University of Cincinnati
IAIMS Progress Report
April 2005 

A.        Specific Aims

The aims of this project continue to center around integrated resources in three areas:  research administration, bioinformatics, and portfolio credentialing.  The aims are the same as the original proposal.

B.        Studies and Results

Last year's progress report focused on the development of an administrative and technical support structure to build, integrate, and support applications in the three project areas.  The project evaluation examined the degree to which an integrated project administration was able to plan and implement shared development architecture and applications that would benefit all three project areas.  The focus of the evaluation this year shifted to the implementation of applications with functionality to perform a wide array of tasks and to provide and to provide customized access to information in the integrated database (IDB).

Overall Program:  In the second year of the project development of shared elements of the integrated architecture, including a universal single login service, groups and permissions framework, and a presentation framework continued, as did the maintenance of existing applications.  The implementation of new applications and a focus on customer-driven output/reporting began. The overall project continued to be administered from a central committee rather than individual project committees as described in the original proposal.  The bi-weekly meeting alternated between a focus on individual project updates and general issues.  Dan Masys, MD, a project consultant, visited Cincinnati on October 4 and 5, 2004, to assess our progress and direction.  His report, attached, focused on the technological aspects of the project.  His overall assessment was that we were organizing our resources well and applying our technical expertise in ways that were unique and had potential for a high level payoff.  He suggested that we could benefit from conducting focused, cost/benefit evaluations of individual applications.

The applications in production continue to function and provide service to a wide range of customers.  The attached table illustrates the use of a sample of major applications for the past year and all years previous. 

Portfolio-Based Credentialing:  The major advances in this project are in the initial release of the eProfessional application.  This application enables individuals to organize a wide range of professional information, including grants, teaching activities, continuing professional development, research interests, publications, and standard CV information.  eProfessional includes a user “cockpit” that enables the individual to easily manage the information, and to determine outputs, such as a print CV, a personal web page, and an NIH biosketch. eProfessional will also become the framework for a student portfolio. Use of previously released applications, eValuation and eChecklist, continued to grow in three of the four health professions colleges.

Research Administration:  Several new applications were developed this year, both using and extending the integrated architecture.  One, an animal research management system (eSirius) was purchased by the university.  Integrating a purchased application has been an important IAIMS focus this year and offered new lessons.  Currently, the application is partially integrated into the IDB, sharing core personnel and other select data.  Developing a biosafety system became an institutional priority and superseded development of a new electronic grants submission system. Phase one of biosafety was completed. The application allows authorized individuals to manage and submit biosafety protocols; track and manage biosafety laboratory agents and supplies; log all transactions related to agents, supplies, and research conducted in any of the biosafety facilities; schedule and reserve labs; receive training on required resources before using level 3 facilities; and manage access to various modules via a people management system. A new version of eCourses will be launched this spring, enhancing its ability to track compliance requirements and accommodate multimedia. Customized reporting is in development and has been tested for specific customer requests.  Current work on this application will enable individuals to pull together disparate elements of the IDB to form virtually any type of report, limited by a person’s authorization to see individual data elements.

Bioinformatics: This project, originally conceived of as improving researcher efficiency through effective training and knowledge transfer, has shifted focus to organizing and customizing access to the ever-growing number of resources in bioinformatics and genomics.  The problem researchers face is one of finding the latest tools and resources and quickly learning to apply them.  The current focus is on the creation of a dynamic web resource that can be customized to the interests and needs of individual researchers.  A content/technical team will prototype this resource before the end of year two of the grant. 

C.        Significance

The significance and impact of IAIMS has become apparent on several levels.  The institution has fully integrated several key applications into its operation at a level where they are considered “mission critical.”  The IDB has become the focal point of new applications and “integrated applications” are emerging.  Some significant hurdles to integration have been overcome.  The universal login application (allowing for a single login for crossing multiple applications) has been implemented across our entire enterprise.  The success we have experienced to-date has been an asset to our education and research efforts.

D.        Plans

Each of the project areas continues to make progress toward the aims of the grant.  The plans in each area focus on the implementation of applications that benefit users in their everyday work duties.  Work will also continue on shared services such as login, groups and permissions framework, presentation framework, and dynamic reporting. Beyond that, the IAIMS team is working to identify specific applications that take advantage of our ability to integrate data and functions in the emerging architecture.  We will also focus on application-specific evaluation projects that examine the cost-effectiveness of implementation and ongoing support.   

E.        Publications

The IAIMS Project Team published two papers this year, submitted a third, made three presentations at professional meetings, and presented six posters related to this project.  Several additional papers are currently in progress and two presentations at professional meetings are scheduled in the next two months. 

F.         Project-Generated Resources

We are currently examining ways to package and market specific applications that have matured and are being widely used in our institution.  Specifically, we are developing a version of eCourses (also called Continuous Professional Development) that will be made available to a number of local institutions.  This application provides online training and reporting for compliance training, human subjects training, and continuing education for health care professionals.