UAccess Research Update

Sangita Pawar, Vice President of Operations for Research, Innovation & Impact (RII) addresses the Campus Research Community on upcoming changes to the UAccess Research system. 

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Proposal Submission During Changeover
Timeline
Training
Updates
Campus Experience Advisors

Proposal Submission During Changeover

No more proposals are accepted through the limited-time submission tool. Please route through UAccess Research.

Proposal Routing from January 14th (after 5pm) through January 26th for items due through Sunday, January 30th only!

  • The UAccess Research system will be unavailable to campus for proposal routing beginning at 5pm on Friday, January 14th and will not be available for use until 8am on Tuesday, January 25th. During this time, Sponsored Projects Services (SPS) will work to finalize and submit any proposals that have been fully routed and approved to the SPS route stop and cancel and close out any proposals that are not fully routed and approved so that they may be copied and re-routed in the new system. Data will be migrated and many background processes will occur which will enable us to move from our locally hosted system to the cloud-based system.
  • SPS recognizes that this represents a significant period of time and has created a limited-time proposal routing and approval tool for use during this transition. This tool should only be used for proposals due through Sunday, January 30th. For proposals due after January 30th should be routed in the updated UAccess Research system after go-live at 8am on January 25th. Once you have the proposal routing form open, be sure to read the message at the top which explains the rules for use of this form. 

To route a proposal between Friday, January 14th (after 5pm) and Wednesday, January 26th (before 5pm) ffor submission deadlines through Sunday, January 30th, please review the instructions below (which includes screenshots and additional details for information fields) and then click on the Route Proposal button. Please note that you must complete and submit the form in one session as the capability to save and return to the form at a later time does not exist. Please ensure you have all answers and attachments ready and available for input. 

Actual proposal submissions through individual Sponsor eRA systems will be handled as usual. Please notify Sponsored Projects Services by email when your submission package is ready and reference the Temporary Proposal ID that was assigned when you submitted the Proposal Routing form. 

Instruction Guide

Timeline

Proposal Routing Timeline - January 2022

  • January 14, Close of Business: All UAccess Research (UAR) proposals that have not been finalized will need to be routed to the SPS route stop.
  • January 20, 5:00 PM: UAR access ends and the Kuali Research update begins. 
  • January 21-24: SPS Preaward will be submitting electronic submissions that correspond to the fully routed and approved UAR proposals in sponsor systems (ASSIST, Grants.gov, Research.gov, etc). 
  • January 25, 8:00 AM: UAR goes live on the Kuali Research web platform.
Calendar view of project timeline; new system goes live on January 25, 2022

Calendar view of project timeline. No UAR access as of 5:00pm January 20, 2022. Kuali goes live January 25, 2022 at 8:00am.

In line with University Closure timelines, any UAR document that needs to be submitted to the sponsor between Jan 18 and Jan 28, will need to route the proposal in UAR and have the proposal reach the SPS route stop in UAR by close of business on Jan 14. 

While the systems will have a lot of similar information, the interface will be different. Any UAR proposal that has not been finalized in the current UAR system by the time it shuts down to start the Kuali update will need to be reviewed by the initiator to comply with the new interface. After that review, it may then be placed into routing. 

A system will be in place when UAR goes offline in the event there are emergent proposals that were not able to route in UAR. More information on this process will be made available when it is finalized.

Please watch for further communications as the date of the update approaches.

For questions or more information, email sponsor@arizona.edu

Updates

Recently completed

  • Discussions are ongoing with a campus experience group of research administration community members to provide input on process improvements and system configurations.
  • A fourth round of data testing to make sure data in our current UAR system will be available in the new version.
  • Pre-testing of the Analytics > Toolkit > Contract Information dashboard.
  • Dry run of the coming January 25 system update.

Coming up next

  • Campus webinars have begun and additional training resources are being developed.
  • Pre-testing of campus Analytics reports to ensure seamless reporting.
  • Ongoing improvement of process integration with UArizona eDisclosure and eIRB systems.
  • UAR will be unavailable from 5pm Thursday

Announcement Archive

Announcements

Implementing New Systems to Make Your Work Easier

Beginning this summer, the Office of Research, Innovation and Impact will sequentially roll out and upgrade new systems designed to make your work related to Conflict of Interest and Commitment matters, the Human Subjects Protection Program (HSPP), and research proposals much easier. Because these changes are relevant to all of campus, from students to staff to faculty, please check your email inboxes in the coming weeks and months for information about training sessions and transitioning to the new systems.

Conflict of Interest (COI) and Conflict of Commitment (COC)

The COI Program is implementing a new electronic system, called eDisclosure, which will be used by the University community to submit COI disclosure information and COC forms for approval. The emails you will begin receiving will provide information on what you can expect as we transition to the new system. Once the go-live date is finalized, there will be a two-week blackout period during which COI and COC information cannot be submitted. We will update you on specific dates soon. Please work to ensure your COI disclosure, research certifications and COC forms are updated by the end of May. Some of the benefits of eDisclosure include: 

  • A single point of disclosure for COI and COC matters using a progressive smart form that will open and hide pages based on the answers you provide.
  • Ability to view the progress of your disclosure as it makes its way through the COI and COC review processes.

For more information, contact the COI Program at coi@arizona.edu.

New electronic Institutional Review Board (IRB) system

Additionally, HSPP is implementing a new electronic IRB system called eIRB, which is a platform where researchers will submit and manage their human subject protocols. Details regarding the rollout of this new system, which will increase productivity and provide researchers with a greater level of transparency during IRB reviews, include:

  • Going live in August 2021.
  • There will be a planned blackout period where no IRB submissions will be accepted. This will be approximately two weeks before the go-live date. Please check your email inboxes for updates on timing. 
  • IRB Meetings will be held on the first and second Tuesdays of June, July, and August. Ad hoc meetings may be scheduled. 
  • For projects that expire July-August 2021, please get your renewal paperwork in ASAP. If the project expires during the planned blackout period, please submit renewal paperwork at least two weeks before the planned blackout period. Otherwise, reapproval is not guaranteed and the project will expire. The project will also be expired in the new eIRB system after the system goes live. 
  • For projects that expire after the system goes live, please use eIRB to submit Continuing Reviews. User guides will be published when the system is launched. 
  • Submissions to the VPR-IRB@arizona.edu inbox will not be accepted starting approximately one to two weeks before the planned blackout period. Urgent submissions will be handled on a case-by-case basis. IRB inquiries should still be submitted to VPR-IRB@arizona.edu. 

Those with questions about eIRB are asked to contact Christine Melton-Lopez, HSPP director, at melton1@email.arizona.edu.

Research system upgrade

This fall, following implementation of the COI and HSPP systems, the current UAccess Research (UAR) system will be updated to a newer version called Kuali Research. 

Here are some highlights: 

  • The updated system will go live about a month after eIRB is active.
  • Familiar content will have a more modern look and feel.
  • The system will deliver new features and fixes on a continuous basis.
  • Adjusted proposal routing will shorten approval times.
  • The research system will be unavailable from close of business on a Friday evening and will be live again the next Tuesday morning.
  • To prepare for routing changes, all proposals that start routing in UAR must be fully approved and submitted by Sponsored Projects and Contracting Services (SPCS) before UAR goes down. Any proposals still routing can be canceled, copied and rerouted by the proposal initiator when Kuali Research goes live. Additional details about proposal deadlines will follow.
  • Responses to proposal questions will flow from proposals through awards to facilitate more accurate campus and institutional reporting. 
  • The University VPN will no longer be required to access the research system.

For more information, contact Susan Mundt, SPCS assistant director of operations, at mundts@arizona.edu.
 

Campus Experience Advisors

Campus Experience Advisors are experienced hands-on users who collect and express preferences on behalf of research administration system users in their colleges. This group helps explore and test new functionality, provide the campus perspective to define campus training needs and assists with local peer-to-peer training.