UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

Learning Technology Unit

Full Project Proposal Guidelines 2002/3

 

 

Guidelines for completion of full project proposal

 

The full proposal will be developed in collaboration with the LTU.  It will form the basis for the project documentation which will be used throughout the project and represents a binding agreement between the academic and the LTU. The proposal will take the form of a structured document with guidelines for each category as detailed below.

 

Please note: The Outline Proposal Form will be used as a cover sheet for the Full Proposal.

 

1.     Defining the Co-operative Partnership

 

This part of the proposal will define the agreement between the LTU and the academic partners to co-operate in the development, implementation, or evaluation of the learning technology innovation.  This section of the document will include what the LTU will provide, what the academic(s) will provide, who will form the project team and what their roles will be.

 

The LTU will agree to provide:

·       Project management

·       Pedagogical advice relevant to the use of learning technology

·       Design, development, implementation, evaluation resources

·       Training and documentation where appropriate

 

The academic partners will agree to provide:

·       Vision (what the learning technology innovation will do and how it will be integrated into the course)

·       Academic content

·       Formative design

·       Input into the evaluation plan

·       Copyright clearance where necessary

·       Paper based support materials if applicable, for students or teaching assistants

·       Assessment strategy where appropriate

 

[Please also note: it is the academic partner's responsibility to deal with any Academic Standards issues which arise as a result of the learning technology innovation].

 

Project Team

The academic and LTU members of the team will be stated and their responsibilities specified. Each project team must have a project leader, usually a member of the LTU. 

 

Size of Team

·       For short project (up to one month), the team should have a minimum of 2 members (1 LTU, 1 academic partner)

·       For medium projects (2 - 3 months), the team should have a minimum of 3 members (1 each LTU and academic partner, plus 1 other)

·       For longer project (over 3 months), the team should have a minimum of 4 members (2 LTU, 2 academic partners)

 

2.     Relevant Learning Outcomes

 

Although relevant learning outcomes were stated in the outline proposal, it is important, especially with regard to evaluation, to specify why learning technology (rather than any other means) will help to achieve them. If this section has been adequately covered in the Outline Proposal there is not need to restate the relevant learning outcomes here.

 

In most circumstances the Evaluation Plan (see Section 5) will directly relate to the specified learning outcomes, and will aim to discover whether learning technology has improved or enhanced them.

 

3.     Specifying the Proposed Learning Technology Innovation

 

The specification document will be developed by both academic and LTU team members and will consist of an explicit description of what the proposed innovation will actually do. There are a number of exemplars of how this description can be developed, and the actual format will be determined by the individual project. (Smaller projects may not require structure maps and storyboards).

 

The project specification is most likely to consist of:

 

3.1    A Structure Map

 

A Structure Map is a flowchart style representation of the component parts of the learning technology innovation, enabling visualisation of the various paths that link them, and how they are navigated.

 

3.2    A Storyboard

 

An expansion of the Structure Map, the Storyboard describes the functionality and content required to achieve the learning objectives defined in the fist stage of the specification process. The first draft of this document will typically take place over a one to two hour meeting between the academic and LTU members of the team. Both partners will refine this draft, to produce a full specification of the content required (academic partners) and a full specification of the functionality required (LTU).

 

4.     Project Plan

 

The Project Plan defines how the project, as specified in the storyboard, will be achieved and will be developed by the LTU.  It will consist of project milestones and responsibilities and deadlines for these. The LTU resource required for the project will be determined by the Project Plan and an estimation of this should be given. Breaking down the milestones into smaller tasks will enable resource to be estimated more accurately.

 

Timetabled deadlines will include:

·       The half session in which academic input will begin

·       The half session in which LTU work on the project will begin

·       Prototype, alpha, beta, and release  versions for development projects, (where Prototype is a demonstration of functionality with limited content, Alpha is a development version with complete structure but incomplete functionality and content, and Beta is a near complete implementation lacking only final content). These stages are to aid formative evaluation of the innovation by the whole project team.

·       Activities such as data collection, focus groups etc and reports for evaluation projects

·       Delivery dates for academic content/media as specified above

 

5.     Evaluation

 

The Project Plan will usually include a plan for evaluating the learning technology innovation.  The evaluation will usually relate specially to the learning outcomes (see Section 2) and should attempt to determine whether they have been achieved and whether learning technology has added value for example, by improving efficiency (accessibility or saving time) and/or quality of the learning experience. The timeframe along with who is responsible for the Evaluation Plan should be included in the Project Plan.

 

The Evaluation Plan will depend on the nature of the project but could include:

·       Face to face interviews with students/teaching assistants/staff

·       Focus group sessions with students/teaching assistants

·       Questionnaires (web or paper-based).

 

6.     Exit or Continuation Strategy

 

This section defines what happens on completion of the project and what is required before then to continue it, including:

 

·       What maintenance will the learning technology innovation require at the end of the project? Who will be responsible for this maintenance?

·       What training will the academic(s) require to maintain the learning technology innovation themselves? This is particularly important for projects involving WebCT.

·       What documentation is required, what form will it take and who will provide it?

 

 

The completed proposal should be completed by Friday 24th May 2002. The LTU Steering Group will assess the proposals and allocate LTU resource as appropriate. The outcome will be known by mid June.