Dear Upward Bound Project Director

[Draft pending OMB's approval of the revised annual performance report]

Dear Upward Bound Project Director:

It is time to prepare your annual performance report (APR) for program year 2007–08. Regular Upward Bound (UB) and Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) projects must complete and submit their reports by November 30, 2008; Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) projects have until December 31, 2008 to submit their APRs.

As you may know, you will be working with an APR format that has been significantly revised from last year's to reflect the new standard objectives included in the application package for our fiscal year 2007 competition. This revised format was cleared for use by the Office of Management and Budget via a process under which all grantees had the opportunity to comment on proposed revisions. We are grateful for the participation of all those who commented in the interest of producing a document that is of maximum usefulness to you and TRIO. Please also note that, for regular Upward Bound, the new APR reflects the absolute priority under which the program is operating.

We are pleased to let you know that, in the interest of reducing your work, the overall number of fields in the report has been sharply reduced. We were able to accomplish this by eliminating the great majority of fields involving services the projects provide and by identifying all other fields that were not essential to the purposes for which the report is intended: the APR allows us to determine grantees' compliance with requirements of the program, to assess the extent to which you have met your objectives, to generate data on the performance of the Upward Bound programs as a whole, and to calculate prior experience points. Please also note that the form contains only two sections--Section I for project identification, certification, and warning, and Section II for all other data on the project. We will be able to gather from the participant data (Section II) of this and prior years' APRs all the information we need about your progress and the extent to which you met your objectives.

Another major development this year is our adoption of a new Web-based data collection system that will increase the accuracy, completeness, and efficiency of submissions. The system will allow grantees that submitted APRs in fall 2007 to download data from that report for updates and additions of new data on the 2007–08 year. The new system also utilizes online validations and error checks that will identify problems at the time of submission. [Note: The fall 2008 update of this letter will provide additional procedural information for project directors after TRIO and the data processing and analysis contractors have finalized details of the new Web-based data collection system.]

While the improved Web-based system will help us to catch and resolve many errors, inaccuracies and resultant problems can still find their way into the database. It is in your best interest and ours to assemble a data collection that is of maximum reliability. To that end, this year we have indicated in Section II the fields (such as those identifying students) that should not change from year to year unless you have discovered that erroneous data had been entered in an earlier year.

Submission via the Web: All Upward Bound projects must use the Web reporting feature to submit the 2007–08 performance report. The instructions for submitting the report and the links to the secured Web site maintained by our contractor will be available on November 1, 2008, at the following Web addresses:

http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/report.html
(Upward Bound; Veterans UB)

http://www.ed.gov/programs/triomathsci/report.html
(Upward Bound Math-Science)

From either of the links provided above:

Click on the following URL: https://trio.ed.gov/ub

Once at the contractor's Web site (entitled "Upward Bound Online Annual Performance Report for Program Year 2007–08"), you will need to register; you may do so well in advance of actual submittal of reports. So as to allow time to resolve any problems that might occur with registration, we ask you to register as early as possible.

To register, after clicking on "First Time User? Register Here," you will enter the project director's first and last names and e-mail address and the project's PR award number (found on the Grant Award Notification). If this information matches the data that the Department currently has on file, a user ID and temporary password will be sent to the e-mail address on file. If discrepancies exist, you will be directed to a "Registration Failed" page; if necessary, your program specialist and the Help Desk will be sent an e-mail message requesting verification of data on the project. Verification will occur within 24 hours if the program specialist can readily confirm a change in project director or e-mail address, or up to three days if the program specialist has no prior knowledge of the change. You will be notified if confirmation cannot occur in short order, and you should contact your program specialist (who will also be attempting to reach you). Once the Help Desk has received verification from the program specialist, you will be notified to continue with registration.

Once you have your user ID and temporary password, you may enter them on the site in the top box of the left side of the page; click "Log in." You will be guided to select a new password and then to log in again.

We have pre-populated most of the data fields in Section I of the report to reduce your reporting burden. Please review the pre-populated fields, including the project director's e-mail address, and revise and update these fields as needed. You may change the data in all fields except for the project's PR Award Number, the Grantee Name, and the Report Period.

Faxing Section I: In addition to submitting your APR via the Web, you must submit, via fax, a signed copy of Section I of the report form that certifies that the information submitted electronically is readily verifiable and that the information reported is accurate and complete. After completing the entire report on the Web, you will be able to print a copy of the completed form. Section I of the printed report form will include signature lines for the project director and the certifying official for the grantee institution/agency. Once the form has been signed, please fax in a signed copy of Section I only of the report form to 540-301-0444. Please do not fax in a copy of the entire report.

Help Desk: If you encounter technical problems accessing the Web site, downloading the UB Tools, or using the Web application, please contact the Help Desk by either telephone at (703) 846-8248 or e-mail at [email protected]. Please note that the Help Desk will try to contact projects within 24 hours of receiving the telephone call or e-mail. The Help Desk will be available to respond to your questions from November 1 to December 31, 2008. During peak times, from November 20-30, 2008, it may take longer for you to receive a response. Thus, I encourage you to prepare and submit your performance report as soon as you have collected complete data. If for any reason you need to revise your performance report data after it has been submitted, please do not fax in the corrections. You should contact the Help Desk for information on revising your report and re-submitting it electronically.

Thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to performance reporting each year and your commitment to providing complete and accurate data. Please retain the source documents in a readily accessible form so that they can be verified during an on-site visit. If you have questions regarding the performance report requirements, please contact your program specialist directly. To ascertain your program specialist's name, telephone number, and e-mail address, please visit http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/staffdirectory-cupt.html.

Sincerely,

Geraldine G. Smith
Team Leader
College and University Preparation Team
Federal TRIO Programs

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