Chemical Education Today
Report
Working at the NSF FastLane Web Site by Donald J. Wink The National Science Foundation has been developing a cutting-edge online communications portal, called FastLane, for several years. It is based on more than a decade of research into the use of electronic communications that positioned NSF to rapidly exploit the possibilities of the World Wide Web. Formally less than six years old, FastLane is quickly becoming the preferred way to submit reviews and proposals. For some programs it is the only way and, I dare say, the FastLane site may represent the future of secure transmittal of sensitive scientific material. FastLane supports many different NSF functions that require secure online transmittal and retrieval of information. These include budgeting, reviewing of proposals, and internal NSF functions. In this column I will restrict myself to those most important for an individual to submit a proposal to an NSF program. The FastLane site is easy to find at http:// www.fastlane.nsf.gov/. For those just getting to know FastLane, there is a set of information links describing the history, requirements, and functions of FastLane. An important page for new users is the one announcing “outreach activities” at http:// www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/outreach.htm. This gives updated information on when and where NSF representatives and presentations will be available for consultation around the country. The client–server model for proposal preparation can be very cumbersome, especially the first time one uses FastLane. But the savings in printing, mailing, and communications within proposal writing teams can be impressive, especially if multiple investigators and institutions are involved. Fastlane Proposals The concept of a FastLane proposal is simple but widereaching. Overall management is the responsibility of the institution’s Sponsored Research Office (SRO), and they must carry out an initial registration of an investigator. They then step aside while registered investigators use the NSF server to assemble the pieces of a proposal. Assembly at the FastLane site is a lot more than just sending in a proposal as an email message or as an electronic attachment. The server actually holds and reviews information during the proposal assembly process. In the end, the investigators enable SRO to access the proposal, and then the institution’s staff carries out the actual submission.
A helpful orientation page lists “10 steps” for someone who needs to create a FastLane proposal. This page, at http:// www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/about/10steps.htm, can be useful for people at all levels of experience. It lists the steps an institution needs to do and the ones required of the investigator. If you are not sure if your institution is registered, then you may also want to consult the NSF list at http:// www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/about/institutions.htm. The final page that seems essential for proposal writers is at http:// www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a1/newstan.htm. This gives information on preparing a standard proposal. All proposal management is done after logging into the FastLane system and establishing or editing a proposal that is identified by a seven-digit NSF proposal number and proposal identification number (PIN). PI’s and co-PI’s on the proposal can access the entire proposal, as can staff personnel who know the proposal’s PIN. Establishing an accurate listing of the PI and the co-PI’s should be done as soon as possible, before later steps like the budget. When the proposal is first established at the NSF site, it is linked to the set of relevant forms. You can select (once only) whether the proposal will have the standard parts or if it has a special structure determined by a particular program. The forms used for a FastLane submission are familiar components of the existing paper-based NSF forms kit. Online, one accesses different forms through a main “Form Selector” page for the proposal. Several forms for the proposal are produced by filling in Web pages that are then stored on the NSF server. Filling in an online form can be very different from using a word processor. The forms usually do not support formatting and graphics, and this can be a problem in some cases. The budget itself can be produced in one of two ways. The first involves actually typing information into Web-based forms. These also carry out all additions as instructed and have a function to calculate the summary budget for the whole proposal. The second option is to prepare the budget using spreadsheet files written by NSF for Microsoft Excel. These are then uploaded instead of filling in the NSF forms online. The proposal itself is generated through standard word processing. It is uploaded to the NSF site as either a PostScript or a PDF file (the latter requires the use of a commercial conversion program). This makes it easy to compose with fig-
Table 1. Informational Sites Web Page Title
URL
NSF Fastlane
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/
Fastlane Outreach Activities
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/outreach.htm
Ten Steps to Prepare a Fastlane Proposal
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/about/10steps.htm
Fastlane's Registered Institutions
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a0/about/institutions.htm
Instructions for Preparing and Submitting a Standard NSF Proposal via FastLane http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/a1/newstan.htm
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 9 September 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Chemical Education Today
Report ures and special formatting, all of which should get converted. The same strategy can be used for other text-based parts of the proposal, such as the budget justification, biographical sketches, etc. However, in those cases it is also possible to enter the data by online form. At any point in the process, the entire proposal or just a portion can be reviewed in printable form. The server does its virtual printing on standard forms by assembling the relevant parts in a single PDF document with NSF’s software. The resulting file is then returned to the client and can be viewed and printed using freely available reader software. At a certain point in the proposal preparation, the institution’s SRO is given access for internal review. Some institutions may require this access well before the actual due date. They are the ones required to submit the proposal offi-
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cially by 5:00 p.m. local time on the deadline date. At that point, access to the proposal is closed to further changes, and the proposal is given a new seven-digit submission number. Even after submission, FastLane is valuable because one can go back to reprint parts of the proposal and review the status of a proposal submission. One enters the seven-digit code assigned by the NSF after submission is final. This allows you to find where the proposal is in the review process, but of course does not give hints at decisions before NSF program officers have them in hand. Donald J. Wink teaches in the Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago, 845 West Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60607;
[email protected].
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 9 September 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
