FINAL REPORT
FACULTY SENATE
RESEARCH COMMITTEE
FY-05
Dan Spencer, Business (2005) Chair
Denise Stone, Design, (2005)
Ray Pierotti, Biology, (2005)
Frank Brown, EECS, (2005)
Asma Zaidi, Pharmacy - (2006)
Richard Hale, Aerospace Engineering - (2006 )
Nancy Brady, Life Span Institute (2006)
Yaozhong Hu, Mathematics
(2006)
Brian Laird, Chemistry (2007)
Susan Kemper, Psychology (2007)
Doug Huffman, Teaching and Leadership (2007)
Bob Gregory, HSES (2007)
Ex-officio: George Wilson, Associate Vice Provost for
Research
Graduate Student Representative: Stacy
Betz, Child Language Program
Committee
member notes: Yaozhong Hu was on sabbatical this year and was
replaced by Susan Lunte. Amanda
Harrington, Graduate Student Representative, resigned her membership and
was replaced by Stacy Betz.
1.
Monitor the administration of the General
Research Fund and make recommendations, as needed, to insure its effectiveness
and appropriate utilization. Specifically, the committee should:
A list of reward recipients is
attached.
A subcommittee comprised of Nancy Brady,
Bob Gregory, Doug Huffman, Brian Laird, and Asma Zaidi, were responsible for
addressing these charges. Their report
as amended and approved by the committee of the whole is attached. A key concern of the committee revolved
around the use of GRF funds by Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences for graduate
student recruiting. Also, these
department’s evaluation procedures raised concerns regarding the funding
results reported. The chair has followed up with the departments via Kim Wilcox
and is expecting that new evaluation procedures will be generated by June 30,
2005. One issue that the committee
failed to address was examining the composition of committees that evaluate GRF
proposals. The chair will follow up on
this oversight by ensuring that, in the GRF online database under development, evaluation policy information submitted by
entities includes committee composition procedures. These composition concerns
can then be addressed by the FY 06 FSRC.
2.
Advise and assist the Vice Provost for
Research in formulating and articulating policy related to research at the
A subcommittee comprised of Susan Kemper,
Ray Pierotti, and Susan Lunte, were responsible for addressing Charge 2b. Their report as amended and approved by the
committee of the whole is attached. The
subcommittee responsible for Charge 2a is addressed below (see Additional
Charge #2).
3.
Submit to FacEx:
Minutes of the meetings (October 1, 2004;
November 12, 2004, February 11, 2005; March 11, 2005) and recommendations to FacEx for action are attached.
Listed In priority order
1.
Complete a review of the University’s new
Conflict of Interest/Technology Transfer policy. Specifically, the committee
should:
The Conflict of Interest/Technology Transfer Policy
was sent out for comment on September 14, 2004.
Commentary was collected through September 27, 2004. The committee of the whole met on October 1,
2004 to generate recommendations for modification in the policy. The recommendations were sent to the Chair of
FacEx on October 4, 2004. The recommendations are attached.
2. In
consultation with KUCR, review and revise the University's policy on Classified
Research. (This policy appears in the Faculty Handbook.) Present the revised
policy to SenEx by December 2004 for review and
submission to the Faculty Council by April 2005.
A subcommittee comprised of Frank Brown, Rick Hale, and Ray
Pierotti, were responsible for addressing this charge. The revised policy was amended and approved
by the committee of the whole on March 11, 2005. These recommendations were sent to the Chair
of FacEx on March 11, 2005. The policy revision recommendations are
attached.
3. Consult
with KUCR on the creation of an online database for reporting (and compiling)
the outcomes of GRF awards.
Since October 22, 2004, a subcommittee comprised of Dan Spencer,
Frank Brown, Ray Pierotti, and Denise Stone, have been working with the staff
of KUCR to develop an online GRF database.
KUCR staff members involved are Derek VanSchmus, Angie Loving, and Elise
Waldron. As of mid April, the online
system has been roughed-in and should be ready for test during summer
2005. A test of the system will
conducted by inputting all unit reports from the FY03 three year evaluation. This
system should be up and running for use during the FY06 three year evaluation.
The subcommittee will continue to work with KUCR throughout summer 2005 to test
and implement this system.
Process: GRF award data will be
input into the system by KUCR staff when entities report their awards to KUCR
for budget purposes. Project completion
dates entered into the system will trigger an e-mail to investigators to enter
information on the outcomes of the research.
The investigator will enter the system through Kyou
Portal so a separate ID is not necessary.
The investigator enters their project number and information describing
the outcomes of the project. If entry is
not completed in a specified number of days the system sends a reminder e-mail. The entity’s representative is
electronically sent aggregated report data with information as to which
investigators have not completed their reports.
Individual investigator reports are electronically compiled into the
Form-B Report and then electronically aggregated into the Form-A Report. When
reports are complete a mechanism exists for approving and submitting the report
with supporting documentation such as entity goals and evaluation
procedures. The FSRC and KUCR will have
electronic access to all approved entity reports by school, investigator,
subject type, and year.
Implications: Enhanced efficiency of the
data compilation process for entities.
During previous evaluation periods, due to the large amount of data to
be compiled, a number of entities submitted late reports and occasionally an
entity would submit no report. These
problems should be eliminated by the new reporting system which will put less
of a burden on the unit’s administrative staff.
As for the FSRC entity tri-annual review, the efficiency and the
effectiveness of this process should be enhanced for the following
reasons: capability to “drill down” from
Form-A aggregate data through links to Form-B individual investigator data
enabling a more efficient audit process; availability of more complete data in
Form-A enabling a more thorough audit; and the capability to do a within-entity
comparison of outcomes across evaluation periods enabling the evaluation of
trends across time.