Note: this program was previously named the Computing Technology Venture Fund. Under its new name, it now supports a variety of program initiatives. The Faculty Innovation Program is one of these initiatives.

Faculty Innovation Program

Request for Proposals 2009

Deadline for proposal submission: May 6, 2009

Download Faculty Innovation Program RFP 2009 (PDF)

The Faculty Innovation Program eagerly solicits proposals from Dartmouth faculty who wish to pursue innovations in their teaching using information technology. The Program encourages any regular member of the Dartmouth teaching faculty (tenure track or regular lecturer appointment) to apply for a grant that will enable him or her to undertake a major curricular innovation in a specific course over the next year.

The goal of the Faculty Innovation Program is to enable faculty to meet significant teaching challenges. Here are some examples of such challenges:

Are you looking for better ways to work with images in your course?
Are you seeking a better way to enable your students to review class sessions?
Do you find that it is a challenge to cover all the material during class time?
Do you find yourself explaining the same thing over and over during office hours?
Do you sometimes travel but still want to conduct class as scheduled?
Are there ways to incorporate work on videos or posters in a course?
Are you seeking ways to be able to use geographic information in your course?
Are you looking for better ways for your students to collaborate and work as teams?
Are you looking for ways to better engage your students during lectures?
Would your course work better if more of the resources were in digital format?

The goal of the Faculty Innovation Program is to provide the components and support needed to enable faculty to undertake projects that meet these kinds of significant teaching challenges. By working with Curricular Computing’s learning technologists, faculty can identify strategies, pedagogical practices, and technology that can be used to meet the challenge.

Awards are typically in the range of $1 thousand to $10 thousand. Projects that are significant in scope and impact may receive consideration for additional funding through special arrangements. Grant funds can cover items such as:

Costs of digitizing contents (images, video, etc.)
Specialized equipment
Wages for student assistants
Equipment for students

Grant funds cannot be used to purchase laptops or smart phones for faculty, nor can they support summer salaries or leave terms.

Recipients of Innovation Program grants may count on the support of Curricular Computing’s learning technologists to provide support throughout all phases of the project, including preparation of the proposal. These services include, but are not restricted to:

Assistance in the preparation of a proposal
Assistance in identifying candidate technologies for the project
Assistance in designing and carrying out an assessment of the project
Training and assistance on the use of the technology for a project
Assistance with the preparation of digital content
Vendor negotiations for license and equipment acquisition
Assistance for the students in the course
Media production services
Advice and assistance with equipment, such as digital cameras, scanners, and classroom technologies

The Curricular Computing learning technologists:

Joshua Kim, Joshua.M.Kim@Dartmouth.edu, 6-0018
Barbara Knauff, Barbara.Knauff@Dartmouth.edu, 6-0786

Guidelines for proposals

Any regular member of the Dartmouth teaching faculty (with tenure-track or lecturer appointment) may submit a proposal. Proposals must be written and submitted by the faculty member who will be using the innovation directly in his or her course(s) and who will serve as the principal investigator for the project. Proposals must specify the academic term(s) and the departmental course number (e.g., English 67 in the Winter 2010 term) in which Innovation Program resources will be used. The use of the Innovation Program resources in a Dartmouth course must be within a year of the proposal’s date (hence no later than Spring term 2010).

Proposals will be evaluated against these criteria:

the project promotes active learning for the students;
the project will enable the faculty member to meet a well-defined and significant educational challenge;
the project will directly support and benefit student learning;
the proposed information technology is appropriate to meet the challenge;
the proposal is based on a pioneering concept that can be used as a practical model for other Dartmouth courses.

Proposals that can address more than one of these points will receive priority.

Recipients of Innovation Program awards must agree to conduct an assessment of the innovation at the end of the term of its implementation. This can be in the form of a short survey of the students as well as the faculty member’s own impressions of the effectiveness of the innovation. We ask program participants to present on their project at a Teaching with Technology workshop.

Proposals

Faculty work with a Curricular Computing learning technologist to prepare a project proposal. All project proposals must include specific and realistic schedules for realization and implementation. The proposal should be no longer than five pages in length. A proposal should include information on these points:

Name of the faculty member(s) proposing the project;
Names of the project team members
Course title, department, course number, and term in which the technology will be used
A description of the teaching challenge the project will address
A description of the technology and its proposed use
A description of the assessment that will be conducted
A short budget sketch for the project.

Proposals are due by May 6, 2009.

They should be submitted in Word or PDF format to Malcolm Brown, Director of Academic Computing, via email malcolm.brown@dartmouth.edu.

Funding will be decided by means of competitive proposal approval by the Advisory Council. The Advisory Council consists of faculty representatives, the VP/CIO, the Director of DCAL, a senior Dartmouth administrator, the staff of Academic Computing, and the Library.

If you have questions about the awards process, copyright, or any other aspect of the Faculty Innovation Program, please contact Malcolm Brown at 6-1349 or via email at malcolm.brown@dartmouth.edu.

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