Month: January 2021

Faculty Spotlight: January Part II

On January 27, 2021

journal pre submission checklist — Julide Etem

Julide Etem, affiliated faculty in the department of Visual and Media Arts has a new article “A Transnational Communication Network Promoting Film Diplomacy: The case of Turkey and the USA, 1950–86” in the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television published by Taylor & Francis Research Insights.

David Kishik, Associate Professor of philosophy in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies has an article “Homo Schizoid: Destituent Power & Nonrelational Life” in Ethics & Politics, an open access philosophical journal published by the philosophy department at the Italian Università di Trieste in Northern Italy.

Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann, Assistant Professor in the department of Writing, Literature and Publishing has a new essay “Sounding the Americas: The Politics and Aesthetics of Racialised Acoustics” in the Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies published by Taylor & Francis Research Insights.

Key Changes to the OMB’s Uniform Guidance For Federal Awards

By Eric Asetta

On January 23, 2021

In Federal Funding, Federal Regulations, Policies

Uniform Guidance Basics

First implemented in 2014, the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards” (2 CFR Chapters I, II, Part 200, et al), provides guidance to federal grantmaking agencies and applies to all federal awards received by Emerson College for research, scholarship, and other projects. The Uniform Guidance (UG) consolidated and replaced eight OMB Circulars such as the A-110 (Administrative requirements), A-21 (Cost principles), and A-133 (Audit requirements). Federal agencies (NIH, NSF, NEA, etc) have each developed their own agency-specific implementation plans for the Uniform Guidance.

What’s Changed

On November 12, 2020, OMB implemented its Final Guidance on amendments to the OMB Guidance for Grants and Agreements. Overall, these changes give agencies more flexibility in designing and monitoring programs, as well as encouraging the use of data collection and analysis to identify best practices.

Key Changes for Emerson and Principal Investigators (PI’s) on Federal Awards

“Must” Vs. “Should.” Section §200.101(b)(1) clarifies that when the word “must” is used it indicates a requirement. Whereas, use of the word “should” or “may” indicates a best practice or recommended approach, and permits some discretion.
SAM.Gov Registration. SAM.gov registration numbers will be replaced with the new Unique Entity Identifier (UEI), and current SAM registrants will receive a UEI automatically. The UEI transition timeline was recently be extended to April 2022. DUNS numbers will be phased out for new registrations. SAM will retain DUNS numbers for historical purposes.
Subaward Reporting. The reporting threshold for subawards, under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA), has increased from $25,000 to $30,000.
Prohibition on Certain Telecommunications Equipment and Services. Federal funds may not be used to make purchases from Huawei Technologies Company or ZTE Corporation and their subsidiaries
Methods of Procurement. The micro-purchase threshold was raised from $3,500 to $10,000; the simplified acquisition threshold was raised from $150,000 to $250,000.
Domestic Preferences for Procurements. Grantees are encouraged to maximize the use of goods, products, and materials produced in the United States when procuring goods and services under Federal awards.
Monitoring and reporting program performance. Grant reporting requirements may become more stringent; granting agencies are required to more actively monitor progress on certain discretionary research awards.
Termination. Granting agencies are given more latitude in terminating an award when it is not meeting “program goals” or “agency priorities.”
Extended Closeout Dates. Final performance reports are now due 120 calendar days after the performance end date.
Publication and Printing Costs. The New guidance clarifies that any printing and publishing costs may only be charged to a federal grant if the award is in its final budget period.

For an annotated breakdown of all the changes, check out the Council on Governmental Relations’ (COGR) Implementation and Readiness Guide for the OMB Uniform Guidance.

Faculty Spotlight: January Part I

By Diana Potter

On January 20, 2021

In Faculty News, Faculty Spotlight

Kim McLarin, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the department of Writing, Literature and Publishing has a new book James Baldwin’s Another Country: Bookmarked published by Ig Publishing that will be released on February 9, 2021.

Spencer Kimball, Assistant Professor of Political and Sports Communication and Director of Emerson Polling was interviewed by NBC10 Boston about a new PBS New Hour-Marist poll and what it reveals about partisanship since the January 6 attack on the capitol.

Maria San Filippo, Associate Professor in the department of Visual and Media Arts has a new book “Provocauteurs and Provocations: Screening Sex in 21st Century Media” coming out in February from Indiana University Press.

Tips for Preparing Journal Articles for Submission

By Diana Potter

On January 13, 2021

In Scholarship and Research, Tips and Tutorials

Recently we have received some inquiries from faculty about publishing their articles in academic journals. A number of funders make awards with the goal of a research article resulting from their funding. Often a research article is a scholarly summary of what has been done during the grant period, with arguments to support the validity of the conclusions reached. In a future post, we will discuss the differences between writing a research article and writing a grant proposal; for now, we’d like to share some tips on preparing journal articles for submission.

Faculty who are writing and preparing journal articles for submission, and going through the submission process may find useful this pre-submission checklist from the Taylor & Francis Group, which publishes books and journals across a wide range of subjects and disciplines including Social Science and Humanities books under the Routledge, Psychology Press and Focal Press imprints.

Here are a couple of other helpful tips from the late Howard B. Altman, professor emeritus at the University of Louisville, founder of the Center for Faculty and Staff Development, and Kentucky’s statewide faculty development consortium, as reprinted with permission by Union University’s Center for Faculty Development:

Have at least one colleague (whom you trust) read your manuscript critically and give you feedback. Two colleagues are even better. Consider this feedback as you revise the manuscript.
If you are not certain that your article is really appropriate for a given journal, contact the editor and ask. Don’t just send it in and wait to get feedback.
If you need to publish (lest you perish), aim for journals whose rejection rate is not so high. (You can get this information from editors.)
It is often easier (and frequently more prestigious) to publish in foreign journals. (And some foreign journals actually pay for contributions!)
Consider finding a co-author. . .ideally one who brings to the writing task skills and knowledge which complement your own. Two heads are often better than one.
If your submission gets rejected, don’t give up! Ask the editor for reader feedback (if this hasn’t been sent to you already). Consider a revision which takes into account the objections/ recommendations of these readers. If you do this revision, resubmit the paper to the same journal. (It will probably be sent out again to the same readers for a second evaluation.)

COVID-19: Vaccines 101 (Complimentary Training Module from Northeastern University)

By Eric Asetta

On January 4, 2021

In Tips and Tutorials, Uncategorized

Faculty, researchers and staff at Northeastern University have created an online course entitled COVID-19: Vaccines 101. Free to the public, this educational resource was developed “to enable individuals to make informed decisions about getting vaccinated as a way to protect themselves and others from” the novel coronavirus. “This pandemic has highlighted how challenging it is to find easily understood science-based information from trustworthy sources,” the developers state on the course landing page. “We hope this resource answers all the questions you might have as well as dispels some of the myths and unfounded concerns some people have about the COVID-19 vaccines.”

Other free COVID-19 modules, including courses on staying safe and enterprise reopening and recovery, can be found on the home page for Northeastern’s Global Resilience Institute.