Summary of comments and responses

	COMMENTS ON SEA GRANT FORMS	(Most comments deal with the 90-2 form, which has changed recently. The 90-1 and 90-4 forms have not changed.)
	WHO	FORM OF COMMENT	DATE	GIST OF COMMENT	RESPONSE
1	Syma Ebben, CT Sea Grant	email	10/6/2014	Would like more complete directions, and form should open on the directions page	We are working to implement this.
2	Katharine de Zengotita, MIT SG	email	10/2/2014	Many Sea Grant programs use the same "e-SeaGrant" project tracking program. The 90-2 form should be compatible with this program.	It is currently compatible, and we are working to keep it compatible with new versions of "e-SeaGrant"
3	Peter Rowe, NJ SG	email	10/4/2014	I like the validation tab, the list of partners to choose from. Pick just one place for the data sharing plan, other specific comments.	The optional placement of the data sharing plan in the Methodology field has been removed.
4	Alan Desbonnet, RI SG	email	10/1/2014	I likeit better than the previous version. We've had some confusion from people used to the previous version. Do not see signficant time savings relative to old version.
5	Elyse Larsen, MI SG	BASECAMP forum	9/25/2014	Filling out is time consuming, but less so than the previous version. Would like better real-time updating of list of partners.
6	Theresa Lee, MD SG	BASECAMP forum	10/1/2014	Would like better real-time updating of list of partners.	A real-time list of partners is difficult since the form is static. We will look into including a link in the future to the feadibility of having the form link to a dynamically updated website with partner names.
7	Susan Park, VA SG	email	9/26/2014	Improvement over previous version. Partner list needs to be cleaned up. Would prefer a single "Abstract" field to three fields (Ob jectives, Methodology, Rationale).	We discussed the possibility of replacing the objectives, methodology, and rationale fields with a single abstract field with many users. Some wanted the change, but about the same number wanted it to stay unchanged. We decided to leave the three fields, but give users to supply a single "abstract" entry in the methodology field if they wished.
8	Mary Beth Barrow, NC SG	email	9/25/2014	New form saves a lot of time. I like both the long form [which includes many single 90-2 forms in a single spreadsheet] and the short form. Some Fiscal Officers have said they find the search function not easy to use, but I found the opposite.
9	Sarah Kolesar, OR SG	BASECAMP forum	8/14/2014	New form is an improvement. The "table of contents" tab is easy to miss and could be better marked. The classifications codes are kind of a pain, but perhaps unavoidable. Suggest a character maximum for the narrative fields (objective, methodology, etc). It would be good to have yearly totals right on each 90-2 form, rather than asking for only the overall totals and putting yearly amounts on the table of contents page.	The suggestion for character maximums in the fields seems to be based on a mistaken impression that the field won't expand in the Excel spreadsheet to keep all text visible. Several people have said they would prefer the 90-2 form to include yearly totals (right now we collect this information elsewhere in the table of contents). We are looking for a way to allow this information to be optionally added to the 90-2 form in a future version.
10	Mona Behl, TX SG	BASECAMP forum	8/15/2014	Liked the ease of porting data from e-SeaGrant project tracking system into the form, but some manual corrections are still required. Suggested a different order of the tabs in the spreadsheet.
11	Syma Ebben, CT Sea Grant	email	8/15/2014	It would be good to have succinct instructions tailored to investigators who complete this form for their research proposals, based on the full instructions given to us Sea Grant staff.	Each Sea Grant Program interacts with, and collects data from, its investigators in its own way. We are working with individual programs to help prepare instructions for investigators, but these would need to be developed individually for each Program.
12	Gene Kim, National SG Office	email	8/13/2014	There are only places for four Principle Investigators on the 90-2 form. Some projects have more than four PI's.	The limit of four investigators is a holdover from previous versions of the 90-2 form. We provide a workaround involving a standardized way of identifying more investigators in the methodology field.
13	Lane Smith, NY SG	email to address given in FRN	8/4/2014	We like the spreadsheet format and the ability to fill out multiple 90-2 forms in a single spreadsheet for multiple projects. The spreadsheet is complex and there is a learning curve, but filling it is straightforward once you know how. I would like to see an online project summary database website where data could be entered.	There is an online project summary database website where all of this data can be entered.
14	Rose Madsen, CA SG	email to address given in FRN	7/31/2014	The form is an improvement over the previous version. It is very easy and quick to complete.
15	Nancy Balcom, CT SG	email to address given in FRN	7/30/2014	Some of the items on the 90-2 form could be easily deleted, as they are not tracked by the national office and are usually left blank or cause confusion. Suggest eliminating: ICODE, Revision Date, Affiliation Code.The estimated time to fill out (30 minutes) seems pretty accurate. The new spreadsheet format is easier to fill out than the previous version. The amount of time to fill out the 90-4 form is about 15-20 minutes. It would be helpful if this form were also set up as an Excel spreadsheet.	A few Programs use some of these fields on the 90-2 form for their own purposes, so they were left on to avoid forcing the Programs to change their processes or abandon the use of the form. The 90-2 form says that these items are not tracked, and un-highlights them.
16	Fredrika Moser, MD SG	email	7/22/2014	Overall, the form is fine. It should be clear that if an abstract is requested [in a call for proposals], it should go in the Objectives field (not spread out among the objectives, methodology, and rationale fields).	We have added brief instructions about this to the form.
17	Marcus Duke, WA SG	email	7/21/2014	When porting data from e-SeaGrant into the 90-2 form, if we want to modify the data, we can't, and have to start over with a new blank 90-2 form.	The management of eSeaGrant software has just been changed. We will work with the new managers to see how to address this, when they are ready
18	Dan Marklein	email	4/24/2014	1. Is there a page or character limit to the information in the project summary? 2. The RFP says to provide an "Abstract", but the 90-2 form only has places for "objective, methodology, rationale".3. I can't find a place to report the start and end date on the 90-2 form.	In this version of the 90-2 form, the field called "Initiation Date" has been renamed "Start Date", and the field called "Completion Date" has been renamed "End Date".
19	Nancy Balcom, CT SG	PIER* suggestions	6/5/2014	90-2 spreadsheet is a good idea. A problem is it has no way to designate a regional or multi-program project.	There is currently an untracked field on the form where a Program could record if a project was regional. If there is more call for this, we could start tracking this field.
20	Jennifer Merril, DE SG	PIER* suggestions (*PIER is the Sea Grant Program's project database, where information from the 90-2 forms is kept. It includes a "Suggestions" feature where users can post any comments they wish.)	10/3/2014	As we are working towards the 16-18 mid-Atlantic regional RFP it seems PIER could be improved by: 1) including a program code for regional projects so individual state projects contributing to a larger effort would immediately recognized (e.g., RX/HCE-12) because right now individual state funding assigns different project numbers; 2) a check box somewhere in the project info could be used to indicate it is part of a regional collaboration and maybe include a list of partnering SG programs to select from; 3) it would be helpful if a synthesis of the project could be submitted by one state, in addition to the individual state projects reported (this would be in addition to the designation in (1) above.	See response to comment 19.