Starting off
I decided to post about my experience as a BTOP grant reviewer on this site after sitting through the initial webinar today. It may just wind up being tips and techniques, or it may evolve into something more. Any other reviewers out there? I'd love to hear from you. Post your "howdy Mike" message in the comments to this post, or send me email. I'll build a "contact me" page in a minute...
A few tidbits from the webinar today.
- We are 1000 strong (that's roughly the number of resumes the NTIA folks received)
- There are 2200 applications
- There will be at least 3 reviewers per application
- So that means we each will be reviewing about 7 applications (6600 application/reviewer slots, 1000 reviewers)
- We'll be getting our assignments pretty soon and the goal is to start making recommendations in mid-September
I captured most of the slides from the webinar and asked the question "are these public information, something I can post to the Internet?" Didn't get an answer so I guess I'll hold my fire for a while. I would presume that most of the reviewer-instructions info we're going to receive will be public.
Anyway, here we go!
Feel free to comment away on this blog, especially if you're a fellow BTOP reviewer. I didn't hear about an online community for us during the webinar, so maybe this is the place, eh?
i wrote a bip app for a 4g proof of concept in rural maine. don't expect anything, but the exercise was interesting. the app input, the map app in particular, was a horror.
Hey Mike,
Same ol' circles. I too am a reviewer. Once again you're out in front of me -- my web training is not until Monday. I think this should be very interesting. I was very pleased to see the number of applications. We may make some real progress here. My exposure on submitted applications - the ones I worked on and those I heard about - tend to say many, if not most, are middle mile applications. We'll see what's in this new mix.
Neato. Glad to see you in the gang. One thing that came up in the webinar may pertain to you. The conflict of interest statement we signed apparently commits us to not assisting with application-preparation -- either now or in the future. Somebody asked about that and the answer came back confirming that stance. Fine for a retired guy like me, but it may be an issue for you if you want to remain in the application-prep arena.
Hi Eric!
We got a preview of the system we'll be using to submit our reviews. Just screenshots, not a live demo, so it's hard to tell how it'll behave. But WordPress it ain't.
Oche! I'll check out the CoI. The one I signed said that you had to declare (etc. ...) but that it specifically did not preclude a company from making applications of prep'ing. It will be interesting to see what the real issue is. Naturally, I have to focus on business first.
thanks for the tip.
Here's the language that triggered the conversation -- "I agree not to provide advice on or to participate in the preparation of any BTOP grant application for any party, including any existing or future employer, or on a consultancy basis"
There were probably hundreds of us on the call (all muted) and I imagined a chorus of "ulp!" sounds.
I think this is pretty straight forward. I took the training on Friday and read the documents. I have done reviewing before but not as a volunteer and not with NTIA. It would be nice to know who is part of the reviewing team. They said about 1000 applicants for reviewers. I am sure some will drop out in time. The one piece that got me was the part that they said they would break out who did what. I am not sure how they do that based on just resume. It should be interesting. Well look forward to talking with any of you.
Hi all, I'm a BTOP reviewer too. Thank you Mike for setting up this site to facilitate discussion. I've bookmarked it.