Phase 1 of our new software transition is complete; SRS and SPA offices are now using Novelution as our grants management system of record, including processing of award actions. Accordingly, the RAPID research summary reporting tool in use on campus is now reflecting proposal and award data directly from the Novelution system. In addition, in the coming weeks, you will start to receive certain email notifications regarding your awarded projects directly from the Novelution system and its associated email address sponsoredresearch@rit.edu.
Proposal Development, Routing/Approval, and Training Coming Soon
In the coming months, Phase 2 initiatives will commence, focusing on introducing the preaward, proposal development, and automated routing/approval functionality of the Novelution application. Training will be provided in the coming weeks to early adopters within the Golisano Institute of Sustainability and the Center for Imaging Science to use these features.
Training for research community members in all colleges is planned to occur in May and June via in-person, online, and web-hosted materials. Further details on the timing and delivery methods for training offerings will be forthcoming later in the spring for researchers and their college administrators.
We are targeting the start of the fiscal year in July for proposal development and routing through the Novelution system for all colleges. Novelution is designed to fully replace the current Proposal Routing Form (PRF) and approval process for all sponsored projects.
Researchers need to take two actions now to prepare for this transition:
- Similar to the existing system of proposal development, limited SRS access to the salary information of faculty and staff involved in sponsored research is essential for developing budgets to meet federal and state requirements for sponsored research projects. Individuals with budgeted effort on a sponsored research project will be required to provide authorization to access this information through Oracle self-service by selecting “Release Salary Information for Sponsored Research” feature. In order to continue to participate in sponsored research proposals, researchers must log in to Oracle self-service and provide this access. A help guide is also available to assist researchers in providing this authorization in Oracle.
- Novelution automatically integrates with the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) to verify the completion of required researcher training. However, this integration will only work if the exact RIT email address is used to register in CITI. Researchers must log in to the CITI program, go to your registration profile, and update the email address to match your exact RIT email address (no alias is allowed). All required and completed Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), Human Subjects, and PHS/NIH trainings will then be automatically linked and updated to your profile in Novelution. As more federal sponsors (including the NSF) move to requiring RCR and other trainings for all project personnel, researchers should ensure the relevant CITI training has been completed and their CITI profile reflects their exact RIT email address. Doing so will prevent potential delays in processing and setup of awards.
Our office looks forward to working with you in the coming months as we roll out Novelution to the RIT Research Community. In the event of any questions or issues related to the Novelution system, please direct them to sponsoredresearch@rit.edu.