Using RPS to Prepare and Submit a Chandra Proposal
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Filling in RPS Proposal Forms
- 3.Submit the Proposal Electronically
- 4. What to do if You Discover a Mistake in Your Proposal
- History
1. Introduction
The Call for Proposals includes information about what is required in your Chandra proposal. There are several resources available to help you gather all the information you need. Please refer to the proposer pages for links to these resources. Proposals must be submitted electronically. This thread serves to help you fill out the Remote Proposal Submission (RPS) forms and submit your proposal.
There is a WWW version of RPS and an e-mail server. Either version may be used to submit the proposal forms and justification. The email server is particularly useful when you have many targets in a proposal. Your browser must support forms in order to use the WWW version.
RPS is stateless, so nothing is done with the information you enter until you use one of the action buttons at the top of the RPS page. We advise using the Save button frequently to avoid losing your work. To Reload your information from a saved version, you must save the forms as html.
When you are in RPS, you can obtain an explanation of a field by clicking on its link. There is also a general RPS help page available; the link is at the top of the RPS page.
RPS is available from the Proposer section of the CXC web pages. Or you can go directly to the Chandra RPS page at http://cxc.harvard.edu/soft/RPS/Chandra.html.
For more information and to obtain a LaTeX template for your science justification, please see http://cxc.harvard.edu/proposer/.
2. Filling in RPS Proposal Forms
WWW version
When you are ready to complete and submit your proposal, the WWW version of RPS is located at http://cxc.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/RPS/Chandra/RPS.pl.
There are three forms that you need to fill out: Cover Page, General Form, and Target Form. You can expand these forms to fill in the fields by clicking the blue triangle to the left of the form name.
Cover Page
The Cover Page contains your personal information (name, address, etc.) and an overview of your proposal. Expand the form and either type or select the information appropriate to your situation in each field. An example Cover Page is shown here .
General Form
The General Form contains information about co-investigators and institute endorsement.
Target Form
The Target Form is not required for Theory or Archive proposals.
The Target Form contains information about each proposed target. Detailed information about instrument parameters and constraints is required. You will need to fill out one form per target. If there is more than one target in your proposal, click "Add Target" at the top of the page. You will be given the option of cloning an existing target form or adding a blank target form to your proposal. Individual targets appear in RPS as a new item in the expanded Target Form.
The use of the email server is recommended for long lists of targets, as RPS can become slow and have display problems.
Email server
To obtain directions and help, send a blank email message to rps@head.cfa.harvard.edu. All messages for the RPS email server must be sent to this address. Any questions or comments about RPS should be sent to: cxchelp@cfa.harvard.edu or submitted via the Helpdesk interface at http://cxc.harvard.edu/helpdesk/.
The email server parses the incoming email based on a very limited set of commands. You may request a blank form containing "name:value" entries. Use any editor to supply the necessary values for the listed entries. You may also request an ASCII text file containing short descriptions of all of the fields in the proposal forms.
An example of the message RPS returns to you initially can be viewed here. For the most up-to-date instructions, it is best if you send your own message to RPS.
3.Submit the Proposal Electronically
WWW version
Form Verification - After entering all the proposal information into the forms, you need to verify their completeness and accuracy. To do this, click "Verify" at the top of the page. Once it has been verified, click the "Save" button to save the verified proposal to a local disk.
LaTeX Generation - Use the "LaTeX" button to create a LaTeX file of the verified proposal. This is for your own use.
PDF and PostScript - As of Cycle 7, CXC requires that all science justification files be in PDF format only. The PostScript button has therefore been eliminated from the RPS interface. If having a PostScript version of the RPS form for your own records is desirable, a PS file can easily be created using the LaTeX version described above.
Electronic Submission - The proposal forms and science justification are submitted sequentially. After the forms are verified, the "Submit" button will become available at the top of the page. Click "Submit" only once per proposal to submit the completed forms (Cover Page, General Form and Target form(s)) to the CXC.
The "Submit" button does not appear until verification of all RPS forms has completed successfully. At this point, RPS will confirm that the proposal forms have been received and will have assigned a number to your proposal. Click "Upload" and RPS will ask for the file name of your science justification. Make sure you have converted your science justification to PDF before clicking "Upload"! Instructions for creating the pdf justification from latex can be found from the proposer pages. Type the file name in the field provided and click "Submit". If you have already correctly submitted your forms, your proposal is complete. You should receive a confirmation notice.
Email server
Form Verification - After you enter all of the necessary values into the form, you can email this file to the server for verification. Verification will identify required fields with missing values and incorrect values. The form will be sent back to you indicating any errors detected. All error messages are preceded with a ^ to make it easier for users to search for them.
LaTeX Generation - Mail your form to the server with the LaTeX option specified. The email server will return a LaTeX file of the verified proposal for your use.
Electronic Submission - Once you have verified the form and corrected any errors, you should submit the form to the mission's proposal database. When you submit, a final verification will be performed. If no errors are found, the form will be e-mailed to the appropriate database address for that project. If errors were detected, the form is returned with the errors flagged.
The scientific justification is electronically submitted using ftp. Directions can be found in the email from rps@head.cfa.harvard.edu, or at http://cxc.harvard.edu/soft/RPS/Chandra.html#upload.
4. What to do if You Discover a Mistake in Your Proposal
If the mistake is discovered before the deadline, please go through the submission process again and set the flag located at the top of the cover page:
Does this replace a previously submitted proposal for the current
cycle?
to yes, and give the number of the proposal to be discarded.
It is possible to correct minor errors in forms after the proposal deadline, especially if the item is critical to the success of the potential observation, e.g. incorrect coordinates. Please inform the CDO as soon as possible after the mistake is discovered. Late changes in the Science Justification are not allowed. However, some typographical or numerical errors can be misleading, and corrections of such nature can be sent to the CDO in a letter of explanation. If appropriate, this letter will be included in material sent to the Peer Review. Note that a long list of corrections to a careless submission cannot be accepted since this would be de facto a late-proposal submission.
History
| 15 Jan 2003 | Initial Version |
| 15 Dec 2003 | Updated for Cycle 6 |
| 15 Dec 2004 | Updated for Cycle 7 |
| 15 Dec 2005 | Updated for Cycle 8 |
| 15 Dec 2006 | Updated for Cycle 9 |
| 15 Dec 2007 | Updated for Cycle 10 |
