CREST Monitoring System Sample Correspondence to Respondents

APPENDIX C

CREST Monitoring System

Sample Correspondence to Respondents

E-mail Reminder of Upcoming Data Collection

(Sent in December, approximately 2 months before opening)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

My name is Wendi Poole and I am the project director of the CREST and HBCU-RISE data collection system (CRESTWeb).  CRESTWeb provides a mechanism through which CREST and HBCU-RISE participants are able to report new data and update existing data on participants and on program accomplishments, such as publications, presentations, patents, collaborative projects, and other activities.

As it did last year, CRESTWeb will open on or near February [day, year] and will close on April [day, year]. This schedule will help NSF staff obtain data for their reporting and management needs, and we hope it will cause minimal conflicts with your academic schedules. If you have any issues submitting data during this period or would like to discuss an extension, please contact us and we will work with you to find a solution.

We will be contacting all awards soon to confirm contact information and verify which users should have accounts in CRESTWeb this year. Again, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with any questions or concerns you have about CRESTWeb. Our goal is to make data submission as easy for you as we can, and we look forward to working with you on this important effort.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

User Account Verification E-mail

(Sent in mid January, approximately 1 month before opening)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

Good afternoon. You should have received an email in December notifying you that the CRESTWeb Data Collection System would be opening on or about February [day, year]. This data collection will focus on Participant and Accomplishment data associated with the July [day, year] to June [day, year] time period--if your award does not have data to report from this period, please contact us.

Below is a list of individuals who currently have accounts related to your award. We’d like to ask you to please confirm that all of these people should have accounts for the upcoming collection. Any individual listed below will receive individual account information by e-mail when the system opens. If an additional account is needed, please let us know.

[Names and e-mail addresses of account holders]

 

We look forward to working with you on this important effort.

Please feel free to contact me [email protected] if you have any questions or concerns.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Opening E-mail to CREST PIs

(Sent in mid-February on opening day)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

We are happy to report that the program monitoring system for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) 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.

To access the site, please go to http://www.crestweb.org. Then login using the following name and password:

User Name:

Password:

Please login to the survey before March [day, year], in order to provide sufficient time for technical support representatives to address any questions you may have about the system. The deadline to submit data is April [day, year].

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 can complete the other data entry screens. To save your data, 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.

Again, if you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact technical support by telephone at (866) 227-7127 or via e-mail at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Opening E-mail to HBCU-RISE PIs

(Sent in mid-February on opening day)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

We are happy to report that the program monitoring system for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) - Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (RISE) 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 HBCU-RISE program to National Science Foundation (NSF) management and other interested parties.

To access the site, please go to http://www.crestweb.org. Then login using the following name and password:

User Name:

Password:

Please login to the survey before March [day, year], in order to provide sufficient time for technical support representatives to address any questions you may have about the system. The deadline to submit data is April [day, year].

The following data have been preloaded for you: participant data for principal investigator(s) and award 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 can complete the other data entry screens. To save your data, 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.

Again, if you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact technical support by telephone at (866) 227-7127 or via e-mail at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Opening E-mail to CREST PIs with Multiple Awards

(Sent in mid-February on opening day)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

We are happy to report that the program monitoring system for the Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) 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.

To access the site, please go to http://www.crestweb.org.

You currently have accounts for multiple awards in the system—the login information for each of those award accounts is below:

For [Center Name]:

User Name:

Password:

 

For [Center Name]:

User Name:

Password:

Please login to the survey before March [day, year] in order to provide sufficient time for technical support representatives to address any questions you may have about the system. The deadline to submit data is April [day, year].

 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 can complete the other data entry screens. To save your data, enter all of the required data for that screen and click on Save; leaving the screen without doing this may result in the data not being saved.

Again, if you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact technical support by telephone at (866) 227-7127 or via e-mail at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Opening E-mail to HBCU-RISE PIs with Multiple Awards

(Sent in mid-February on opening day)

Dear Dr. [Last name],

We are happy to report that the program monitoring system for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) - Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering (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 HBCU-RISE program to National Science Foundation (NSF) management and other interested parties.

To access the site, please go to http://www.crestweb.org.

You currently have accounts for multiple awards in the system—the login information for each of those award accounts is below:

For [Center Name/Award]:

User Name:

Password:

 

For [Center Name/Award]:

User Name:

Password:

Please login to the survey before March [day, year] in order to provide sufficient time for technical support representatives to address any questions you may have about the system. The deadline to submit data is April [day, year].

 The following data have been preloaded for you: participant data for principal investigator(s) and award 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 can complete the other data entry screens. To save your data, enter all of the required data for that screen and click on Save; leaving the screen without doing this may result in the data not being saved.

Again, if you have any questions or experience any problems, please contact technical support by telephone at (866) 227-7127 or via e-mail at [email protected]. We look forward to working with you.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Director

 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Followup E-mail for Unsubmitted Awards

(Sent at the beginning of April)

Dear CREST and HBCU-RISE Colleagues,

This is a reminder that the deadline for submitting data to the CRESTWeb online data collection system for the National Science Foundation is April [day, year]. If you need any assistance or think you may not be able to final submit by April [day], please call or e-mail us and we will be happy to work with you.

We thank you for your input and we want to emphasize the significance and importance of your participation in submitting the information via CRESTWeb. If you have any questions please contact CRESTWeb Technical Support by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (866) 227-7127.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

 

Sincerely,
Wendi Poole
CRESTWeb Project Manager 

Wendi Poole | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

E-mail Notifying New CREST/HBCU-RISE PIs of [Year] Data Collection

(Sent in March, the year before data submission is required)

Subject: Introduction to NSF CREST/HBCU-RISE Data Collection System

Dear Dr. [Last name],

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself: my name is Ann Norfolk and I am the manager of the CREST/HBCU-RISE data collection system (CRESTWeb), as contracted by NSF. In case you are not already familiar with CRESTWeb, this system provides a mechanism through which CREST and HBCU-RISE participants are able to report new data and update existing data on participants and on program accomplishment, such as publications, presentations, patents, collaborative projects, and other activities. NSF CREST program staff uses the data collected to supplement the data that are submitted via FastLane.  (CRESTWeb is a separate data collection from FastLane. If you have any questions regarding FastLane, please direct them to FastLane User Support at 1-800-673-6188.)

Since your award was made recently, you will not be expected to submit data until early [following year]. However, we wanted to contact you to let you know about this requirement and to verify some basic contact information. Please confirm or provide the information below by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. You will be e-mailed individual account information when the data collection period for your award is approaching; if an additional account is needed for an associate, such as a program coordinator, please email that information and they’ll be added to our database.

In addition, if you would like further information on the specific data elements that are collected in the data collection system, please let us know. We look forward to working with you on this important effort. Please feel free to call or e-mail me if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,

Ann Norfolk
CRESTWeb Project Manager

Ann Norfolk | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Award Number: 

Institution:

Title:

URL:

Address:

Phone Number:

Award State Date:

Award End Date:

Thrust Areas:

PI Names and E-mails: 

E-mail Notifying Returning PIs of New CREST/HBCU-RISE Awards

of [Year] Data Collection

(Sent in March, the year before data submission is required to

PIs of new awards, who have been PIs on previous awards)

Subject: Introduction to NSF CREST/HBCU-RISE Data Collection System

Dear Dr. [last name],

I believe that you are already familiar with the CREST/HBCU-RISE data collection system (CRESTWeb), and with ICF Macro, from previous awards. We are contacting you now because you recently received a new award from NSF. We understand that this award will submit data to CRESTWeb in early [next year], and we wanted to verify some basic information.

Please confirm or provide the information below by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. You will be e-mailed individual account information when the data collection period for this new award is approaching. If an additional account is needed for an associate, such as a program coordinator, please e-mail that information and they’ll be added to our database.

If you would like to speak with us about the data collection or if you have any questions, please let us know. We look forward to working with you in the future.  Please feel free to call or e-mail me if there is anything else we can do.

Sincerely,
Ann Norfolk
CRESTWeb Project Manager

Ann Norfolk | (866) 227-7127 | [email protected]
ICF MACRO| 7315 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 400 W. Bethesda, MD 20814

Award Number: 

Institution:

Title:

URL:

Address:

Phone Number:

Award State Date:

Award End Date:

Thrust Areas:

PI Names and E-mails: