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eRA Vendor Recommendation Made

The eRA Executive Sponsors’ long-awaited decision has been made. The committee accepted the Steering Team’s recommendation to move forward with InfoEd Global in early February.

This marked the beginning of NC State’s award negotiation process with the vendor. Following negotiations — barring any unforeseen circumstances — the first phase of the approximately three-year implementation process will begin.

Additionally, InfoEd has agreed to begin working with the university on the implementation plan while contract negotiations take place.

This means once the official signatures have been stroked, it should be possible to share a completed high-level timeline for system implementation, among other useful pieces of information.

Furthermore, it means now is a great time to look back on the final steps of the vendor selection process, why the steering team ultimately made its decision, and why all stakeholders should feel confident the right decision was made.

Proofs of Concept

After the original on-campus demos, the two “highest-scoring” vendors — InfoEd and Huron — were asked to return once more to perform a more in-depth demonstration, which is known as a Proof of Concept (POC).

“Based on what we saw in the on-campus demos, we understood pretty well how the products would work as delivered,” Steering Team Liaison Sherrie Settle said. “But we, on the leadership team, still had some questions… about how we’d use each product to do things more specific to NC State.”

Settle said the leadership team came into the POC stage believing either of the finalists’ products would meet all of the high-priority requirements.

But they weren’t sure how much flexibility each product had to accommodate unique needs, such as those specific to NC State, or unforeseeable future requirements, like ones the UNC System could eventually implement.

According to Settle, the POC demonstrations allowed her and everyone involved in the decision-making process to put these concerns to rest.

These demonstrations included folks with extensive expertise in the IT field to ensure our local systems and OIT would be able to support the new eRA as an enterprise system. But, to keep things balanced, they also included folks from the other end of the spectrum, like Settle, who could look at things from the campus user’s perspective.

Specifically, the vendors were asked to demonstrate the management of three things to ensure the new system would be able to either replicate or improve upon the processes currently in use:

  • A subrecipient risk-assessment workflow (created in RADAR and specific to NC State)
  • A member-based center/institute with numerous funding streams (a highly complicated relationship)
  • A data migration between NC State systems and external systems

The reason vendors were asked to demonstrate these processes was not so much to see how the software would perform in any one of these contexts, but, rather, to give key IT personnel a better understanding of how the tools worked.

While both finalists met the high-priority requirements, the POC demonstrations allowed stakeholders to experience the software firsthand and “see exactly how you would create a new workflow or create file relationships,” which Settle said was “very important to us.”

And, moreover, they allowed IT personnel to ensure “adaptations to the system would meet our needs,” by taking a closer look at how the software was built.

The Decision

Remember, the main reason the vendor selection process has been so extensive is due to the breadth and gravity of this decision.

It was paramount for the Steering Team to ensure the chosen candidate would provide a system that will satisfy our needs and meet the high standards set forth by our Mission and Vision for many years to come.

The eRA Project’s Vision is “to support and grow NC State’s research enterprise by fostering collaboration, creating efficiencies and increasing the efficacy of compliance activity through a System that is effective for all.”

The Project Teams strove to find a new system that would allow us to catch up to the workload increases we’ve seen as a result of NC State’s growing research portfolio, which is the second-largest in the UNC System.

The desired solution would do so by creating efficiencies — combining workflows, integrating systems for better communication and collaboration, and standardizing processes — while ensuring we live a culture of compliance.

As a result of the POC demos, The Steering Team felt confident that both finalist’s solutions would allow us to realize this Vision — and, also, that any adaptations we may need to make in the future (e.g. a new UNC System requirement of some kind) would be viable for either product.

This meant the final recommendation ultimately came down to the “formula-driven decision making” of the purchasing process. For more information about this formula and a detailed description of all the criteria used, read this executive summary of the eRA RFP.

So, while the Proofs of Concept by themselves didn’t technically determine the decision, they did give the Steering Team the final assurances it needed to base the decision on other factors.

The bottom line is the recommendation would not have been made if the Steering Team did not wholeheartedly believe InfoEd will be able to deliver all of the functional requirements NC State needs.

And, in short, the POC demos showed InfoEd’s eRA system will allow us to catch up, and keep up, with the fast-paced demands resulting from the ever-increasing volume of our university’s vital research.

Thank you

Thank you to all who provided help and support throughout the vendor selection process. This decision could not have been made without the valuable input of groups from all across campus.

Stay tuned for timely and relevant information about the implementation process. We remain committed to keeping you informed and “in the know” about everything eRA!

About InfoEd Global

InfoEd’s beginnings can be traced back over the course of two decades to when its founder, Edward Johnson Sr., “introduced the world to SPIN, the first search engine for locating research funding opportunities.”

Today, InfoEd “continues the tradition of cultivating research relationships, recruiting research experts, and using industry knowledge to drive the development of the world’s best eRA solutions,” with over 20 modules offered across nearly a dozen areas of research administration.

InfoEd is headquartered in the state capital of New York, but its product suite can be found “at leading research institutions” throughout five continents.

To learn more about InfoEd, visit the following company pages: