Examples of CREST Email 2007

APPENDIX C

System E-mail

Opening e-mail

Dear Dr. XXXX:

RE: Award Number XXXX

We are happy to report that the program monitoring system for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST)/HBCU Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (HBCU-RISE) program is ready for your use. We look forward to your participation in this data collection effort. Your participation and feedback will help us provide the type of information needed to report on developments in the CREST program to National Science Foundation (NSF) management and other interested parties.

NSF recognizes that academic institutions with significant minority student enrollments play a vital role in conducting research that contributes to our knowledge base in all disciplines and in educating minority students who go on to careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The CREST program makes substantial resources available to upgrade the capabilities of the most research-productive minority-serving institutions. It develops outstanding research centers through the integration of education and research and serves to promote the production of new knowledge, increase the research productivity of individual faculty, and expand a diverse student presence in STEM disciplines. The program also enables CREST centers and HBCU-RISE awards to increase the effectiveness of related science and engineering activities within their research areas.

Getting Started

You will need a Web browser such as Netscape Navigator (version 6.0 or higher) or Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6.0 or higher). On your computer, open your browser and go to http://www.qrc.com/crest. Login to CRESTWeb by entering your user name and password.

User Name: XXXX
Password: XXXX

You can change your password once you have logged in to the system. Help and instructions are available on each of the CREST screens. For unfamiliar terms, consult the glossary.

The following data have been preloaded for you: participant data for principal investigator(s) and center and institution information. We recommend that you start by going to the Participant screen, checking the preloaded data, and completing the participant information. There are instructions available on the Data Entry screen to help you with the process. Once all participant data are complete, you may complete the other data entry screens.

During user testing, it was pointed out that the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of participants were often difficult to capture. This information will be critical to follow-up studies of the participants' experiences after they leave the program. We ask that you provide as much contact information as possible for each participant. If you do not have contact information (whether current or not), the following procedures will enable you to complete the data entry for participants:

Phone number-If you do not have the participant's phone number, enter the following: 999-999-9999.

E-mail address-If you do not have the participant's e-mail address, enter the following: 9@9.com.

To save your data, you must enter all required data for that screen and click on Save; leaving the screen without doing this may result in the data not being saved.

Previous Years' Data

The Participant screens will display all active participants from the previous round of data collection. If a participant who is listed is no longer associated with the CREST program for the current data collection period, please click on Deactivate.

Next to each participant name is a status icon (Complete or Incomplete). A status of incomplete indicates that information for that participant needs to be updated for the current data collection period. Click on the participant's name and update the information that appears on the screen. In order to ensure that the information contained in CRESTWeb is up to date, it is critical that any participant with a status of incomplete be reviewed and updated as necessary.

Note for the Proposals, Awards, Presentations, Publications, Collaborative Projects, Patents, and Activities sections: In order to accurately reflect CREST progress across academic years, please import and update historical accomplishments and activities prior to entering any additional accomplishments or activities. The imported data will appear under the current titles.

Please login to the survey prior to April 30, 20XX, in order to provide sufficient time for technical support representatives to address any questions you may have about the system. The deadline to submit all survey data is May 31, 20XX. NOTE: The qualitative portion of the annual report will follow the same format as previous years and must be submitted via NSF's FastLane system.

If you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact technical support by telephone at (866) 227-7127 or via e-mail at crest@qrc.com or hbcurise@qrc.com.

Sincerely,


Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Program Manager

Follow-up e-mail

Dear CREST and HBCU-RISE Colleagues,

This is a reminder notice that the CRESTWeb online data collection system for the National Science Foundation (NSF) CREST and HBCU-RISE programs is now at the midpoint. The deadline for submitting all data is May 31.

As of today, only one award has final submitted data. Just over half of the awards have logged in and/or saved data via CRESTWeb. At this stage, if you have not logged in, please do so as soon as possible. On Friday, May 4, we will be calling all PIs and program staff associated with awards that have not logged in and saved data by close of business on Thursday, May 3.

We thank you for your input and cannot over-emphasize the significance and importance of your full participation in submitting the information via CRESTWeb. The data you give to us helps in our discussions of the program both within the Foundation and outside the Foundation (Congress and the University community).

If you have any questions please contact CRESTWeb Technical Support by e-mail at crest@qrc.com or hbcurise@qrc.com or phone at (866) 227-7127.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Wendi

Wendi Poole, PMP

CRESTWeb Program Manager

Macro International Inc.

Followup e-mail

Dear Colleagues,

This is a reminder that the deadline to submit data to the program monitoring system for the CREST program is approaching. All survey data must be entered into the CRESTWeb system by May 31, 20XX. No one from your award has logged into the system in the last week, and we wanted to let you know that the due date is approaching.

We appreciate your participation in this data collection effort, which helps provide the type of information needed to report on developments in the program to National Science Foundation management and other interested parties. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at crest@qrc.com.

Sincerely,

Wendi

Wendi Poole, PMP

CRESTWeb Program Manager

Macro International Inc.