Introduction

An online application and review system is used for receiving and processing applications for resources offered by the Fenix research infrastructure through the calls for HBP members and neuroscientists. Note that the call for European scientists from all research domains is handled through a different system.

This is a quick guide to support members of the EBRAINS Infrastructure Allocation Committee (IAC) in the allocation process. The project management office of the ICEI project, which realizes the Fenix infrastructure, is available in case of issues or questions: icei-coord@fz-juelich.de

There are two different servers, one for submitting applications and one for the review process. The IAC gets access to the review server, where it can access all proposals and related technical and scientific assessments. Not visible to the IAC members are comments exchanged inside the review system between experts (and the IAC).

The decisions made by the IAC are not to be documented in JARDS, but will be implemented by the ICEI PMO afterwards on the review server. In other words, the IAC only uses the review server to look at the applications and related material.

Additional material might be provided in the EBRAINS IAC Collab, e.g. if a proposal involves the processing of personal data to make the related, required documentation available.

Logging in

The login to the review system is handled via a callback mechanism:

1. Visit https://jards-ebrains.fz-juelich.de/jards/WEB/review/login.php and click on “Login”. Note that this URL is different from the URL used by the applicants.
2. Enter your email address and click on “callback”. Note that your institutional email address, which is usually used for communication with the ICEI PMO, is already added to the review system to give you the necessary permissions. Therefore, use this email address to login.
   
3. You should have received an email with the subject “Review system identification” from noreply@fenix-ri.eu. Click on the link in the email or copy-paste it into the address field of your internet browser.
4. Now you are on the start page of the review server.
5. You can always get back to this start page by clicking on “Overview” in the top left corner.
   

Note that you will be automatically logged out after 120 minutes of inactivity. To re-enter the review portal, follow the above described steps again with the same email address that was used in the first place.

More information and help

More detailed information on how to use the online review system are available through the “Help” button in the top menu. A click on the “(i)” info icon next to a field also leads to a page with additional information.

Viewing proposal and assessments

The reviewers for technical and scientific assessments are grouped into two categories, which take care of reviews in the respective category, EBRAINS-TEC and EBRAINS-SCI. The ICEI PMO assigns specific reviewers from within these pools inside each category to every proposal, so that only those experts can see a proposal, who should also review it.

The technical and scientific assessments are available by clicking on “Category” in the top menu.

In the following, we are going to demonstrate where to find the proposal (which is the same, no matter if you look at technical or scientific category) and where to find the assessments based on the EBRAINS-TEC category, i.e. technical assessments. It works the same way for scientific assessments, just select “EBRAINS-SCI” instead of “EBRAINS-TEC”.

After having clicked on “Category” and “EBRAINS-TEC”, a list of all applications will be shown, for which at least one technical assessment was finalised:

It is possible to configure the columns displayed by clicking on “Show/hide/move columns”. To get back to the original settings, click on “Config” and “reset table layout config”. It is also possible to export the table configuration and to load it again in future sessions. However, in most cases the standard table layout should work just fine and we recommend not to change it.

Viewing the proposal

A proposal can be viewed in a generated PDF, which contains all information entered by the applicant, or in a multi-page view directly in the browser.

Generated PDF

The generated PDF contains all details of the proposal; an additional PDF might be merged in at the end, which the applicant could upload during the application process to provide further details. The generated PDF can be downloaded or viewed, depending on the browser configuration, by clicking on “show pdf” in the column “Merged documents”.

Multi-page view

Alternatively, it is possible to view the application directly in the browser in a multi-page view, which looks similar to the application form, which the applicant had to fill in. This can be found by clicking on “show” in the column “App data” (i.e. application data). To reach this column, you might have to scroll to the right in the overview table.

Both view types (PDF and multi-page view) contain the same information.

Viewing the assessments

If you would like to know, which types of assessments (technical and/or scientific) are available for a specific application, or to get a short summary of the proposal, you can click on “details” in the column “Project details”. From the following “Application details” page, you can also get to the PDF and multi-page view of the proposal.

At the top of the “Application details” page, there is a table summarising some basic information of the proposal. From here you can also get to the PDF or multi-page view of the proposal.

At the bottom of the “Application details” page, you will see a table “Groups for application”. This table tells which reviewer groups an application has already been assigned to, i.e. if technical and/or scientific assessments have already been requested (and potentially also already done).

In this particular example, only technical assessments have been requested so far, as the group “EBRAINS-TEC” has already been connected with this application, but not (yet) EBRAINS-SCI.

The assessments are also available from the Overview table, which can be reached by clicking on “Category” and selecting one of the categories in the top menu.

The column “Reviews” shows how many assessments of the respective category for the respective proposal are available.

In this particular example, there is one (technical) assessment available. Clicking on “show” opens a new page, which lists the final outcome of the assessments:

In this particular example, the (only) reviewer (“A”) told that the project is “suitable”, i.e. the result is “ACCEPTED”. To show the detailed review(s), you can click on “show” in the first row of the table.

The green icon shows that the review is finished. Alternative options would be: