A final draft of a new classification system was proposed by the CRIS Enhancement Committee in May 1998 and is now being implemented. All new projects submitted on or after February, 1999 are already being classified using the new system.
It is now necessary to convert all pre-existing projects in the CRIS database to the new classfication system. Unfortunately, there is no fully automated way to convert the old to the new; it requires a human mind to review and adjust each description. There are over 20,000 active and recently complete projects described in the CRIS database, so the only reasonable way to get this done is to ask each institution to do its part.
What has changed?
The old Activity and Special categories have been eliminated by folding
these aspects into the new Research Problem Areas (RPA). For that reason,
it is important to read
the full text description of the RPA -- the title alone may not be enough
to determine the appropriateness of the new RPA.
Old Commodities and Subcommodities have been combined into one list called Subject of Investigation. However, to some extent, old commodity categories are addressed in the new RPAs, so again, read the full text description of the RPA by clicking on its title.
How is the classification used?
The classification of each project is used to aid in retrieval and to
determine the proportion of
funding that is applied to each category you select. In other words, if you
select apples, blueberries and peaches (3 subjects of investigation), and
the % on each line of the classification table is 40, 35, 25 respectively,
funding reports that are prepared for legislators and research administrators
will include in the total for research on apples, 40% of that
project's funding, 35% of the project's funding for blueberry research,
and 25% of the project's funding for peach research.
What exactly do we do and how?
The task is only to reclassify active and very recently terminated projects
from the old to the new system.
It is not an opportunity to revise the project's focus or intent.
If the project's focus or intent has changed since it was first classified, then you should
be submitting a project revision so that the objectives, approach, and
keywords as well as the classification accurately reflect the project's
activity.
For most projects, you will find the crosswalk attempt very helpful. For many projects, a close translation can be made using the crosswalk tables so that only a short list of new options will be displayed using the Try Crosswalk button. More complicated multi-line classifications and topics that were not well-addressed in the old classification system will display a much longer list of options. You should select ONLY the best items to describe the project. The more items you select, the more you diminish the importance of each item.
If the crosswalk attempt does not provide choices that describe the research appropriately, you can ignore the crosswalk entirely and start with a clean slate using the Classification Assistance option. If you find that only some of the crosswalk options are applicable, you can proceed through the crosswalk checking only the items that most closely describe the research. Enter percentages on only those combinations you want to save and use the buttons provided to return to the classification form. Then you can select the Classification Assistance button which will display all possible options, while the items you selected previously will appear checked.
Reclassifying projects using the CRIS Web forms by individuals other than
the administrative site contact is outlined in the Reclassification Instructions. These
instructions can be distributed to Principal Investigators or Department
Administrators at your site. The site contact should review the
Administrative Management of Project
Reclassifications. Help links are also available for each page
with further explanation of each function available in a tutorial page.
What if the options available are not adequate to describe a project?
The following was submitted by members of the CRIS Enhancement
Classification/Taxonomy Task Group:
CRIS classifiers should be advised that all components of every project will not, and need not, be uniquely classified, given the ability of users to conduct text searches or to use combinations of classification codes to find projects in more specific research categories. This should help reduce the confusion that some classifiers felt in the past when trying to find codes to describe specific nuances of their research projects.