Just got through working on a grant application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (or SSHRC, as it is known). SSHRC is famous for its horrible on-line application process, and even more so for the fervour with which they defend it. I won't go in to all of that now, but here's an example of one of the many irritations you face when you apply:
What you see below is the space where you suggest a referee. Each entry is divided into many separate fields: three for the phone number alone. This means that you cannot just cut and paste a telephone number. You have to enter country code, area code, and number separately.
For each person you list, there are (depending on how many lines their address contains) twenty fields to fill. And these are totally unneeded. Nobody is ever contacted by telephone or fax.
But guess what happens if you don't fill out any one of the fields . . . you get an error message and cannot submit your application.
Oh and by the way, can you tell by looking that if your suggested referee doesn't live in Canada or the US, you must list the city not under City, but as a separate line in the address section. That one kept me going on an infinite loop as I kept getting an incomprehensible error message.
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