STScI

Hubble Space Telescope Call for Proposals for Cycle 13

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Chapter 7:
Guidelines and Checklist for Phase I Proposal Preparation

7.1 General Guidelines
    7.1.1 Deadline
    7.1.2 Phase I Proposal Format
    7.1.3 Page Limits for PDF Attachment
7.2 Proposal Preparation Checklist

The present chapter provides general guidelines and a checklist for Phase I proposal preparation. Specific instructions for construction of a Phase I proposal are presented in Chapter 8 and Chapter 9.

7.1 General Guidelines

7.1.1 Deadline

The deadline for proposal submission is Friday January 23, 2004, 8:00 pm EST.

Please submit well before the deadline if possible, to avoid possible last-minute hardware or overloading problems, or network delays/outages. Late proposals will not be considered.

As the APT has been in use for only one year, we strongly recommend that proposers start preparing their proposals early in order to give themselves enough time to learn the APT. However, APT will not be made available/released for Cycle 13 Phase I use until December 3, 2003. If you need a version prior to the formal release, please send your request to the STScI help desk, help@www.stsci.edu.

Questions about policies and technical issues should be addressed to the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) well before the deadline. While we attempt to answer all questions as rapidly as possible, we cannot guarantee a speedy response in the last week before the deadline.

7.1.2 Phase I Proposal Format

Cycle 13 proposals must be submitted electronically. Starting in Cycle 12, a java-based software tool, APT (the Astronomer's Proposal Tools; see Section 1.4.4) is the new interface for all Phase I and Phase II proposal submissions for HST.

The Phase I LaTeX templates that have been in use for many years will not be accepted in Cycle 13.

A Phase I proposal consists of two parts:

Both get submitted to STScI directly from within APT. Note that Student Principal Investigators should also send a certification letter from their faculty advisor (see Section 2.3.3).

Please study Chapter 7, Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 carefully. Please do so well before the submission deadline, to give the STScI Help Desk (see Section 1.5) ample time to answer any questions that you may have about the new procedures.

7.1.3 Page Limits for PDF Attachment

There are page limits on the size of your PDF attachment.

For Large GO proposals (see Section 3.2.2), Treasury GO proposals (see Section 3.2.4) and AR Legacy proposals (see Section 3.4.2) the page limits are:

For all other proposals the limits are:

In relation to these page limits, note the following:

7.2 Proposal Preparation Checklist

Table 7.1: Proposal Preparation Checklist 
Step
Procedure
1) Install APT Download the latest version of the APT. Go to the APT Web Page. Follow the instructions there to download and install APT onto your machine. You can also ask your system administrator to do an institution-wide installation.
2) Fill out the APT Phase I form Use APT to fill out the APT Phase I form. Information on the use of APT including movie tutorials are available on the APT Web Page. A description of which items are requested as well as guidelines for answering are presented in Chapter 8.
3) Download a template file for the creation of your PDF attachment Go to the Cycle 13 Announcement Web Page. Download one of the templates for the creation of your PDF attachment. There are separate template files for GO/SNAP and for AR/Theory proposals. Template files are available in several popular word-processing environments, including LaTeX and Microsoft Word.
4) Edit the template Edit the template using your favorite word-processing environment. A description of which issues need to be discussed, and guidelines for how to discuss them, are presented in Chapter 9.
5) Create the PDF attachment. Transform your edited template into a PDF file. Any figures in your proposal must be included into this PDF file. Go to the Cycle 13 Announcement Web Page for instructions on how to create a PDF file from your edited template, and for instructions on how to include figures. We will provide the reviewers with the electronic PDF files so that color figures can be viewed in color. However there is no guarantee that the reviewers will view the files electronically, so please make sure your figures are useful when printed using grey scales.
6) Add the PDF filename path to the APT form In your APT form, list in the appropriate box the path that points to the PDF attachment file on your local disk (see Section 8.11).
7) Review your proposal In APT, click on `Formatted Preview' to get a preview of all the final information in your proposal. What you see under `Show PDF View' is exactly what the reviewers who will judge your proposal will see. If you are not satisfied, make any necessary changes.
8) Institutional Endorsement STScI does not require institutional endorsement of GO/AR proposals in Phase I. However, some institutions do require such endorsement of all submitted proposals. It is the responsibility of each PI to follow all applicable institutional policies concerning the submission of proposals.
9) Submit your proposal In APT, click `Submit' to submit your proposal to STScI. All parts are sent together (i.e., both the APT Form information and the PDF attachment).
10) Receive an STScI acknowledgment of your submission Verification of a successful submission will appear in the Submission Log on the Submission Screen in the APT within about a minute. Within a few days the PI and all CoIs will receive an email acknowledgment that the Merged PDF submission was successfully printed. That email will mark the completion of the submission. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within a week, please contact the STScI Help Desk and provide the submission ID information from the APT Submission Log window. If there are any problems in the printing of your PDF attachment, you will be contacted by email separately.

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