Communication is Coming!

Can you believe it has been almost two months since we kicked off the eRA project? Since then, the Steering and Communication Teams have been quite busy! This post will provide more information on what the Communication Team has been up to lately.

We first met on August 15th, and have continued to meet twice monthly. Two new faces were added to the team after our first meeting: one representing the College of Design and one the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

One of our top priorities in the past month has been creating a project communication plan with the following objectives in mind:

• Educate the campus community about the eRA project throughout the process
• Inform the campus community of important project milestones
• Create a dialogue among key stakeholders to gain acceptance of the project
• Provide opportunities for feedback from stakeholder groups
• Direct stakeholder feedback to the appropriate team(s)

The plan includes a detailed description of how we will use different modes and methods to disperse information and get feedback from YOU throughout the life of this project. These include: eRA email (era-oried@ncsu.edu), listservs, eRA website, blogs, presentations, open forums, and other existing channels (i.e. newsletters). We have included a communication schedule for when we will provide regular updates to campus. Specifically, our blog will be updated at least every two weeks and we will be using the subscribed email list to send information out to you at least twice a month.

Additionally, we have focused on traveling to different Colleges and Committee meetings with members of the Steering Team to share information and answer questions. You may have seen us at the Research Operations Council (ROC), Research Support Council (RSC), University Research Council (URC), and Centers and Institutes Directors meetings as well as at the Colleges of: Natural Resources, Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Education, and Engineering… So far! In coming weeks, look for us at other Colleges and meetings including: Humanities and Social Sciences, Textiles, Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Fall Joint Research Committee meeting.

Oh! And… did you know we also now have a Requirements Team? We’ll share more about that group and what they are doing in our next blog post. We look forward to your questions and comments!

Don’t forget to tell your colleagues to sign up for our listserv for other updates!