October 26, 2007

Dear Upward Bound Project Director:

It is time to prepare your annual performance report (APR) for program year 2006-07. Regular Upward Bound (UB) and Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) projects must complete and submit their reports by November 30, 2007; Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) projects have until December 31, 2007 to submit their APRs.

Timely submission of your APR is always important; it is critical this year as the current APR form will be available for use only through December 31, 2007. You may be aware that the Office of Management and Budget approves for a specific length of time data collections (such as the APR) undertaken by federal departments and agencies. The Upward Bound programs' APR is approved only through the end of the year; for 2007-08 we are developing a revised report form that will reflect the new objectives used in the 2007 competition. After December 31, 2007, the Web version used for submittals will be removed, and the form will appear as a text document on the TRIO Web site only for information purposes. This is an important consideration for all projects, but particularly for those with grants from UBMS, since their deadline (December 31) is the very last day that the form will be available. UBMS grantees should be sure to register for the APR (as described below) well in advance of their deadline so as to be sure that they can meet it. For registration of all grantees, it will be to your advantage to notify your program specialist as soon as possible of any changes in project director or e-mail address.

Accuracy of data: Please be sure to read carefully this letter, the instructions, the FAQs, and the sections of the form itself so as to help TRIO gather data that are accurate, thorough, and consistent from project to project. We would like to remind you to be particularly careful with fields that identify students so that we can correctly analyze data over the course of students' participation in the program and of what we hope will be their subsequent postsecondary education. This means that you should double-check Social Security numbers, names (including correct spelling), and birthdates; please also be sure to refer to the student in a consistent fashion (e.g., not James Smith one year and Jim Smith the next). Also please be careful with the field for the student's status (#19 for UB and UBMS; #17 for VUB), making sure that participants are not listed as "new" in two consecutive reports. Remember that, as explained in the instructions (page 2), you should continue to report on prior participants for specified periods after their departure from the project. If you are reporting on a prior-year participant, you should not show that he or she received services in the specific service fields (#53-63 and 69-86 for UB and UBMS; #25-53 for VUB) during the 2006-07 budget period.

Please also check carefully all date fields, grade at entry (field #33 for UB and UBMS), target school codes (field #13 for UB and UBMS), and postsecondary institution codes (fields #93 and #94 for UB and UBMS; #59 and #60 for VUB). Please be aware of logical relationships among fields #34-36 for UB and UBMS, concerning students' progression from grade to grade; these relationships are discussed in the FAQs.

We strongly encourage you to use the Department's Participant Data Collection Tool (available by link from the TRIO Web page listed below). The Tool may help increase the accuracy of your data submission because its internal checks limit you to valid responses for each field and highlight inconsistencies among your data entries. Please note that the Help Desk will not be able to answer questions about data-management software other than the Tool (e.g., Blumen); please contact your vendor should you need support for such software.

Submission via the Web: All Upward Bound projects must use the Web reporting feature to submit the 2006-07 performance report. The instructions for submitting the report and the links to the secured Web site maintained by our contractor will be available on November 1, 2007, at the following Web addresses:

http://www.ed.gov/programs/trioupbound/report.html
(Upward Bound; Veterans UB)

http://www.ed.gov/programs/triomathsci/report.html
(Upward Bound Math-Science)

From either of the links provided above:

1. Click on the following URL: https://trio.ed.gov/ub

2. Once at the contractor's Web site (entitled "Upward Bound Online Annual Performance Report for Program Year 2006-07"), you will need to register; you may do so well in advance of actual submittal of reports. So as to allow time to resolve any problems that might occur with registration, we ask you to register as early as possible.

   To register, after clicking on "First Time User? Register Here," you will enter the project director's first and last names and e-mail address and the project's PR award number (found on the Grant Award Notification). If this information matches the data that the Department currently has on file, a user ID and temporary password will be sent to the e-mail address on file. If discrepancies exist, you will be directed to a "Registration Failed" page; if necessary, your program specialist and the Help Desk will be sent an e-mail message requesting verification of data on the project. Verification will occur within 24 hours if the program specialist can readily confirm a change in project director or e-mail address, or up to three days if the program specialist has no prior knowledge of the change. You will be notified if confirmation cannot occur in short order, and you should contact your program specialist (who will also be attempting to reach you). Once the Help Desk has received verification from the program specialist, you will be notified to continue with registration.

3. Once you have your user ID and temporary password, you may enter them on the site in the top box of the left side of the page; click "Log in." You will be guided to select a new password and then to log in again.

   Your new password must be at least eight characters and include combinations of the following:

   • at least one English uppercase character (A-Z)
   • at least one English lowercase character (a-z)
   • at least one numeric number (0-9)
   • at least one non-alphanumeric special character (e.g., !, @, #, $, &, *, %, /, +, -)

   After three failed attempts to access the Web site, you will be locked out and must call the Help Desk to obtain access. If you forget your password, a "forgot password" link is available or you may call or e-mail the Help Desk for assistance (see telephone number and e-mail address for Help Desk below).

4. Follow the instructions for completing and submitting the report via the World Wide Web.

We have pre-populated most of the data fields in Section I of the report to reduce your reporting burden. Please review the pre-populated fields, including the project director's e-mail address, and revise and update these fields as needed. You may change the data in all fields except for the project's PR Award Number, the Grantee Name, and the Report Period.

Faxing Section I: In addition to submitting your APR via the Web, you must submit, via fax, a signed copy of Section I of the report form that certifies that the information submitted electronically is readily verifiable and that the information reported is accurate and complete. After completing the entire report on the Web, you will be able to print a copy of the completed form. Section I of the printed report form will include signature lines for the project director and the certifying official for the grantee institution/agency. Once the form has been signed, please fax in a signed copy of Section I only of the report form to 540-301-0444. Please do not fax in a copy of the entire report.

Help Desk: If you encounter technical problems accessing the Web site, downloading the UB Tools, or using the Web application, please contact the Help Desk by either telephone at (703) 846-8248 or e-mail at UBWEB@cbmiweb.com. Please note that the Help Desk will try to contact projects within 24 hours of receiving the telephone call or e-mail. The Help Desk will be available to respond to your questions from November 1 to December 31, 2007. During peak times, from November 20-30, 2007, it may take longer for you to receive a response. Thus, I encourage you to prepare and submit your performance report as soon as you have collected complete data. If for any reason you need to revise your performance report data after it has been submitted, please do not fax in the corrections. You should contact the Help Desk for information on revising your report and re-submitting it electronically.

Thank you for the time and effort you dedicate to performance reporting each year and your commitment to providing complete and accurate data. Please retain the source documents in a readily accessible form so that they can be verified during an on-site visit. If you have questions regarding the performance report requirements, please contact your program specialist directly. To ascertain your program specialist's name, telephone number, and e-mail address, please visit http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/staffdirectory-cupt.html.

Please check the TRIO Web site (www.ed.gov/ope/trio) regularly to follow the revision and clearance process for the APR for 2007-08; we will welcome your comments on the APR during this process.

Sincerely,

Geraldine G. Smith
Team Leader
College and University Preparation Team
Federal TRIO Programs

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