ARC Working Groups
Progress
Roles and Responsibilities
This group has been busy examining the roles of research support personnel within the university. They have discovered an assortment of positions with varying roles, many with overlapping responsibilities. The group has been brainstorming to list titles and functions within the departments and colleges and will soon begin to review faculty and Research Foundation positions as well. They have also been evaluating websites from other universities that have already completed this exercise. Their plan is to list the assorted roles in each area and provide a description of the responsibilities of each. As they move through this exercise, they may decide to categorize functions in areas of pre-award, post-award, and compliance. Creating a matrix listing primary and shared responsibilities of each position/role is also something they also hope to accomplish.
Compliance and Accountability
This group has been discussing strategies to improve compliance with certification of Effort Reports and PET justifications. Based on an ARC member’s suggestion, the Research Foundation has reformatted the “Pending E-Cert Report” to include the actual dollar amount of pending Effort Reports for each college/VP area instead of simply listing the number of pending reports. This strategy has greatly improved compliance rates.
This group has also requested some enhancements to the PI Portal’s encumbrance reporting such as post doc fellows, trainees, tuition and fees. Information has been gathered surrounding all of the issues involved in these encumbrance processes. An update will be shared at a future meeting.
Another priority is to develop a communication on the topic of allowable costs, and the group is reviewing a draft memorandum and hopes to release this to the research community very soon. Also, they have obtained permission from Harvard University to share a PowerPoint presentation designed in a case study format that helps to illustrate these concepts.
Processes and Procedures
The Processes and Procedures group had a lively discussion about a number of topics. The group agreed that the activities they were most interested in pursuing were assistance documents for entering personnel appointments and the activities around the end of projects.
Communications
The group is analyzing data from the survey that was sent out spring quarter and is also compiling questions and answers about research administration that will be placed in a database and made available to the campus research community.
Training
It was decided that representatives from the work group would review existing training materials such as Being A PI at OSU and the PI Portal Overview. Drafts of the courses Proposal Budgeting and Award and Project Management are posted on Carmen for overall group evaluation.
It was also determined that courses on project personnel and compliance should be the first new education developed; individuals from the group volunteered to participate in this process. Content development has begun for both courses and is expected to continue through the summer. If you would like to participate or have suggestions, please contact Kathy Froilan at froilan.2@osu.edu or 688-3878.
