Commercial Mail Reviews
The NSF Conflict-of-Interests
and Confidentiality Statement for NSF Panelists, must be read and signed.
Please
Print and sign
the COI
Form
and submit it via fax. Please clearly reference the proposal the form
is submitted for on your fax cover sheet.
The
program uses six review criteria for commercial potential:
Suggestions
for Writing Reviews
1.
Overall Rating
Please give
an overall rating to the proposal:
Excellent:
Outstanding proposal in all respects; deserves highest priority for support.
Very Good:
High quality proposal in nearly all respects; should be supported if at all
possible.
Good:
A quality proposal worthy of support.
Fair:
Proposal lacking in one or more critical aspects; key issues need to be addressed.
Poor:
Proposal has serious deficiencies.
2.
What's in a good review?
Overall
Length: May vary considerably; should add up to not less than about ˝ -
1 page. If you feel expansive or are using a large font, writing more
is welcome. If the review is terse, it will not provide the fruitful constructive
criticism and/or information that the NSF seeks as a guide in its decision-making.
For example, each of the six criterion should be addressed in a separate paragraph.
(N.B., SBIR/STTR INTERPRETS THE NSF CRITERIA SLIGHTLY
DIFFERENTLY THAN THE REST OF THE FOUNDATION BECAUSE WE ARE LOOKING AT RESEARCH
THAT IS CLOSE TO PRODUCING A MARKETABLE PRODUCT (i.e., "Advanced Applied Research,")
NOT BASIC RESEARCH. The science/engineering entailed in the project may
be well understood; the novelty may lie in the application.)
3.
Things to remember
- Your review
will go to the PI. Avoid being overly harsh, even if the proposal is
weak, and the message that you want to send is—"Don't ever darken our door
again." PIs who get vituperative reviews sometimes come back to haunt
your friendly and overworked program officer. In short, it is important
to give honest feedback, but please sandpaper your edges.
- Intermediate
gray evaluations (vs. hyperbole on either the positive or the negative end
of the spectrum) may very helpful to the program officer in making decisions
at the margin.
- Try not
to under-evaluate the proposals in the areas you know best. There
is a tendency for reviewers to fall prey to two biases, of which this is one.
The temptation is great to really nail the shortcomings of proposals you know
the most about. Their shortcomings are, after all, easiest to see.
By contrast, those proposals in other fields can look very appealing on the
surface – intriguing, nice puzzles, cute ideas, with shortcomings that are
less apparent.
- In proposals
that are not your exact area of expertise, you should look for those components
that are most familiar to you. Explain that those are the ones you are
commenting upon. Please, do not state that you are not an expert
in the area. Instead, you might say that in your review, you are
particularly focusing on X and Y aspects.
Instructions
for preparing your reviews off-line is as follows:
The
Commercial
Review
form,
can be web accessed and completed. This form is a Word document, when
the document is opened it can be typed in. Please enter your review information
and when finished you can simply cut and paste the entire document into FastLane.
Instructions
for accessing FastLane:
1.
Go to the FastLane home page:
http://www.fastlane.nsf.gov
2.
Select the `Proposal
Review´
link
3. Fill in the Log In information --
* Proposal Number
(7 digits)
* Your Last Name
* Pin (6 digits)
* click "Login"
4. The `Proposal
Review´
screen will appear. You can at this point choose to edit your information
if necessary or continue the review process. There are four(4) options
available to you as a reviewer.
1. Prepare Review
* This option allows you to insert your
review information into FastLane. (The Proposal Evaluation Criteria listed
on this FastLane website is not specific to SBIR/STTR, so we have provided you
with our specific criteria state above.)
* Please scroll down the page and click the "Continue"
button at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the `Proposal
Review´ screen. You will see specific information pertaining to the proposal
number you have entered.
* Scroll past the proposal information and proceed with the review
process.
Rating Section - make a selection
Overall Rating - You must make a
selection. This can be done after you have entered your review information.
* Important
Notice!....All three boxes must have information in them. For the Commercial
Review purpose.
In
the first box, entitled " What is the intellecutual merit of the proposed activity?"
Please type"N/A".
In the second
box, entitled "What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?" Please
`cut
and paste´
the entire Commercial Review Form into the second box.
In the third
box, entitled "Summary Statement" Please write a brief summary of the
proposal.
Please ignore
the box entitled "Other Suggested Reviewer"
2. View Proposal
* You can look at specific parts of the proposal
or the entire proposal, as well as, print specific parts or the entire proposal.
3. Download/Save Proposal
* You may instruct the system to download/save
a copy of the proposal to your computer.
4. Go Back
* You can go back to the login screen
and begin the process over for a different proposal.
If
You Encounter Technical Problems Accessing FastLane:
Please send an e-mail to fastlane@nsf.gov
or
call the FastLane Help Desk at (800) 673-6188. The developers of
FastLane provide technical support and advice for any problems you may
encounter.If you have addition questions regarding reviewer/panel participation,
please contact the relevant program officer for assistance
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