Administrative Services > Information Systems

Different forms of applications for external funding require different information regarding the scientific productivity and research participation of key personnel. Different entities want different information in progress reports. Institutional systems for data management are typically insufficiently general to give complete information. For example, Penn, NIH, and NSF databases record projects by PI, but not other key personnel. Financial systems show payments by grants to research personnel, but the disbursements of money are hardly isomorphic with time spent on research and, in the limiting case, it is not unusual for scientists to be active researchers on external projects during periods in which they are drawing no salary from the grant; this is especially true within the PSC where the preponderance of program scientists have “hard money” faculty positions. With respect to bibliographic information, there are now good automated systems for recovering publications, but the provenance of papers forthcoming, in press, and the like remains the researcher; and, conversely, many self-kept curriculum vitae are inaccurate as measured against bibliographic citation searches. The net effect is that biosketches and tables in applications and reports are rarely complete if based on existing “systems.” To the extent that each is compiled, sui generis, in a kind of scavenger hunt that builds on the last rendering of a given table, this is a huge administrative burden which also annoys the program faculty, who feel themselves perpetually importuned for information that they believe they had just provided, since they—unlike the Administrative Core—are not making fine distinctions in response to requests for funding agencies. This problem can be addressed in four steps: (1) The universe of data items requested in tables for applications and reports has to be exhaustively enumerated. (2) A computerized data system incorporating these elements, and populating the data base to the extent possible from existing computerized records systems, has to be created. (3) All other elements of the data base have to be obtained. (4) The data system has to be maintained and updated. The Administrative Core has been in the lead in achieving items (1) through (3) (with help from CITID) during the current grant period. Item (3) has been achieved in conjunction with the preparation of this application. It required a tremendous amount of back-and-forth between the Administrative Core and program scientists to fill in the holes not covered by existing data bases. The challenge, moving forward, is (4) maintenance and updating, lest the existing data base become a wasting asset. We are implementing a system of twice-yearly specific queries to program scientists. This in itself will be an advance, since the greater specificity of non-repetitive requests will alone reduce the “respondent burden.” But the benefit, in the form of enhanced Administrative Core capacity to respond to items for “the common good” is unlikely to be perceived as such by program scientists (except insofar as most are quite altruistic). We therefore will combine these twice-yearly queries with the return of “products,” such as updated biosketches or corrections to current (in the minds of the scientists) c.v.’s. This is a form of outreach in the sense that it is a reminder to the program scientists of the capacities of the Administrative Core—this will be “information at their fingertips” when they need to respond to a request, serve as a consultant, or prepare an application (especially involving other PSC program scientists)—and it is also a selective incentive to encourage their participation in the process.