Announcement

iCampus is now soliciting research proposals for 2005-2006

September 9, 2004

To MIT faculty and other Principal Investigators:

Project iCampus, the MIT-Microsoft Alliance for research in educational technology, is now soliciting research proposals for 2005-2006.

We envision funding a couple of projects that run for two years, each with a budget of $200-400K per year. Project work will be expected to begin in January 2005. Proposals should contain explicit milestones for each year, and second-year funding will be contingent on a successful project review.

Submissions are open to members of the MIT community only, and each proposal must be submitted by a designated principal investigator who is authorized to hold PI status on MIT research contracts.

Note on student proposals: The information here does not pertain to iCampus student proposals. We will be issuing a separate RFP for student proposals later this fall.

Evaluation criteria

Proposals can address any area of educational technology as it relates to university education. For this funding cycle we are mostly interested in work that can be expected to demonstrate an impact beyond MIT.

Here are specific criteria we will be using in evaluating proposals:

Educational impact: The project must be designed to demonstrate impact beyond just MIT by the end of two years, and the proposal must address how this impact would be achieved. The project plan must include one-year milestones that demonstrate the potential for this impact.
Educational and technological innovation: The project should demonstrate genuine innovation in pedagogy. iCampus encourages projects that are based on technology innovation, but technology innovation alone does not qualify for iCampus funding.
Implementation plan: The project must have a plan with convincingly paced milestones and concrete deliverables, and the key personnel should have track records as educators and technical innovators.
Synergy with ongoing iCampus activities: New projects need not be related to current iCampus initiatives (see http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/), but applicants should be aware of current projects, and proposals should discuss potential opportunities for synergy with these initiatives when appropriate.

Open development and easy dissemination

iCampus strongly encourages projects whose results can be broadly disseminated without restriction, in the tradition of open academic research. In evaluating proposals for funding, we will be mindful of potential obstacles to development or dissemination that might arise from confidentiality requirements or from copyrights or patents.

For example, projects that require using restrictive patents (even MIT patents) will be problematic, and project developers should try to avoid such situations. Similarly, projects that propose to modify closed or proprietary source code may impede the goal of widespread dissemination of research results, and may also encumber students and other researchers. We strongly encourage software projects to disseminate their results freely and openly, under a model like the one used for MIT's Kerberos software.

Submitting proposals

Proposals should be submitted as letters sent as email to icampus@mit.edu. Proposals are due by October 4, 2004.

Your letter should describe the impact and promise of the proposed work, and it should specifically address the criteria 1-4 above, item by item. We are not asking for formal budgets at this stage, although you should give an indication of the level of resources required for the project (number of people, special resources or equipment, and so on). We will contact you for further details if your proposal is a strong candidate for funding.

Please contact me, or anyone else at iCampus (see http://icampus.mit.edu/tools/contact.shtml) if you would like to discuss proposal ideas in advance of submitting a letter.

For the iCampus steering committee,

Hal Abelson
hal@mit.edu
617-253-5856

ec: iCampus Joint Steering Committee

MIT iCampus * The MIT-Microsoft Alliance http://icampus.mit.edu
Stata 32-394 * Cambridge, MA 02139 * phone 617.253.0765 *