Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Urban Agriculture Multi-State Team

Posted by msanderson | November 5, 2020

urban ag state project logoJoining the Urban Agriculture Multi-State Project.

The NIMMS (National Information Management and Support System) system is the process by which you join the Urban Agriculture team and is how activities are tracked within the regional and national Extension and Agriculture Experiment Station organizations.

Registering in the NIMSS System

You must have an account in the NIMSS system to join the team. If you already have an account, skip to the next section.

 

To create an account:

  1. Contact your Extension or State Agriculture Experiment Station Director to indicate your desire to have an account – they will notify your regional administrator (https://www.nimss.org/directory/regional_offices). Provide them with your full name and email address.
    1. If you are not a member of a land-grant university (e.g an NGO, business, etc) and want to join, please send your full name, email, and organization to Brad Gaolach (gaolach@wsu.edu) and he will get an account established for you.
  2. Establish an account (New User) at https://www.nimss.org/.

 

Joining the Urban Agriculture Multi-State Team

Once you have established a NIMSS account, you now are able to officially join the project team. Within NIMSS, this is accomplished by entering an Appendix E / Project Participant form.

  • Land-Grant University participants with Experiment Station or Extension (AES or EXT) Appointments: We recommend you contact your Station Director’s office before completing an Appendix E form in NIMSS, since stations often have different procedures for adding participants. Once you are ready to submit the form, follow the instructions below.
  • Non-AES/EXT participants (ARS, Industry, other university, etc.): Please complete the AppE form as described below and send to Brad Gaolach (gaolach@wsu.edu).

Entering the Appendix E form

  1. Go to the National Information Management Support System at http://www.nimss.org and log in with your email address and password.
  2. Once you have signed into the system, choose Participants >> Draft/Edit Participant Info >> Draft New
  3. Enter the project/proposal number WDC53
  4. If you are the official station representative click on box (if not, leave blank)
  5. Indicate which objectives you will contribute to.
  6. Enter your percentages for Scientific Year, Professional Year, or Technical year as values < 1.0, where 1.0 = 100%.
    1. SY: “Scientist Year” – FTE (entered as a decimal less than 1) for Assistant Professors, Assistant Scientist and above. This is for the PI on the AppE form and should not be more than 1.
    2. PY: “Professional Year” – FTE for persons who hold positions in professional categories and students that hold bachelors or masters degrees. Can be greater than 1, if the PI has several post-docs or graduate students on the project.
    3. TY: “Technical Year” – FTE for technicians, aids, and lab assistants. Can also be more than 1, if the PI has multiple technicians, etc. working on the project.
    4. If you don’t know, please enter 0.1 in the SY field
    5. Those with a Research appointment: Enter your KA (Knowledge Area), SOI (Subject of Investigation), and FOS (Field of Science) codes. If you don’t know them, you can look them up by clicking the title/link above each box. You must put a value in each box (i.e. if you have a KA, you must also have a SOI and FOS value or NIMSS will give you an error message).
    6. If you have an Extension appointment, you should also enter your FTE (full time equivalent, as a percentage < 1.0, where 1.0 = 100%) and KA codes.
    7. Finish by selecting “Submit.” This sends the Appendix E to your Station Director for approval and then NIFA that the participant needs final approval.