[Flex] 8/29/01 Meeting

[Mary Ann Lucas]

Here's what we talked about (as far as I recall).  Please
add/change/delete anything you feel should be different!   We missed you
Chris, Deb S., BL, Faith, Jane and all others who were unable to
attend.  Welcome to Susan Tomeo from Biology and Deb Taylor from PO who
will be MaryAnn Lucas' backup.

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Discussions about Fastlane:

Discussion about a "new?" Fastlane website compliance routine.  A file
submitted to Fastlane that does not meet their requirements is
automatically rejected through the website.  Just think, no more waiting
around for weeks to find out if you're rejected.  Ah- hmmmmmmmm

Some discussion about how LaTeX works.  It is an ascii file containing
programming language (much like HTML) that is run through a LaTeX
language processor (PCTex in our case) which creates a .dvi file (this
is a printer language file) which we can then turn into a .ps file and
.pdf for Fastlane submission.
The absolute best figure files to use with LaTeX are Postscript or
Encapsulated Postscript files.  There was some discussion about a figure
that was created in LaTeX... this is not exactly correct.  The figure
was most like a Postscript figure included in a LaTeX file.  *** Please
correct me here if I misspoke any of this.****

Questions about Microsoft Equation Editor:  It was noted that equations
made through this editor come out as gobbledy-gook(spelling?)  when run
through the pdf process.  Suggestion was made to make the equation in
the equation editor as a separate file then insert it into your proposal
as if it's a figure.  This seems to work just fine.

Another comment... Fastlane has some trouble with Excel.  So watch out
for problems when trying to submit budgets with your budget
justification.  <MALnote:  One way to get around this might be to import
the Excel file into your Word Document as a table.>  It was noted that
the best font seems to be Arial and 11pt works very well.

Some discussion about making up a new PD-rate paragraph for Fastlane...
encapsulating the statement in order to give us more room in the 3-page
limit.

For collaborative proposals Kandace Binkley (NSF Fastlane) has said
*Don't need final proposal numbers*   we only need to share the
Temporary Proposal Number when we initiate the proposal on Fastlane...
this and the password enables everyone to "link-up" and after all
proposals are linked everyone can submit their proposals at will.
Question brought up here:  If lead Institution submits on time and
linked collaboratives are later (a week?) how does this effect
submission?  How about vice-versa?

Fastlane Training will be arranged.  We have many new Staff Assistant
positions and many people ready to make the leap into Fastlane
submissions.


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Discussion about Budget Creation process and sharing this process:

Many thanks to Karen Littlefield who has given us a great travel hint
(she gets hint-of-the-month-award!).  She has been using the American
Express website for obtaining travel $$$ information and will send us
all the link.. hint hint

There will be a WHOI web travel page containing many cities frequented
by WHOI that will be very useful especially when doing ONR OMNI
proposals  This type of proposal is bound as one submission and the
travel amongst the budgets should be as standard as possible.  It would
be quite noticable if one budget contains a trip to San Francisco for
$1000 and then next budget is $2000.

The question of sharing our budget procedures with each other was well
thought of.  Each department will volunteer a representative to give a
demo of how their department collects the data, prepares the budget and
submits it to the agency.  We will try to do this in the GTF in
October... date to be announced shortly.  A questionnaire will also be
sent around to these people to give them something to start with in
preparing the demo.  Real informal here, y'all... this is only for
sharing and picking up some new clues and hints to help us all.

The tentative list for each department would be

Donna Mortimer and Sheila Clifford -- Chemistry
Jane Marsh -- Biology
Karen Littlefield -- AOP&E
Susan Tomeo -- Biology
Diane Pinkola -- G&G
PO is still up in the air!
Claire and Helen
Attendees will be discussed, but we think it should be the FLEX
committee only.


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Administrative Assistants Get-Together

Some discussion about putting together a luncheon? for Administrative
Assistants and trying to get this show on the road....   anyone want to
add to this? I forget!
(heh heh... see, advanced years has brought out my inability to focus
after more than 1 hour)

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Respectfully submitted... just go ahead and hack away at this ladies!
:-)

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MaryAnn Lucas
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
mailto:mlucas@whoi.edu +*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*