The Five Colleges of Ohio is pleased to announce a new CODEX Microgrant program offering awards of up to $1,000 in reimbursable expenses to support activities designed to promote students’ critical engagement with and through digital technology. Preference is being given to teams that have participated in the Ohio Five CODEX Summer Institute to help support continued development of courses and projects developed over the summer. In the Spring semester, the call for applications will be extended to all Ohio Five faculty, staff, and students, pending the availability of remaining funds.
Applications will be reviewed three times per year by a committee of members from each college that includes at least one teaching faculty member, librarian, and educational technologist. Applications will be reviewed as they are received, and a funding decision will be made within 30 days of the submission deadline.
Types of Eligible Activities
- Hiring a student research assistant to support a digital research project (faculty-led or student-faculty collaborations)
- Equipment or software necessary to advance a digital project
- Training or professional development resulting in progress towards new digital skill acquisition relevant to the course or project
- Conduct an independent student digital research project that requires funding for equipment, software licenses, or other project-related fees. This may include stipends for faculty mentors, but not for students when the project involves credit-bearing coursework
- Support for presenting on digital scholarship or digital pedagogy at conferences, symposia, or institutes
Proposal Guidelines
Proposals should be 2-3 pages in length and can be submitted in PDF format to codex-proposals@ohio5.org. Please follow the outline below when developing your proposal and include the section titles in your proposal:
Contact Information
Please list the names, email addresses, and institutions of the project’s main contact, along with any collaborators on the course or project.
Description of the Proposed Activity
Describe how the proposed activity demonstrates critical engagement with technology. What impact will this activity have on a project you are working on, or plan to work on, a course you are teaching, or research you are conducting?
Work Plan
Describe the steps you will take to implement and monitor the proposed activity.
Timeline
Describe the timeline for implementation of the proposed activity. For example, if you are proposing hiring an assistant to work on the project, when do you anticipate posting the position, hiring that person, and what is the anticipated duration of their work? We recognize that plans may change during the course of the proposed activity, but please be as specific as possible.
Budget
Describe any anticipated expenses and their associated costs.
Success Criteria
Describe how you will assess the effectiveness of the proposed activity once complete.
Responsibilities
- Following completion of the proposed activity, microgrant recipients are expected to submit a brief report of 2-3 pages that addresses the elements below. For projects extending beyond a full semester, an interim report must be provided at the end of the current academic year.:
- How the proposed activity was implemented, noting any differences from how it was described in the original proposal
- How completion of the activity impacted a project you are working on, or plan to work on.
- An updated budget showing original budgeted expenses, actual expenses, and remaining balance
- An evaluation of the activity based on the success criteria described in the original proposal
- Additional comments or lessons learned from your experience with the proposed activity
- Be willing to present on the activities supported by this microgrant at institutional or consortial meetings, symposia, or conferences if asked to do so.
- Comply with all applicable copyright laws in the creation and distribution of any digital materials or components resulting from your course or project, and make a commitment to release any digital materials and/or data available openly under a Creative Commons License for educational use to the greatest extent possible.
Questions
For questions or consultation on proposal development, feel free to contact CODEX Co-Directors Megan Mitchell (meganm@ohio5.org) or Heather Fitz Gibbon (hfitzgibbon@wooster.edu).
Ohio Five CODEX Microgrants are funded by a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to the Five Colleges of Ohio for the purpose of exploring the impacts of open digital pedagogy on student learning outcomes.
