information about what information can help their respective schools/departments feel more comfortable with the system implementation. 

 

Good luck with the implementation.   

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Vibeke Svensson
Interim Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
American University
Washington DC
202-885-3980
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-14-2021 04:34
From: Sarah Pratt
Subject: Information for campus community during implementation

Hi everyone. 
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

------------------------------
Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
------------------------------

I definitely agree with being as open as possible about the progress.   When we made the decision to switch programs (protocols and animal ordering) we held town hall meetings and made periodic email blast announcements to keep people up to date on specific deadlines to be in the old system.   We hand migrated all of our protocols so it was the perfect opportunity for us to create training documents that walked our research staff step by step through the protocol form.   During testing we also created training documents for our animal ordering instructions.   When we were about one month from Go! we began holding in-person sessions where we allowed people to log into our Dev site and create dummy animal orders and protocols.   This takes some coordination since a)  they need to have access to an existing protocol in Dev in order to order animals and b) you have to be crystal clear about working in Dev vs the Live site.    This is also the perfect time to find out which of your researchers are using less common computing options/web browsers so that you can be certain all of those work as well.

One of the presentations I included in the training sessions was to highlight of all of the issues that were solved in our new Cayuse Apps.   This was very helpful and popular with the research staff because many of them had grown incredibly frustrated with the previous platform.    I highly recommend an honest Pros and Cons overview.   E.g. a Con might be that users must be behind a firewall (something they may not be accustomed to doing depending upon current systems).   A Pro might be that they can access the system any where, as long as they have a secure VPN connection.

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Lorraine Bell
Training Program Coordinator
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Aurora CO
303 724-2317
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-14-2021 04:34
From: Sarah Pratt
Subject: Information for campus community during implementation

Hi everyone. 
We are in the beginning stages of implementation. We are planning to create a webpage to introduce the campus to Cayuse and to post updates about the implementation and training as we go along. Has anyone done something similar at their campus? What types of information did you share with your campus to get them excited and prepared for the roll out of your new eRA system?

------------------------------
Sarah Pratt
Associate Director, Research and Sponsored Programs
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI
269-387-8301
------------------------------