One-Year Extension Request for the EHR Generic Clearance

Request for a one-year extension of EHR Generic Clearance Renewal Request

On May 16, 2011, EHR received several questions on the EHR Generic Clearance Renewal Request that was submitted in February 2011.

EHR would like to request a year-long extension of the EHR Generic Clearance Renewal Request. During that year we plan to:

1. Establish an EHR-wide committee to examine all the monitoring activities across the Directorate. Currently we have a variety of approaches to monitoring in place. Some are covered by the generic clearance request. In addition there other contractual activities outside the generic request that gather monitoring information (e.g., the MSP and ISE programs, cooperative agreement mechanisms that gather various kinds of information from projects (e.g., the resource networks in the Division of Research on Learning), and program-base reporting and data mining.

The charge for the committee would be to:

1. Identify all of the monitoring activities currently underway in EHR;

2. Determine how monitoring information is used;

3. Determine whether any common questions are being asked so that data could be aggregated across programs;

4. Determine whether with slight changes in the questions, data could be gathered to aggregate across programs; and

5. Determine how to best link monitoring to program and thematic evaluations, and to longitudinal trend studies.

2. Timeline:

   1. Establish a committee to do a year-long study (immediately);

   2. Work with committee on refining charge of responsibility (July 2011);

   3. Hold regular meetings to gather appropriate information and initiate recommendations (August-October 2011);

   4. Engage with Division Directors and Program Officers about new directions;

   5. Finalize recommendations for EHR (November 2011-January 2012;

   6. Determine implementation plan and timeline;

   7. Resubmit generic clearance in light of recommendations (March 2012).