DELTA Grants: Request for Proposals

Digital Education & Learning Technology Acceleration (DELTA) grants support Johns Hopkins faculty, staff, and students who require additional funding to develop, implement, and evaluate innovative digital education initiatives with potential to enhance the Johns Hopkins online and on-campus teaching and learning enterprise.

Given the rapid changes occurring in digital education and learning technology, the Provost’s Office is re-evaluating the DELTA program to ensure its optimal impact. Due to this reevaluation, there is no current timeline for 2025 proposals.

Overview

Innovation in education can take many forms. This program is intended to surface a wide variety of ideas and fund those deemed the most promising. Potential domains include but are not necessarily limited to:

• Pedagogy
• Media production
• Instructional design
• Assessment
• Learner engagement
• Project-­based learning

Eligibility

Principal Investigators (PIs) may be either full-time faculty or senior staff. Projects for which a senior staff member serves as PI must be accompanied by a letter of endorsement from their school’s deans office.

Part-­time faculty, support staff, and students may participate on teams under the supervision of the PI. Interdisciplinary and interdivisional proposals are encouraged. If proposed, new course offerings must have endorsement and preliminary approval from the appropriate department.

Proposals that require access to protected administrative data or that modify the provision of student services or other university administrative functions will not be funded.

Teams are welcome to revise and submit unfunded proposals that were previously submitted during earlier DELTA funding cycles. Any such resubmissions must follow the standard submission process; previously submitted proposals will not be automatically rolled over.

Funding and Project Period

• Applicants may request up to $75,000 for a proposed project.
• Monies may be used to fund faculty salaries that are uncompensated from other sources and for staff and graduate or undergraduate students to partner with faculty members. Students should be budgeted with the standard hourly rate used in the student’s home division and/or department.
• Compensation for student work on DELTA-funded projects is considered “remuneration” for purposes of the Johns Hopkins University Intellectual Property Policy.
• Funding may be used to cover faculty fringe benefits.
• Funding for equipment, software, applications, or their development will be considered. However, sustainability of such resources is an important criterion in the review process. Use of existing resources and infrastructure is encouraged.
• Project development may begin once funding announcements are made; project completion is expected by the end of the fall semester in 2025.

Timeline

There is no current timeline for 2025 proposals.

Content and Form of Application

• Name, department, school, email address, phone number, short bio­sketch for each participant (limit 1/2 page per participant)
• Title and abstract (limit 1/2 page)
• Project description (limit 2 pages). The project description should include the following:
  description of the innovation; the goal of the innovation; plan for implementation;
  anticipated outcomes; and plan for sustainability beyond the timeframe of the project.
• Budget (limit 1 page)
• Project plan and timeline (limit 1/2 page)
• Evaluation and assessment plan (limit 1 page)

Reporting

• Present the innovation and provide a progress report at the planned DELTA Symposium
• Report evaluation results at a reasonable time relative to the duration of the project and the evaluation plan
• Disseminate information about the funded innovation and evaluation results to other members of the Johns Hopkins community who could potentially benefit

Criteria for Project Selection

Primary Criteria

• Enhancement of teaching and learning: The proposal describes ideas for creating new approaches with strong potential to enhance the online and/or on-campus teaching and learning enterprise.
• Improving outcomes: The proposal references relevant research demonstrating how outcomes might be improved by the planned innovation.
• Alignment with university priorities: The project fosters interdisciplinary and/or interdivisional collaboration and is aligned with university priorities, including the Ten for One Strategic Plan and the Roadmap on Diversity and Inclusion.

Secondary Criteria

• Viability of assessment strategy: The proposal suggests concrete ways to evaluate and report its impact on teaching and learning.
• Ongoing commitment: The innovation has strong potential for ongoing use beyond the scope of the award.
• Institutional value: The innovation has strong potential to provide ongoing benefits to the university, its students, and its faculty.
• Resource use: The proposal demonstrates a good fit between purpose and plan. It keeps costs to a minimum and describes how the innovation will be sustained beyond the grant support.
• Generalizability and scalability: The project serves as a prototype that can be modified, enhanced, or extended to other venues, divisions, and departments.

Review Process

• Each proposal will receive multiple reviews by Review Committee members from outside the PI’s division(s).
• There are two rounds of review. All proposals are reviewed during Round 1 to produce a short list of proposals that receive additional reviews during Round 2.
• Review assignments are screened for conflicts of interest.
• Reviewers use a scoring rubric that reflects the primary and secondary criteria listed above.
• The top proposals selected by the Review Committee receive an additional executive review to confirm alignment with the DELTA program’s mission and priorities and to identify any administrative barriers.

Questions

E-mail questions to Janet Schreck at [email protected].