Entry Status for Sponsors
The access to project status information is now controlled by the zFairs software.
Therefore the summary and detailed information you're accustomed to seeing on the active
pages of the old NJRSF site will no longer be available. After you login as a teacher on
the new TNJSF website, at tnjsf.zfairs.com, you should
see choices to view status for your students' projects.
The zFairs system also makes extensive use of emails for reporting status, so please contact us if
you think you are not receiving emails. You should put tnjsf@terraed.org in your contacts to make that
problem less likely.
Signing Student Forms
Signing will be FAR easier if you students use the FAVR system. If they do, then the signing will take place within that system, and no longer involves Adobe digital signatures.
Please use a digital ID signature!. Signatures that place images on the forms are readily faked
by anybody. For that reason, we want digital ID signatures (ie: a signature box created by Adobe Reader or Acrobat, and traceable to an email address) or, for sponsors, the signing ability on zFairs. It is easier
for us if you use digital IDs, since the zfairs signatures are not standard, parseable signatures, and do not
trace to an email address.
Since we are finding that the digital ID requirement is sometimes difficult for parents, we have decided
to accept image signatures on 1B.
How to construct a digital ID
-
On any of the forms, in Adobe Reader or Acrobat, click on the orange bar on the field you need to sign. (DO NT USE "Fill & Sign"!) If you
do not yet have a digital ID, it will ask you if you want to configure a digital ID.
- On the next form, the easiest option is "create a new digital ID.
- choose how you want to save it. On a Windows computer you can choose Windows Certificate Store, or "save to file."
- Then you create the certificate by filling out the fields on the next screen. Enter your name and email. The organization name and unit can be anything that makes sense to you, even just "parent." Leave the key algorithm and Use For fields as they are ("2048-bit RSA" and "Digital Signatures."
- click save.
- Once you have done this, you will be back at the "Sign with a Digital ID" screen, where you can choose
the ID you just constructed to sign the form.
- Once you have done this, whenever you click on a signature field, you will see this Digital ID
there ready to use. So you only have to do this once.
Viewing Student Form Status
Again, using FAVR is far easier. Your FAVR dashboard will summarize the status of all your projects which are using FAVR
We have put in place (Dec 8) a mechanism for you to view the form status for your students. You can go to https://tnjsf.org/cgi-bin/zReport.pl, and put in the entry number (e.g. SR-036, or just 36),
The system will email you a code (good for 30 minutes)), which you can enter on the next screen
to obtain a formatted report, detailing the forms which have been reviewed and any problems.
I note this isn't as satisfactory as the immediate feedback on form validation that the students have had in
previous years, since it depends on manual processing by the committee, but in the absence of form validation
on zFairs, it is at least something we can provide. The SRC review, therefore, occurs now in two stages.
The first stage is the validation of the forms. When the forms pass that validation, which checks for required fields, signatures, and (in some cases) appropriate content,
the project is then entered on the queue for the SRC Review, which is focused on the scientific content, safety, and appropriate supervision.
You will receive an email for each project when the forms validation has been completed, with or without approval.
If the forms do not pass validation, the problems must be addressed before they can be reviewed by the SRC.