Online Summer Instructional Development Professorships (Online SIDP)

Extended deadline: proposals due by noon May 3, 2010. Late or incomplete proposals will not be accepted.

Work on Online SIDPs must be completed by August 15.

This year through a competitive grant process OID and the Faculty Instructional Development Committee (FIDC) will award Online Summer Instructional Development Professorships (Online SIDP) to faculty working on innovative instructional projects for online courses. The Professorships are intended to support instructional development that has the potential to improve the quality of teaching at UND and goes beyond normal course development for online courses. Designed to allow faculty to work full-time on instructional development for four weeks during the summer, these Professorships provide a salary stipend of $4000.  The course that is the focus of the proposed project must be offered as an official online course during the next academic year.  The Faculty Instructional Development Committee (FIDC) reviews Online SIDP proposals.

Eligibility

All UND faculty are eligible to apply for a SIDP (GTAs and visiting professors are not eligible). Faculty must commit to spending four weeks of full-time summer work on their projects,  focusing on a course or courses that will be offered online the following academic year (confirmation of this status with a signature from the applicant's Dean is required and the applicant is responsible for obtaining the signature on the cover sheet below prior to submitting their proposal). Prior to the development of your proposal we encourage you to discuss the project with your department chair and to confirm that the course under consideration is eligible for the program. 

 Note: If you have a Final Report overdue, you are ineligible for additional OID funding until the report is submitted.

Criteria

Projects will be evaluated according to the following four criteria:

1. Rationale for the Proposed Work is Well-Established
What is the project’s significance to the curriculum? Does it address a significant need or opportunity? How frequently will this course be taught? What is the estimated enrollment?

2. Proposed Work Requires a Time Investment Beyond Routine Planning
What work will you do? How much time appears necessary for this work? Is the work above and beyond “routine” course/curriculum planning? Is this the sort of project best tackled with an uninterrupted period of four weeks of full-time work?

3. Project Pedagogy
Will this project have a high impact on student learning? How does this project relate to your pedagogical approach and philosophy of teaching? Is your proposed project consistent with best practices in higher education? Is this project particularly innovative? Can this project serve as a model of practice for others?

4. Assessment Plans are Clearly Described and Reasonable
How are you going to evaluate the success of your work? How will you know the proposed project has met the need or opportunity identified in the earlier section? How are you going to assess student learning that occurs as a result of your project?

Proposal Format Proposals should be clear, complete & well organized with the following three sections (in this order): I. Cover Sheet. Please copy the template from our website and paste it into your word processing program, then enter the information and print it from your computer.   NOTE: A SIGNATURE FROM YOUR DEAN CONFIRMING THAT THE COURSE UNDER CONSIDERATION WILL BE OFFERED ONLINE THROUGH DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE FOLLOWING ACADEMIC YEAR IS REQUIRED ON THE COVERSHEET. IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE APPLICANT TO OBTAIN THE DEAN’S SIGNATURE PRIOR TO SUBMITTING THE APPLICATION BY THE DEADLINE (noon, May 3, 2010). II. A Project Description that addresses the following four criteria listed above. Please use these headings to organize this section. 1. Rationale Clearly describe the need or opportunity addressed by the proposed SIDP Project. Provide all relevant background information. What needs or opportunities will you be addressing? What course or courses will you be working on? Who normally takes the course? How often is it offered? How many students generally enroll? Is the course already part of the regular curriculum in your department? If not, what is its status vis-à-vis the department, college, and university curriculum committees? The Committee needs these details to put your proposal in context. 2. Investment of Time Detail your work plan. Clearly describe what you will do with your time during these 4 weeks of summer. How does the work you propose go beyond "normal course preparation"? What activities will you engage in? What products will you produce? 3. Pedagogy Clearly describe how the proposed project will impact student learning. How does this project relate to your pedagogical approach and philosophy of teaching? What is new or innovative about the pedagogy? How does the proposed work reflect best teaching practices (for example do you incorporate active learning and engagement strategies? do you use a variety of graded and ungraded assessments of student learning?) What strategies are incorporated to promote active learning, student engagement, higher order thinking (ala Bloom’s taxonomy) or other known strategies for enhancing learning? 4. Assessment How will you evaluate your work? (For example asking colleagues to review a syllabus and course materials and or writing a reflective self-assessment of the course before, during, and after you teach it, etc.) How will you know the proposed project has met the need or opportunity identified in the earlier section? How will you assess the impact of the proposed work on student learning? What direct and indirect assessment methods will give you meaningful data on student learning in the course? III. A Supporting Letter from your Chair, showing a clear understanding of the project and the way it will contribute to the instructional goals of the department, and confirming that it will be offerred through Distance Education in the next academic year. (If you are the department chair, ask for a letter of support from your dean.)

Application and Review Procedure

Proposals for Summer 2010 professorships are due by noon on May 3, 2010. Send or bring the application to the Office of Instructional Development, O'Kelly 300, Stop 7104. Awardees are selected by the Faculty Instructional Development Committee. To discuss ideas and draft proposals before submitting a final proposal, call OID at (7-4233) or e-mail at oid@und.nodak.edu .

Final Reports

Summer Professorship recipients are asked to file a brief (one paragraph) Preliminary Report on their activity upon completion of their 4 weeks of summer work. More comprehensive Final Reports are due within six months after their project is completed. In some cases, that deadline can be extended further to allow for a more complete report. Final Report Guidelines are generally the same as for other OID grants.  A copy of the final report will also be submitted to the Division of Continuing Education.