Ocean Battlespace Sensing (OBS) S&T Department Annual Report Submission Guidance

Sept. 30, 2011: Due date for FY11 (Oct 1, 2010 - Sep 30, 2011) annual progress reports to Ocean Battlespace Sensing (OBS) program officers from all science and technology principal investigators (PIs) who received OBS funding in the fiscal year.

  • NEW FOR FY11 ONLY: As we did in FY05, we are again asking for the year and highest degree (e.g., PhD or MA/MS) of our submitting PIs. Info should be included in the ‘Statistics’ file, ‘[comments]’ field. 
  • The due date has been chosen to properly align reports with the year being reported on and enable final product delivery to ONR management in time to contribute to ONR's internal future programmatic decision process. Everyone who received funding from us for efforts performed in FY11 is required to submit a report. If you are just getting started on your research project, then your report will be more about plans than progress. Guidance for the annual report and its associated "statistics file" follows.
  • Late reports delay the creation, printing, and distribution of the Annual Reports CD collection.

Each report submitted must consist of TWO files:

  1. The actual report file (a presentation-ready "Report File" which ONR will archive onto CD-ROMs) and
  2. An associated 'statistics' file (in simple ASCII text format), which contains statistics and associated information required by ONR and DoD authority and also data to automate production of the CD-ROM.

Reports must be:

  1. UNCLASSIFIED, and
  2. NON-PROPRIETARY

Report Distribution:

  1. New in 2009:
    - Reports must be in MS Word format (with one exception; see next paragraph):
    DoD requires a “Distribution Statement” on every report.  We have reduced the spectrum of possible statements to either a 1-line ‘Distribution A’ statement or a 3-line ‘Distribution D statement on the title page. ONR Program Officers occasionally change the statement as submitted for a variety of reasons, or must add a statement when none was included.  This cannot always be done in PDF format. 
    - Only exception: Principle investigators using LATEX from UNIX computers. These users may submit in PDF but MUST BE AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE SHORT TURNAROUND EDIT CHANGES THAT MAY BE REQUIRED (such as a change in distribution statement or significant deviations from format guidance). Because most LATEX users work at the university level, and most of those reports are Distribution A, few requests for change to Distribution D are expected. 
  2. Reports 'exclusive' of predominantly intermediate and advanced efforts deemed 'sensitive' by Program Officers will be distributed openly via CD-ROM (Distribution A).
  3. A collection of ALL reports will be selectively and narrowly distributed to DoD and U.S. DoD contractors ONLY via a second CD-ROM (Distribution D).

How to submit report files: OBS program officers (POs) will promulgate to PIs separately and directly directions of how to submit the actual Annual Report files.

Content and Format guidance: To provide for a high degree of uniformity in content, quality, and appearance on the CD-ROMs, your close adherence to the guidance is needed:

  1. Review the federally mandated accessibility compliance guidelines.
    a. meeting accessibility requirements for people with disabilities
  2. Report file format guidance includes:
    a. Word processor requirements
    b. Equations in reports
    c. Graphic image requirements
    d. Page limit
    e. Report formatting requirements
  3. Report file template (including content guidance)
    a. required content in a format suitable for use as a template
  4. Statistics file content and format guidance
    a. required content by 'field'
  5. Statistics file template (to enable automated parsing into a statistical database, please duplicate the template completely and exactly)
    a. template for your use
    b. to enable automated parsing into a statistical database, please do not edit the brackets or text therein

OTHER:

For comments or questions regarding:

  • Process, formatting, or 'form' questions, contact the Code 32 Web Author (32_WebAuthor@onr.navy.mil), subject: Annual Reports.
  • Technical content of reports, contact your sponsoring program officer.

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