eCAS is the electronic submission and monitoring system for commissioning research projects for the NHS Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO) Programme.

https://www.ecas.org.uk/
The external front end system is open to any person to view calls for proposals and make applications

		eCAS home page	Application form	Outline proposal summary

The NHS Service Delivery and Organisation (SDO) Research and Development (R&D) (1) Programme aims to produce and promote the use of research evidence about how the organisation and delivery of services can be improved to increase the quality of patient care and ensure better strategic outcomes and contribute to improved public health.

With an annual budget of over £7m, the SDO Programme advertises, commissions and monitors a portfolio of public health research projects throughout the country. The SDO co-ordinating centre is situated at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2).

The SDO Programme has five different commissioning processes:

• Rapid response
• Literature reviews
• Scoping exercises
• One-stage empirical
• Two-stage empirical

The SDO Programme previously used a combination of paper-based and electronic systems to undertake its commissioning. In an annual evaluation of its processes the SDO Programme identified future needs for a new system based on feedback from their stakeholders. eCAS (3) (electronic commissioning and appraisal system) is the result of this feedback and has been developed to make the commissioning experience more efficient and user friendly for applicants and administrators alike.

In evaluations of its processes during 2006 the SDO Programme identified the need to make the application for research projects and subsequent processing more efficient.

The SDO Programme was keen to address these issues by developing a secure electronic commissioning and appraisal system (eCAS) to enhance the application process for researchers.

BOCC successfully demonstrated to the SDO our ability to provide web-browser based services and existing online secure systems. In particular, BOCC's comprehensive knowledge of working with similar organisations such as The Royal Society (4) and the Union Learning Fund (5) to develop and implement similar online funding systems was a definite advantage.

Following a successful competitive tender for the project, BOCC's consultants undertook a detailed requirements analysis and created a comprehensive specification for eCAS.

The system caters for a variety of key user groups:

• Applicants
• Peer reviewers
• SDO Commissioning Groups
• SDO staff

- all of whom have different needs and requirements from eCAS.

The secure system allows applicants to complete and submit an application and handles the workflow associated with the completion and review of an application. Functionality such as collaboration, peer reviews, online assessment forms and approvals are all supported.

All users need to register and then subsequently login to the system. This allows users to maintain their personal information and login information, submit new applications and review previous applications.

The design had to cater for a wide range of browsers, operating systems and access speeds, and match existing visual identity standards. The design also had to complement the existing SDO website, be extendable 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 was incorporated into the system during development.

eCAS was launched on time and to budget.

The SDO Programme Manager, Damian O'Boyle and Information Manager, Adrian Newman identified three immediate benefits and advantages for the researcher using eCAS:

• Firstly, there is no need for the researchers to send in the 25 hard copies historically required, as applicants can now simply provide all the details online.
• Secondly, eCAS provides each applicant with a unique identification number against which he / she can store their curriculum vitae and access their previous proposals.
• Finally, the system provides alerts when data is missing or deadlines for submission are approaching, thus reducing application error.

In addition, for SDO Programme staff, the import of all existing legacy data relating to projects and contacts was essential. The management of these are all now undertaken using eCAS. BOCC was able to successfully migrate approximately 8000 contacts, in addition to research projects and related documents from the existing SDO database to eCAS.

The eCAS application is hosted on two servers: an application server and a database server at BOCC. Data is stored in a Microsoft® SQL Server database located on the database server as well as in files located in a non-web accessible directory on the application server.

The system utilises Microsoft® SQL Server 2003, Adobe® ColdFusion MX 7.0 (6), ActivePDF Server (7) and Microsoft® Internet Information Server (8) as key technologies. The system integrates with email servers and the existing SDO Programme website content management system (CMS).

eCAS has been developed to the following coding standards:

• XHMTL 1.0 (9) standard - compliant to CSS 2 (10)
• XHTML 1.0 style sheets - validated to W3C
• WAI accessibility standards (11) AA
• W3C (12) industry standard guidelines

The application uses SSL technology (13) to encrypt data passed between the user's web browser and the server for privacy. All user access and data validation activity is undertaken on the server, minimising the requirements for the user's browser and computer and thus making the ability to apply for awards available to a wide a cross-section of users.

The eCAS system is hosted (14) by BOCC on dedicated secure servers. BOCC also provides a dedicated disaster recovery hosting facility, with real-time data replication from the live production servers.

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