The University of Florida Integrated Research Support Tool (UFIRST) is now live!  You can log into the new system directly at https://grants.research.ufl.edu or through the link in myUFL under Grants>Proposals. All proposals and agreements related to sponsored programs at the university must now be submitted through UFIRST.

Here are a few key reminders:

• Complete training if you have not already done so.  If you require administrator-level access to the new system, please be sure you have completed the new RSH280 course as well as RSH220 Effort Fundamentals, RSH230 Effort Management, and RSH260 Cost Principles.
• Open labs are available for hands-on assistance.  Click here for times and locations.
• Instruction guides to support you are available here.  If you hit a roadblock in entering or routing your proposal, check these first.  If they don’t answer your questions, call or email the Division of Sponsored Programs (DSP) at 352-392-9267 or ufirst@research.ufl.edu.
• Included in these guides are one to assist PI’s with certifying/signing their records and one to assist department, division, and college approvers with approving in UFIRST.

As always, if you have questions, concerns, or thoughts throughout this process, please email DSP at ufirst@research.ufl.edu.

The UF Division of Research Program Development in the Office of Research is pleased to announce the release of a new funding opportunities database (OppMan) for the UF community. This database will continue to serve as the central UF information source on limited submission opportunities and other key research-related announcements.  The database update occurred on March 11, 2015.

Links to the old page will redirect to the new page. You may need to login with your Gatorlink credentials (using the login link at the top right of the screen) to see the funding opportunities on the new page. Once you have done so, you can search or update your subscription. Please also update any bookmarks you may have to the Funding Opportunities page.

The changes introduced will allow

• new funding opportunities to be published more promptly, and made available throughout the week.
• subscribers to manage their individual subscriptions by the following:
  • Selecting the categories that are specific to their research interests.
  • Customizing the frequency of email alerts.
• advanced searching and sorting functions.

All current subscribers to the Friday Funding Opportunities emails have been migrated to the new email notification system.  All current subscribers will, by default, continue to receive a once-weekly Friday email summary of new funding opportunities posted to the database that week.  Emails will be sent to the subscriber’s email address on file in the UF directory.

If the Office of Research was unable to locate your email address or UFID, you will receive an email in the coming weeks requesting that you sign in with your Gatorlink credentials and re-subscribe.

Beginning Friday, March 20, subscribers should log in to the new database, using their Gatorlink credentials, and manage their own subscriptions. A link to the subscriptions page will be included in the weekly email you receive.  At that time, subscribers can choose specific categories of funding opportunities to be included in their email notifications, as well as change the desired frequency of their email alerts.

To see a basic guide for using the new database and managing your subscription, please click here.

Northwestern University, with a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), is hosting the 2015 Workshop on Quasi-Experimental Design and Analysis from Monday, August 3 to Friday, August 14. Applications to attend the workshop should be submitted by April 20, 2015 and decisions will be made by May 1. The workshop is for faculty from all disciplines who have an interest in causal research in education though advanced graduate students working with quasi-experimental data are also welcome.

The application process will include a vita and a letter describing past, present, or future involvements with the conduct of quasi-experimental studies in education. The application form and more information can be found at the workshop website http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/workshops/annual-summer-workshops/quasi-experimental-design-and-analysis/. Workshop instruction and accommodations will take place at the Orrington Hotel (http://www.hotelorrington.com/) in Evanston, Illinois.

The workshop is funded by IES (Grant R305D140029), and thanks to this grant, all instructional and lodging costs will be met, but not travel or food costs. However, there are travel scholarships available for five persons from institutions that cannot pay for the travel costs. Applicants who need a travel scholarship should request one. The Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University has agreed to defray the costs of breakfast snacks. In addition, Evanston has a large number of easily available, inexpensive, and good restaurants where workshop attendees may eat.

This two-week workshop will expose attendees to the best current quasi-experimental practice for education and will help them analyze the data that the better designs produce. The format will be some lectures with active involvement from attendees. These lectures will describe better practice with the rationale based on both statistical theory and the results of studies directly comparing non-experimental and experimental causal results. The rest of the workshop will be spent hands on the analysis of data from the designs covered in the lectures.

The hands-on instructional component having to do with analysis will use two programs: R and STATA. Attendees should have a copy of one or both of these on their laptop they bring to the training. There may be some people who do not know either program. For those who are adept at learning computer languages and are confident of their skills, we advise them to apply for the workshop. For those who know they are not adept and do not know either language, it would probably not be a good idea to apply. We anticipate that most attendees will be familiar with one or both of these programs.

Each day will involve about three hours of lecture time with breaks, then lunch, then three to four hours of hands-on instruction in analysis that takes place in smaller groups. This breakout time will be organized around modules that we prepared to illustrate analytic practice with either R or STATA. Lunch can be local, including inexpensive sandwiches or ethnic restaurants. During the evenings, we envisage that most dinners will be taken communally in local, inexpensive restaurants. The town of Evanston is beautiful in the summer and nearby Chicago offers plenty of leisure options for the weekend.

The instructors will be Thomas Cook of Northwestern University, Will Shadish of the University of California at Merced, Peter Steiner from the University of Wisconsin- Madison, Coady Wing from Indiana University at Bloomington, and Vivian Wong from the University of Virginia. Taken together they have had considerable experience in the design and analysis of randomized experiments, regression discontinuity designs, interrupted time series, and many other forms of non-experimental practice. All have backgrounds in education research, with three teaching graduate students and postdocs in education. Together they know the literature, not just in education, but also in statistics, psychology, economics, and public policy.

For further information, please contact Ms. Rebecca Morris at rebecca.morris@northwestern.edu

If you are still trying to understand what the new cost principles in the Uniform Guidance mean to you, NIH has added a video overview as well as a recorded Q & A to the NIH Grants YouTube page that can help you understand NIH’s implementation of the guidance. A PowerPoint slide set of the presentation and transcripts for both videos are also available for download on grants.nih.gov.