Tuesday 6 January 2009
The Big Oxford Computer Co. Ltd.
The Royal Society provides a variety of grants, sometimes in conjunction with sponsors and partners, to scientists and others both in the UK and overseas. These grants range from one off payments for as little as £75 to 10-year research grants of more than £900,000 over the life of the grant. The number of grant schemes varies with time as new grant schemes are added and some existing schemes replaced.
The existing grant application, peer review, allocation, payment and monitoring process had primarily been a manual one with a flow of paper documents. Large amounts of paper were generated and filing and control was a manual process. Traditionally schemes had been the responsibility of different sections and the systems for application and monitoring have varied accordingly.
The Royal Society decided to begin automating the majority of its grant application, processing and payment systems. The electronic Grant Application and Processing (e-GAP) system's objectives were to develop a replacement of the complete processes from application to award holder management and payment with the minimum of paper input, messages and reports.
BOCC developed the very first e-GAP Version One system for The Royal Society. This has since been superseded by e-GAP2 in July 2008.
BOCC developed a formal specification for development of the system and launch of a pilot scheme, Industry Fellowships, which was relatively low-volume and thus a good test for the new system. Existing grant application systems were researched to build on best practice already available and to ensure consistency in approach.
BOCC advised on methods for data transfers between the Royal Society and BOCC and it was decided to use a separate Internet-facing and internal systems with replication to ensure high availability to all types of user. BOCC developed a modular system so that further schemes (grants, other fellowships and international exchanges) could be added in the future with the minimum of effort.
The design had to cater for a very wide range of browsers, operating systems, access speeds and match existing visual identity standards. The design also had to complement the existing main website, be extensible to other systems in the future and ensure that users could navigate through the process with as little confusion as possible. Elements were tested externally by potential future users and their feedback incorporated into the system during development.