Virtual Prototyping of Autonomy-Enabled Ground Systems (VIPR-GS)

VIPR-GS Faculty Back of House

• Publication acknowledgment statement
  Include the following acknowledgment statement on all VIPR-GS funded publications:

  • Acknowledgment: This work was supported by Clemson University’s Virtual Prototyping of Autonomy Enabled Ground Systems (VIPR-GS), under Cooperative Agreement W56HZV-21-2-0001 with the US Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC).
• Publication OPSEC review
  OPSEC review is required prior to any publication outside the GVSC sponsor or the Clemson project team

  • OPSEC requests are submitted through your GVSC project stakeholder (GVSC quad partner)
  • Copy the following people on all OPSEC requests:
    • Jeff Linden (rlinden@clemson.edu)
    • Karen Schihl (karen.l.schihl.civ@army.mil)
    • Thomas Skorupa (thomas.m.skorupa.civ@army.mil)
    • Andrea Simon (andrea.m.simon.civ@army.mil)
  • All OPSEC requests should be made no later than four (4) weeks prior to your requirement

  You should never publish anything other than Distribution Statement A
  You need to make changes to your publication and request additional review if your OPSEC review results in anything other than Distribution Statement A
• Publication distribution statement
  Distribution Statement A

  • Prior to OPSEC approval, submit the document with the statement below in the footer.
    "DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. OPSEC # (Pending, NOT approved for Release)"
    
    
  • Replace the italicized text with your OPSEC number once the document is approved
    "DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release: distribution is unlimited. OPSEC # XXXXX"

  You should never publish anything that is anything other than "Distribution Statement A"
• Research associates/hiring

  All students retained against VIPR-GS need to be ‘hired’ into the VIPR-GS Center. We have had issues with departments hiring the students and VIPR-GS learning about it after the fact).

  • All VIPR-GS Center GRA students will be hired on a 12-month basis across the center
  • All VIPR-GS Center GRA students hiring will be capped at a rate of $28k/year

  Based on the removal of the DFARS 252.204-7000, Disclosure of Information clause, from the contract, students from all non-embargoed countries are welcome to support our research efforts.

  However, GVSC prefers to not actively recruit: 

  Students from embargoed nations Russia Belarus Cuba Iran Syria Iraq Ukraine People’s Republic of (North) Korea

  Students from China, especially with past relationships to the 7-sons Northwestern Polytechnical University Harbin Engineering University Harbin Institute of Technology Beihang University Beijing Institute of Technology Nanjing University of Science and Technology Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics

• Research associates training
  VIPR-GS requests Clemson Security Assurance Director to enroll all new team members in:

  • Clemson University Insider Threat Awareness
  • Clemson University CUI/CDI Overview
  • Information Security Awareness
• Procurement
  IT Procurement
  Per Clemson IT policy, ALL IT procurement must go through CCIT.
   
  Other Procurement
  Other procurement should be processed through your home department – after funding availability verification through VIPR-GS finance. VIPR-GS does not have a departmental P-card nor are we staffed to support all procurement efforts.
• Equipment/Property Book

  Tracking is required for all equipment greater than $5,000, including an annual requirement

  • VIPR-GS asset tagging
  • Property of Federal Government tag
  • Database includes:

  requester requisition order number purchase order number invoice number accounting project number principal investigator vendor purchase date

  asset name asset short description manufacturer model acquisition cost date received received by item serial number

  asset tag number responsible individual accountable individual location inventory date last inventoried by date retired disposition

• VIPR-GS Industry Quad Member Agreement

  Process

  1. When a PI identifies a company to participate as an Industry Quad Member, the PI will notify the VIPR Center of the primary point of contact, company name and address and include “VIPR-GS Industry Quad Member-Diligence Checks” in the subject line of the email; VIPR Center will notify the Office of Industry Contracts (cuic@clemson.edu).  The Office of Industry Contracts will complete a Secretary of State search (for domestic companies) and request a Restricted Party Screening from the Export Controls Office (for domestic and foreign companies). 
  2. The Office of Industry Contracts will notify the VIPR Center and the PI when diligence checks are complete, and then the PI can proceed with completing the project information on the Industry Quad Member Agreement, signing the acknowledgment, and requesting the company to sign.
  3. The PI will return the signed agreement to the VIPR Center and the VIPR Center will return the signed agreement to the Office of Industry Contracts (cuic@clemson.edu) to route for authorized signature for Clemson (currently either Sheila Lischwe or Tanju Karanfil since these agreements are supporting agreements for the VIPR-GS sponsored project).
  4. The Office of Industry Contracts will return a copy of the signed agreement to the VIPR Center and the PI and upload the signed agreements to InfoEd with a link back to the VIPR-GS project, so we have an institutional record of all companies participating as Industry Quad Members.
• GVSC Alliance Global Calendar

  GVSC has created a Ground Vehicle Alliance Global Calendar where they track all project meetings and events for all schools included in the GVSC Ground Vehicle Alliance. This calendar is available to GVSC research personnel, i.e. your GVSC quad members.

  All meetings, presentations, and VIPR research events where VIPR research will be discussed should be included on the calendar. This includes, but is not limited to outside meetings, seminars, and other presentations like GVSETS, SAE WCX, etc.

  Please invite the VIPR GS (viprgs@clemson.edu) calendar to all of your research team meetings, including the MS Teams or Zoom meeting links. This is as simple as adding the VIPR GS email (viprgs@clemson.edu) to your meeting invitations. This will update your meeting on our internal VIPR GS team calendar in Outlook and VIPR staff will then be able to upload the information to the GVSC Alliance Global Calendar. You will also need to update VIPR staff regarding any additions, changes, or deletions.

• Clemson’s data classification based on contract requirements

  Internal Use

  • The data is not Confidential or Restricted, but not generally available to the public.
  • A breach of confidentiality, integrity, or availability could have minimal adverse impact on the University’s mission, safety, finances, or reputation.

  As a result of the Internal Use data classification

  • University (CCIT) hosted cloud file storage is acceptable including:
  • CU Personal Drive, CU Department Drive, BoxSecure Folder, SecurePoint Site, Clemson Box, Clemson Microsoft OneDrive SharePoint, and Clemson Google Drive
• CCIT Endpoint Encryption Mandate

  Windows Desktops and Laptops:

  • Windows machines should have the Trend Full Disk Encryption Agent for Microsoft BitLocker installed. This agent uses the native Microsoft BitLocker to secure hard disk data while securely backing up the encryption key to the protected Trend Encryption database managed by OIS. The data is not Confidential or Restricted, but not generally available to the public

  Apple Desktops and Laptops:

  • Apple computers should have the Trend Full Disk Encryption Agent for Apple FileVault installed. This agent uses the native FileVault application to secure hard disk data while securely backing up the encryption key to the protected Trend Encryption database managed by OIS

  Linux Desktops and Laptops:

  • Existing Linux installations should have at minimum the /home and /swap partitions encrypted with a utility such as encrypt-fs. All new installations of Linux should use the full system encryption option available during installation. This feature is available on most major distributions, including Fedora and Ubuntu
• GVSC Human Research Protection Office (HRPO)

  Sarah P. Rule, MPH, CCRP
  Research Ethics and Compliance Officer
  Army Human Research Protections Office (AHRPO)
  7700 Arlington Blvd, Room 2SW428C
  Falls Church, VA 22042-5101
  Direct: 703-681-5778
  Mobile: 571-447-3208
  Email: sarah.p.rule.civ@mail.mil
  AHRPO Email: usarmy.ncr.hqda-otsg.mbx.otsg-ahrpo@mail.mil

  Also include Jane Gravely jane.d.gravely.civ@army.mil as the GVSC Human Protections Director

• Drug free workplace

  Clemson recognizes that it is unlawful to manufacture, distribute, dispense, possess, or use a controlled substance in the workplace

  As a condition of employment under VIPR-GS you:

  1. Will abide by the terms of the statement and Clemson’s drug use policies; and
  2. Must notify VIPR-GS Leadership in writing if you are convicted for a violation of a criminal drug statute occurring in the workplace and must do so no more than five calendar days after the conviction

  Clemson Policy