Faculty Spotlight: February

On March 3, 2021

journal pre submission checklist — Eric Gordon

Eric Gordon, School of the Arts Professor and Director of the Engagement Lab and Vassiliki Rapti, affiliated faculty in the department of Visual and Media Arts edited a new book “Ludics: Play as Humanistic Inquiry” published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Nejem Raheem, Associate Professor of Marketing Communication and environmental economist and his students were featured in a new report by The National Marine Sanctuary System featuring the 2018 study that Professor Raheem and his students conducted of the economic contributions of whale watching passengers in NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The study was funded by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

Bethany Nelson, Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director in the department of Performing Arts has a new book “Urban Playmaking: Constructivist Teaching with a Radical Agenda” published by Routledge Books.

Free CITI Webinar: “Getting Started in Grant Writing: An Introduction for Graduate Students, Postdocs, and New Faculty”

By Eric Asetta

On February 26, 2021

In Scholarship and Research, Tips and Tutorials

The CITI Program, which provides online training in research and compliance will offer a complimentary, one-hour introductory webinar on grant writing on March 3, 2021.

Across professions and academic levels, an understanding of grants and what it takes to find them and submit proposals are critical skills. This webinar will demystify the process of grant proposal writing. Following a high-level view of the major phases of proposal development, the webinar will look more closely at the process of finding and selecting funding opportunities that are a good fit for your research or program priorities.

Learning objectives:

Identify the major phases in grant proposal development

Locate relevant sources of information on funding opportunities

Summarize the information found in a Request for Proposals (RFP)

Outline the steps to go from concept to submission

The webinar will be hosted by Nancy L. Devino, Ph.D., Executive Director of Sponsored Programs at the University of Houston-Clear, on Wednesday, 3 March 2021 at 2:00 pm Eastern / 11:00 am Pacific.

Please note: On the day of the webinar, access will be limited to the first 100 individuals who enter the webinar. A recording of the webinar will be available on the CITI Program website after the event, for a fee.

To register, go to this page.

Faculty Spotlight: January Part II

By Diana Potter

On January 27, 2021

In Faculty News, Faculty Spotlight

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.

National Science Foundation (NSF) Updated Requirements for Proposals due on or after June 1, 2020

By Eric Asetta

On December 24, 2020

In Federal Agency Announcements, Uncategorized

On June 1, 2020, the National Science Foundation (NSF) implemented the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 20-1) for proposals due on or after that date. The revised PAPPG implements a variety of new requirements and clarifications. The most significant of these are changes to the following proposal sections:

Biographical Sketches: For the Biographical Sketch component of an application, NSF will only accept PDFs that are generated through the use of an NSF-approved format (This requirement went into effect on October 5).
- Other changes include permission for the conditional use of “et al” for publication citations in the “Products” section, when citing multiple authors.
Current and Pending Support: The requirement to use an NSF-approved format for preparation of current and pending support went into effect for proposals submitted on or after October 5.
- Along with the format change, the revised PAPPG expands the definition of current and pending support to include “all resources made available to an individual in support of and/or related to all of his/her research efforts… [including] in-kind contributions (such as office/laboratory space, equipment, supplies, employees [or] students).”

An NSF webinar covering the new format requirements was recorded in April 2020 and can be accessed here. Click here for a summary of all significant changes and clarifications made to the PAPPG.

FY22 Funding Guidelines Released for National Endowment for the Arts

By Eric Asetta

On December 23, 2020

In Federal Agency Announcements

Guidelines and application materials for Grants for Arts Projects funding are now available on the National Endowment for the Arts’ website at arts.gov/grants (The program was previously called “Art Works”). Applications for projects beginning in 2022 will be due February 11 & July 8, 2021. Grants range from $10,000 to $100,000, and require a 1:1 institutional cost share/match.

A Grants for Arts Projects guidelines webinar for potential applicants will take place on January 6, 2021 from 3-4 p.m. Eastern Time. Click here to register.

Application Limits

As an educational institution, Emerson College may submit only one application under these FY 2022 Grants for Arts Projects guidelines, with the following exceptions:

Applications for Ploughshares, ArtsEmerson, HowlRound, and WERS, each of which NEA has classified as an “independent component” of Emerson;
Emerson may submit more than one application in the Grants for Arts Projects category through the Media Arts discipline at the July 8, 2021, deadline.

If you are thinking of applying this year, please contact ORCS at your earliest convenience. Depending on the number of inquiries, the College may need to hold an internal competition to select a single project for submission.

Welcome to the ORCS NewsFeed

By Eric Asetta

On December 22, 2020

In Uncategorized

Welcome to the official blog of the Emerson College Office for Research and Creative Scholarship. The ORCS NewsFeed will be updated regularly with news and information on sponsored programs management, Federal updates, limited submission competitions, compliance issues, upcoming trainings and more. Please note that specific policies and guidance referenced in past blog posts may have been updated since the posts’ original publication dates. If you have any questions regarding whether a policy or guidance referenced in an older blog post is still in effect, please visit the Policies & Compliance section of our website, or contact us.