Subject: ITR proposal review From: "Bradley D. Keister" Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2001 13:26:50 -0400 To: fox@csit.fsu.edu Proposal number: 0113866 PI: B. Berman Institution: George Washington University Dear Dr. Fox, I am writing to ask your assistance in reviewing the following proposal referenced above. The quality of the National Science Foundation's awards depends greatly on the critical judgments of expert reviewers. I hope you will help us evaluate the proposal referenced above by providing comments about the project. The two Merit Review Criteria used are: (1) What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity? and (2) What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? Please provide detailed comments on the quality of this proposal with respect to each of the two NSF Merit Review Criteria, noting specifically the proposal's strengths and weaknesses. In some cases the proposal may cover a number of different research areas, so there may be aspects of a given proposal that fall outside your immediate expertise. In these instances, please provide comments in detailed areas in which you feel comfortable in doing so, although you are also welcome to provide any general remarks where you feel it is appropriate. The proposal you are asked to review was submitted in response to the NSF solicitation for Information Technology Research, No. NSF 00-126. This is a rather complex program, and we strongly urge you to review the solicitation on the ITR web page at http://www.itr.nsf.gov before reviewing the proposal. It contains important information about the program and issues that the proposal is being asked to address. Some summary notes are provided below. Your comments will be most helpful, especially if you are able to provide them within a month. If a brief delay in responding is necessary, I would rather receive your review a little late than not at all; however, if you cannot review the proposal, or if your review is likely to be long delayed, please notify me. All proposals should be destroyed after your review is finished. As part of NSF's effort toward a paperless proposal and award system, all reviews should be submitted via FastLane. Complete instructions on review submission are located at the FastLane web page: http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov. Full information on the Merit Review Criteria, and guidance on avoiding conflicts of interest, and on protecting confidentiality are also available at that site. Your FastLane Personal Identification Number (PIN) for this proposal is 004746 Briefly, to prepare and submit a review via FastLane, go to the FastLane web page. Click on "Proposal Review", enter the requested information, and click on "View/Print Proposal" to see the proposal itself. To submit the review, click instead on ?"Prepare Review" and follow the instructions. If you have any problems, please contact me. While the proposal review should be submitted via FastLane, if you would like a paper copy of the proposal itself, please let me know; we will be happy to send you one. Thank you very much for your help. I assure you that your review will be read with care and that I very much appreciate the time and thought that go into preparing reviews. With best wishes, Brad ******************** Note to Reviewers of ITR Small Proposals There are five different subgroups contained in the solicitation. Your proposal should have one of these referenced on the cover sheet. Specific details about each of the subgroups is contained in links from the ITR front page. 1. SYSTEMS DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION (ITR/SY) 2. PEOPLE AND SOCIAL GROUPS INTERACTING WITH COMPUTERS AND INFRASTRUCTURE (ITR/PE) 3. INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (ITR/IM) 4. APPLICATIONS IN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (ITR/AP) 5. SCALABLE INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE FOR PERVASIVE COMPUTING AND ACCESS (ITR/SI) Below is a brief abstract of some points about the program. However, this material omits details that could influence your review. It is only to give you a flavor of what the program is about. It is not intended to substitute for the full solicitation. Fundamental Research in IT: This year's ITR program maintains its primary focus on basic IT research in all areas of computer, computational and information sciences. This research should be innovative and high-risk and offer the possibility of major breakthroughs. NSF expects to catalyze activities that expand our understanding in all areas and uses of IT. This focus of ITR is particularly concerned with research that will apply to future generations of information technologies as well as to those that are available today. Applications of IT across the Sciences and Engineering: ITR is expanded from last year to include new research in the sciences, engineering, and education that is facilitated by advances in IT, and research in IT that supports advances in other areas. This research may involve new approaches in computation or a new use of computation to solve challenging scientific and engineering problems. It supports the symbiosis of IT with science, engineering, and education. Extensions of IT Education and Infrastructure: ITR is also expanded to include some kinds of infrastructure proposals. Specifically, requests for infrastructure that would provide access to IT to various underrepresented communities, regions and social groups may receive ITR support this year. Equipment requests should be limited to those needed to support the research, education and outreach goals of a proposal. Additional Review Criteria: In addition to the two standard NSF merit review criteria, the ITR proposal will be judged on how well it meets the following criterion: As a part of the intellectual merit of a pre-proposal or full proposal, ITR emphasizes the importance of novel, high-risk, and high-impact research. Is the proposal highly innovative, rather than an incremental improvement on standard ideas? Does it promise exciting advances, even if there is some chance of failure? There are three different size classes in ITR. This proposal is in the area of small projects (less than $500,000 total). In this class we are specifically encouraging proposals that can be characterized as: preliminary work on untested and novel ideas; ventures into emerging technology areas; new approaches to current problems; small-scale, but intensive, research partnerships across disciplines (or across areas within disciplines); efforts which can catalyze innovative advances; switches in a PI's established research area; and other fresh starts that can work to establish and to maintain the flow of good ideas and trained professionals in information technology. Bradley D. Keister National Science Foundation Physics Division Bradley D. Keister National Science Foundation Physics Division 4201 Wilson Blvd. Arlington VA 22230 Fax: +1 703 292-9078 Work: +1 703 292-7377 Conference Address Additional Information: Last Name Keister First Name Bradley D. Version 2.1