PRESTO Guidance for Submitting PIs

The Project Requests Online (PRESTO) is the submission platform to request one or more of the NSF Lower Atmosphere Observing Facilities (LAOF). The LAOF include facilities managed by the NCAR/Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) and the University of Wyoming, and are part of the Facilities for Atmospheric Research and Education (FARE) program.

PRESTO is managed and maintained by the EOL in collaboration with the XSEDE Resource Allocation Service (XRAS). PRESTO guides investigators interested in requesting LAOF through a set of online forms to provide required documentation. Listed below are step-by-step instructions to prepare the request information, access the online system, and submit the facility request forms.
 

University of Wyoming King Air Update

With the development of the Next Generation King Air, the University of Wyoming will be unable to support any flight requests for a 12 to 18 month period beginning in May of 2022. This includes projects that utilize the UWKA or projects requesting the WCR on the NSF/NCAR C-130.

 

Step-by-step requet guidance

Step 1: Create an XSEDE user account
Step 2: Prepare PDFs to upload
Step 3: Access the LAOF Facility Request forms
Step 4: Provide form question responses
Step 5: Save and continue editing
Step 6: Submit the Facility Request form 
 

Step 1

Create an Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) user account

  • Before accessing the PRESTO Facility Request forms, an XSEDE user account must be created (unless you already have an account).
  • Go to the XSEDE User Portal.
    • PRESTO is using the authentication services of XSEDE, which is an NSF-funded program.1
  • If you have just created an XSEDE account, you will need to log back into xsede.org and accept the XSEDE Terms of Use prior to being able to log into the PRESTO system.
  • Your XSEDE credentials are the same credentials you will use to log into PRESTO.

If you need to update your existing XSEDE account information, i.e., affiliation, email, phone, follow these steps:

  • Sign in to https://portal.xsede.org
  • Select 'Profile'
  • Select 'Edit Profile'
  • Next to 'Organization', use the dropdown menu to select your current organization
  • Click 'Save Changes' at the bottom of the form
     

Step 2

Prepare required and supplemental documents

Prepare the following required and supplemental documents for upload to PRESTO based on the NSF-determined Track. Please note that PRESTO only accepts documents for upload that are in PDF format.

Track 1 | Education & Outreach

Prepare the following required PDFs

  • Project Description (5-page limit)
    Describe the education or outreach activity that will be conducted, the integration with existing or planned activities, and a rough estimate of the number of people that will participate in the education or outreach activities using a LAOF-sponsored facility.
  • Target of opportunity (3-page limit)
    If the educational and outreach request is for a research aircraft, the PI must provide a supplemental document of up to 3 pages describing the “target of opportunity” flight(s) and the plan for integration with the existing field campaign or test flights.
  • Data Management Plan (no page limit)
    All proposals must describe plans for data management and sharing of the products of research. PIs must submit data obtained using LAOF assets to NCAR for archiving no later than one year from the date of completion of the project. Data archiving at NCAR will be provided via NCAR-hosted Geoscience Data Exchange for NSF (GDEX), and emails regarding data archiving can be directed to gdex@ucar.edu. If extenuating circumstances require an extension to the 1-year deadline, a request for an extension must be sent to the FARE Program Director. Investigators are encouraged to reference the AGS data management guidance while drafting their data management plan: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/geo-data-policies/ags/index.jsp.

Track 2 | Single Facility Requests

Prepare the following required PDFs

  • Project Description (15-page limit)
    Describe the project to be conducted as well as the role and method of use of the/LAOF assets.
  • Management Plan (2-page limit)
    The Management Plan should discuss specific factors related to the use of the LAOF-supported facility, such as who will operate the instruments and the expected data availability (e.g., timeline and what constitutes a finished product).
  • Data Management Plan (no page limit)
    All proposals must describe plans for data management and sharing of the products of research. PIs must submit data obtained using LAOF assets to NCAR for archiving no later than one year from the date of completion of the project. Data archiving at NCAR will be provided via NCAR-hosted Geoscience Data Exchange for NSF (GDEX), and emails regarding data archiving can be directed to gdex@ucar.edu. If extenuating circumstances require an extension to the 1-year deadline, a request for an extension must be sent to the FARE Program Director. Investigators are encouraged to reference the AGS data management guidance while drafting their data management plan: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/geo-data-policies/ags/index.jsp.

Track 3 | Field Campaigns 

Prepare the following required PDFs

  • Project Description (20-page limit)
    The Project Description should present an integrated plan that discusses how the research will be conducted, including a description of the experimental techniques, and the distribution and use of observing systems and platforms, efforts for education, outreach and plans for addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Additionally, the PI should state and justify the optimal time frame for field operations. The Project Description must contain a section on results from any field campaign that has focused on the same and/or similar topic(s), including campaigns conducted by other researchers and groups.
  • Management Plan (5-page limit)
    In 5 pages or less, provide a Management Plan and a Science Traceability Matrix. The Management Plan should include, but not be limited to, discussion of the management structure for the campaign, how deployment decisions will be made, potential integration with other observations, instrument operation, and expected data availability timeline (not to exceed one year from the date of completion of the field deployment).
  • Roles and Responsibilities (2-page limit)
    For all campaigns with 2 or more subawards, each institution must provide a document of up to 2 pages in length detailing the specific role of each institution, who is involved in the project, what instruments they will operate (if any), and what they individually expect to accomplish.
  • Data Management Plan (no page limit)
    All proposals must describe plans for data management and sharing of the products of research. PIs must submit data obtained using LAOF assets to NCAR for archiving no later than one year from the date of completion of the project. Data archiving at NCAR will be provided via NCAR-hosted Geoscience Data Exchange for NSF (GDEX), and emails regarding data archiving can be directed to gdex@ucar.edu. If extenuating circumstances require an extension to the 1-year deadline, a request for an extension must be sent to the LAOF Program Director. Investigators are encouraged to reference the AGS data management guidance while drafting their data management plan: https://www.nsf.gov/geo/geo-data-policies/ags/index.jsp.
  • Science Overview Presentation (6-page limit)
    The slides should summarize the experiment design, scientific objectives, and scientific hypotheses to be tested during the campaign and will be used to introduce the project in a neutral and unbiased way to the Observing Facilities Assessment Panel. These slides are not intended to be a holistic view of the project but an overview to initiate a discussion. The limited number of slides is intentional due to time constraints during the discussion session.
  • List of publications resulting from previous LAOF support (no page limit)
    • Provide all relevant publications for the PI and Co-PIs.
    • Provide relevant publications from the last five years for the investigator team.
    • Group publications from the same campaign together, with a header of the project name and year, LAOF used, publication citation, and digital object identifier. If there are no publications, upload a document indicating so.

Prepare the following supplementary PDFs; they are not required but helpful

  • Letters of Support / Collaboration (no page limit)
  • Site Survey (no page limit)
  • Completed the appropriate LAOF Aircraft User-Supplied Airborne Instrumentation Form for each instrument (no page limit). Note the forms are specific to either the NSF/NCAR aircraft or the UWKA aircraft.
  • Flight Patterns, if different than what is included in the science proposal (no page limit)
  • Additional facility information, if other relevant information as needed in PDF format that pertains to this request (no page limit)
     

Step 3 

Access the LAOF Facility Request forms

  • Log in to PRESTO using your XSEDE credentials.
  • Select the LAOF Facility Request opportunity, this opportuntiy is for all Tracks.
  • You will then be directed to the LAOF Facility Request form page.
     

Step 4

Provide form question responses

  • Most responses are yes/no or short answers; the questions are very similar to past Facility Request forms.
  • For radio buttons, select one. 
  • For check boxes, select all that apply. 
  • Only PDFs are accepted where documents are uploaded.
  • You will have the opportunity to save work as you progress and come back to it at a later date by clicking the orange Save to Date button in the lower right corner.
  • You will be able to save and resume partially complete requests and access previously submitted requests.
  • If you need to edit the request, you can do so until the opportunity is closed, by clicking My Facility Requests in the upper left corner and then selecting Edit for the appropriate request.
  • Questions with an icon of a red circle and exclamation point inside indicate the question is required.

 

Step 5

Save and continue editing

  • Be sure to click Save to Date frequently and before you want to exit the system.
  • You may continue to complete the form or edit your existing responses after selecting Save to Date.
  • To continue editing at a later date, log into PRESTO with your credential and select My Facility Requests in the upper left and then click the Edit icon next to your Facility Request.
     

Step 6

Submit the Facility Request form

  • Once the form is completed to your satisfaction, and all of the required fields have a response, click the green Submit button at the bottom of the page.
  • A notification will be sent to the provided email indicating the Facility Request has been submitted.

 

Go to the Projects Request Online (PRESTO) to complete the Facility Request form.

For further assistance, please contact the PRESTO Team: eol-presto@ucar.edu

 

1The eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) is an NSF-funded program (Award Number: 1053575) to develop an unprecedented, comprehensive, advanced digital services cyberinfrastructure (CI) to enable transformative open science and engineering research and innovative training and educational programs. The goal of XSEDE is to offer users tremendous capabilities with maximum productivity, enabling them to advance and share knowledge across domains. The XSEDE architecture, engineering, operations, support, and education activities are co-designed by an unparalleled team to achieve this goal, far surpassing TeraGrid in usability, reliability, capability, performance, and security, and ultimately, in user productivity and science impact. XSEDE will enable scientists, engineers, and educators to exploit powerful digital services and social networking environments to support knowledge exchange and advance understanding across domains.

follow us