Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) 2024 RFP Requirements

Eligibility

- Full-time faculty.
- MOOCs to be released in 2025.
- A prior consultation with the CTL and other university partners is strongly recommended before completing the proposal. Please contact ColumbiaCTL+mooc@columbia.edu to schedule a consultation.

Proposal Requirements

I. Cover Sheet: Include name of the PI(s), title of the course, and school or department.

II. Narrative: The narrative section (2-3 pages) provides an overview of the proposed course or course series, describing its rationale, approach (instructor-led or self-paced), intended audience, and length per course. While the narrative provides a course synopsis, it should also articulate your motives and aspirations. The specific form the narrative takes is flexible and will likely depend on the nature of the course being proposed. Respond, directly or indirectly, to the following questions:

How will this course engage a diverse and global audience?
How will this course engage Columbia alumni?
How will this course take advantage of the scale, reach, or other affordances of Columbia+ or third-party ones such as edX and Coursera?
What parts of the course would you consider using in your Columbia teaching and/or courses?
How much new course material will need to be generated?
What will be the longevity of the course beyond the initial run?
How does the course differ from existing classes offered on Columbia+ or on MOOC platforms?
Describe any MOOCs you have participated in, as an instructor or a learner, and how that participation will inform your work on this MOOC.

Generally, course narratives will be strongest when they include specific examples of topics you will cover, teaching methods you intend to use, or activities that you hope to incorporate into the class.

III. Course Outline: The course outline indicates how the course will be divided into sections, subsections, or other logical units. For each section of the course, please provide a description of the topics to be covered, required readings, and assignments or other activities and number of hours of work expected of the students.

IV. Production Needs and Timeline: Describe in detail (2-3 pages) the specific materials that will need to be created for the course. This should include lecture scripts, assessments, multimedia, visualizations, textbooks, software, and anything else that will need to be created or purchased for the class.

This section should also include an estimated timeline or schedule for producing the course content, including the lecture scripts, student assessments and learning outcomes. Course and media production will begin after faculty submits the learning objectives, course content, and assessments for learning design evaluation.

V. Copyright: If the course will rely on copyrighted material (texts, images, videos, etc.), you will need to describe briefly (1 page or less) the nature and extent of these materials, as well as their relative importance within the course. Please indicate whether any public domain, open-access, or rights-free materials could be substituted for copyrighted works in the course.

VI. Promotion and Marketing: A description of how the instructor, department and school will promote the course offering.

VII. Budgets and Budget Justifications (1-2 pages): Funding up to $25,000 can be used for course preparation, external course content, technology and media development costs, administrative costs, teaching assistants/course assistants, and rights clearances. Provide a detailed budget for these expenses. Please mention all other sources of funding, if any. Provide a detailed scope of work for in-kind support needed from the CTL.

VIII. Letter of Support: A letter of support from the applicant’s Dean or Vice Dean must be provided. In order to provide the review committee with additional information to base their funding decision, deans or vice deans are invited to provide comments on the importance of the proposal plan for their school.