About

In response to planning for the Fall 2021/Winter 2022 academic terms and to continue innovative cross-institutional collaboration with a focus on improving student learning, Carleton University and University of Ottawa are pleased to offer a new round of the Shared Online Projects Initiative (SOPI).

The goal of the initiative is to encourage instructors across the two institutions to join their efforts in developing collaboratively online modules and/or courses, as well as teaching activities suitable for bimodal/HyFlex delivery, which can be shared, adopted, adapted, and reused at one of the participating institutions. The initiative will increase institutional flexibility in online course and program delivery, allow instructors to engage in collaborative pedagogical innovations, and provide high quality learning experiences for students at the participating institutions.

Requirements

Online modules and/or courses, and teaching activities suitable for bimodal/HyFlex delivery need to be developed in collaboration between instructors of the two universities and have to be offered in the Fall 2021 and/or Winter 2022 academic terms.

For the purposes of this project, bimodal/HyFlex instruction is understood as a synchronous mode of teaching that includes two learning spaces, one physical space in the classroom and the other via virtual/distance learning.

While grant recipients will retain intellectual property rights over any online modules/course/ teaching activities developed, they will agree to release their projects with an open license, such as a Creative Common license (CC BY or CC BY-NC), which allows the other university to freely retain, copy, modify, remix, and/or redistribute the content.

Eligibility

Full and part-time faculty members, instructors, and contract instructors are eligible.

We are seeking proposals from a variety of disciplines.

Part-time faculty and contract instructors need to provide a written approval for the proposed project from their department heads.

Award

Monetary award for bimodal/HyFlex and online modules/course development

The grant through this initiative provides funding of up to $8,000 per instructor for the development of online modules, online courses, and teaching activities suitable for bimodal/HyFlex delivery. The grant excludes the purchase of technology hardware such as laptops or computers. If an instructor requires additional funding for technological supplies, please inquire within your home institution.

Non-monetary award for bimodal/HyFlex and online modules/course development

In addition to a monetary award, grant recipients will receive support from instructional designers, educational technologists and librarians from the participating institutions during the design and development phase of their online projects.

Teaching Online Courses Developed through the Shared Project Initiative

Each of the grant recipients who will teach or co-teach these newly developed bimodal/HyFlex and/or online courses/modules/activities in the Fall 2021 and/or Winter 2022 academic terms, will be paid according to the existing pay rules, regulations and collective agreements of their home institutions.

Proposal Process

Proposals need to be submitted to BOTH the Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) at tls@carleton.ca and the Vice Provost (Academic Affairs) at viceprovost-acad@uottawa.ca no later than midnight on May 21, 2021.

Successful applicants will be notified by June 10, 2021.

Proposals should be up to two pages long and have to to include:

  1. Course code and course title, level, description of the course, and approximate number of enrolled students
  2. Names and contact information of all instructors involved in the collaborative project, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each of the collaborators.
  3. Timelines for project development, keeping in mind that all projects will have reduced development times (“course express model”) as compared with a usual, regular new online course development.
  4. A budget detailing how the grant money will be spent.
  5. A statement of the instructors’ interest in collaborating with others and sharing course materials under CC license.
  1. Part-time faculty and contract instructors need to provide a written approval for the proposed project from their department heads.

Previous SOPI Recipients

A total of 17 projects were funded in Fall 2020 and 13 in Winter 2021. Find the full list of recipients here.