Novelution FAQ

Increasingly, federal sponsors are requiring expanded disclosure of other research support, looking at levels of commitment, and potential overlap of projects from different funding sources. The Novelution tool will help faculty meet these requirements.

Cayuse data for proposals and awards will be integrated into Novelution through the RDW. Novelution will complement Cayuse by allowing us to capture, reuse and report on information not able to be captured in Cayuse:

• Project objectives
• Committed effort
• Other support
• Foreign contracts
• Profile elements such a ORCID

This information will only need to be entered once and will be retained in the tool for the next time a copy of the current C&P/Other Support needs to be provided to the sponsor. This reduces the administrative burden on the researchers and saves them time!

Log in to Novelution at https://nd.novelution.com/

To modify any information on your Profile, click on the far right corner box with your name and select Profile. This will take you to a new screen where you can find various sections to input your profile data. Please enter your era Commons username, NSF ID and/or ORCID ID if available. These inputs will auto populate in the C&P/Other Support forms if entered in the Novelution user profile. Make sure you save the changes before you leave the window.

Novelution is intended to be used as:

• A way to capture other support that may be required to be disclosed to sponsors.
• A tool for faculty to more efficiently generate current and pending and other support documents.
• A tool for faculty to report and academic administrators to view committed effort and potential over commitment situations.
• A common, transparent platform for faculty and research administrators to have conversations about their committed effort and other support.
• A repository to collect foreign contracts/activities that may need to be disclosed or provided to sponsors.
• A place to capture ORCID and other profile data not currently in our systems.
• A place to capture project objectives.

Novelution is not intended to be used as:

• An effort reporting system (Compensated effort is certified twice a year through the effort reporting process managed by RSPA)
• A month-by-month record of committed effort (committed effort is recorded consistent with project periods and sponsor reporting requirements using the latter year of a project period start/end dates.)

Assigning a proxy means assigning a person who is able to add committed effort, enter goals, and perform all tasks in Novelution C&P you would do.

1. Got to “Profile & Settings”
2. Select “Proxy Access”
3. Click the “Add Proxy” button
4. Type the person’s first or last name to whom you want to give this permission
5. Checkmark “Current and Pending”
6. Checkmark “Are you certain you wish to grant access to ___?”
7. Click the “Save” button
8. The person (or people) you have given proxy permission to are listed on the “Access given to others” list

Actual salary requested and/or paid from a grant/project. For more information please visit the Committed Effort vs. Compensated Effort in University Research webpage.

The amount of effort proposed in a grant proposal or other project application and accepted by the sponsor, regardless of whether salary support is requested for effort. Committed effort may be adjusted with the approval of the sponsor. For more information please visit the Committed Effort vs. Compensated Effort in University Research webpage.

Faculty members have academic appointments for teaching and mentoring students, university service obligations, and research, scholarship, and creative activities during their appointment periods, usually the academic year (9 months). Faculty on 9-month, full-time academic appointments are normally permitted to obtain up to 3 months of summer salary and associated benefits from sponsored projects outside of the academic year, consistent with the terms and conditions of the project award and effort devoted to the project.

Many sponsors also permit investigators to charge for the effort that they devote to sponsored projects during the academic year. When this option is available, the University encourages faculty to exercise it in order to recover a portion of their academic year salary that otherwise would be covered by the University. The University encourages faculty request-sponsored funding that represents the full cost of the proposed research program, including salary, and discourages the cost-sharing of faculty academic year salary unless required due to budgetary limitations or programmatic matching requirements. In all cases, the amount of effort charged to a sponsor must be commensurate with the amount of effort devoted to the sponsor’s project. Academic year salary charged to externally sponsored projects is not considered additional compensation above the academic year institutional base salary.

Researchers are required to disclose the following in the Other Sources of Support:

• Financial Support: This includes sponsored awards held at Notre Dame, held at another institution/entity, or held as an individual that supports an investigator’s research efforts. This also includes start-up packages from entities other than Notre Dame, and institutional awards at Notre Dame or other institutions that are separately budgeted and accounted for.
• Non-Financial Resources: This includes non-monetary (in-kind) resources that are uniquely available to key personnel such as office or laboratory space, equipment, supplies, employees, students, scientific materials, and selection to a foreign “talents” or similar-type program. Non-financial resources that are provided by entities other than Notre Dame are of particular interest to the federal funding agencies, and investigators should take care to ensure that all necessary disclosures are made.
• Domestic and foreign consulting relationships
• Work or travel on behalf of any of the following, whether domestic or foreign: academic institutions (other than Notre Dame), U.S. and foreign governments, non-profits/foundations, industry or trade groups, and private or public companies (including as an investor or any other role).

Disclosures do not need to include travel for the sole purpose of a personal vacation or to attend a conference. For further information please visit the University Requirements for Disclosing Outside Activities

If there is an error in a record in a field that you can’t edit please reach out to NDR_support@nd.edu to request a change to the data and copy your Pre-Award and Grants Program Manager support staff.

The Grants Program Managers, Pre-Award staff, Research Business Intelligence staff, NDRAC leadership. College Dean, Department Chair, and proxies will have administrative access to see your C&P records.

The PI Portal C&P tab will still exist but it will no longer have the ability to download a C&P report. It will instead redirect you to the Novelution tool.