Appendix A: Format for Multistate Research Project Proposals

To be able to use this form you should have access as an Advisor, Project Coordinator or Member of the Technical Committee. NIMSS will not allow you to save your proposal if you do not belong to any of these categories. If you're not sure, please contact your Regional System Administrator:
North Central - Madelyn Alt (malt@cals.wisc.edu)
Northeast - Rubie Mize (rm167@umail.umd.edu)
South - Anna Marie Rasberry (Annam@saaesd.msstate.edu)
West - Harriet Sykes (sykes@lamar.colostate.edu)

To view the actual form, click on the snapshot on your left or the title below the form.

Please indicate what region you are submitting for: Choose either the North Central, Northeast, South or West.

Project/Activity Number: will automatically be assigned by the system. The project/activity number is made up of two parts: a prefix and a number. The prefix is based on the region the proposal is being submitted for. The system will assign the temporary number with the region, e.g. NE_temp004. This temporary number will remain in use until the proposal is finally approved. The Regional System Administrator will then assign the final number with the correct prefix (e.g. NE1000 or S1000)

Project Title: is limited to 140 characters. Use only alphanumeric characters. Please do not use quotes or other special characters.

Requested Project Duration: expects the date be in the correct date format. For the first date it should be a month pair in the format mm-yyyy and the second date is just a four digit year.

Administrative Advisor: can be kept blank, as long as the user will only save the proposal as a working copy. If submitting as final, the Advisor has to be identified and his/her authorization code entered into the designated box.

Statement of the Issue(s) and Justification: is limited to 20,000 characters. When you are inputting information into a textbox, the single line breaks are not preserved, so to separate paragraphs please use a double line break or a html tag such as <p>. There is a list of basic html tags in Attachment 1 that you can use to help format your text. This applies to all succeeding text boxes.

Related, Current, and Previous Work: is limited to 20,000 characters. Single line breaks are not preserved, so use either a double line break (pressing enter twice) or html tags such as <p> to separate paragraphs.

Objectives: is limited to 4000 characters. If you have more than five objectives please use the textbox area and separate the objectives with a double semi-colon (;;). Formatting this way will allow additional objectives to be numbered accordingly. For example, objectives 6 and 7 should be entered as follows,
Determine the impact of different crop rotations on weed abundance;; Evaluate productivity and weed suppression by commercially available cultivars;;
The system will automatically take care of the numbering so you don't need to number each objective.

Methods: is limited to 20,000. Single line breaks are not preserved, so please use either a double line break (pressing enter twice) or html tags such as <p> to separate paragraphs.

Outputs: is limited to 4000 characters. If you have more than five output statements please use the textbox area and separate the outputs with a double semi-colon (;;). Formatting this way will allow the additional outputs to be bulleted correctly.

Outcomes or Projected Impacts: is limited to 4000 characters and has the same rules as Objectives and Outputs in that you should use a double semi-colon (;;) to separate different outcomes or projected impacts.

Milestones: is limited to 5000 characters. If you have more than five milestone years, please use the textbox area and the format (year): milestone;;. For example, (2006) Field tests of subterranean clover hardiness repeated;; (2007) All data analysis completed;; (2008) Manuscripts prepared for publication

Projected Participation: You will use appendix E to fill this in. If you want to click on the link we suggest using the right click to open it in a new window. Appendix E is explained in detail in a separate section.

Outreach Plan: is limited to 2000 characters. Single line breaks are not preserved, so please use either a double line break (pressing enter twice) or html tags such as <p> to separate paragraphs.

Organization and Governance: is limited to 4000 characters. You will need to indicate if the governance is standard or non-standard. If it is non-standard please provide the information in the textbox area. If it is standard, just click on standard and the system will type in the description for a standard organization as follows:
"The recommended Standard Governance for multistate research activities include the election of a Chair, a Chair-elect, and a Secretary. All officers are to be elected for at least two-year terms to provide continuity. Administrative guidance will be provided by an assigned Administrative Advisor and a CSREES Representative."

Literature Cited: This is a required section that should be completed before submission. The character limit is 50,000.

Attachments: All required sections have been incorporated into the form so adding attachments is discouraged. However, there is an allowance for up to five attachments to be uploaded as part of the proposal. Please use discretion in deciding what attachments to include. Only those that are needed to support the proposal should be included. You can click on the browse button to add an attachment that is located on your hard drive. The system will then keep a permanent copy of the uploaded attachments.

Administrative Advisor's Authorization Code: Fill this in if you are not the Administrative Advisor (ask the Advisor for the code) and you want to submit the draft for review or "Submit as Final".

Save as Working Copy or Submit as Final? You can save your draft as a Working Copy. The system will take you to the next page that will give you the url with a temporary project number. It will also ask you to assign a password so you can go back and edit your proposal. You may share the url with your colleagues so they can view the proposal in NIMSS. If you want them to edit directly, then you can also share your password and they can go to the NIMSS Menu and click on Edit Proposal. This is not advisable though as you might lose track of the changes being made. However, if somebody else is working on a different section, this will facilitate such cooperation.

Use Submit as Final only when your draft is ready for review. Give the project number to your Advisor so he/she could go into NIMSS and submit the proposal as Final. You may also ask the Advisor to give you his/her authorization code so you can submit the proposal as Final. An e-mail notification is sent to the Regional System Administrator after a proposal is submitted as Final. The notification is as follows:

This email is to notify that a project/activity has been 
Submitted as Final, and is now ready for review.
Project Number: 
Project Title:  
Submit Date: 
URL: 
http://www.lgu.umd.edu/showInfo.cfm?trackID= 
(you  need to log on first at www.lgu.umd.edu)