Middlesex Community College

The goal of the MCC minigrant Program is to support full- and part-time faculty and professional staff members in researching and developing or improving services that will have a direct impact on students. Minigrants help support the important efforts of the college as a whole.

2019-20 Areas of Focus for MCC Minigrants

The MCC PD Minigrant process focuses on supporting college missions in a strategic way.  While applications come from many areas of the college with different intent, priority will be given to projects and activities related to the integration and/or assessment of one or more of the following categories:

Best Practices for Digital Learning (Teaching with technology)

 Supporting Assessment Work

Best Practices for Data-Driven Decision-Making

Best Practices for Inclusive/Equity-Minded Teaching

Open Educational Resource Adoption-Creation (NOTE: This category follows the funding model advanced by the Mass OER Council.)

See link to online proposal application at the bottom of the webpage.

Please note: all OER minigrant applications must relate to a specific course which results in the course having NO additional costs for required textbooks for students.  Faculty must commit to running their courses solely using OER for at least one full academic year.

Level 1 - OER Adoption
Redesign a course to incorporate an existing open textbook or open course content as is. This model is intended for one Faculty member: $300 (Estimated Project time: 8.5 hours)

Level 2 - OER Adoption/Creation
Remix existing open educational resources and create new open content to bridge gaps in available resources to enable a fully open course. New content may add missing chapters to existing OER or create ancillaries such as quiz question banks, lecture slides, or lab manuals. This model works either as a single faculty member project or as a collaboration between two faculty members. Each faculty member receives $750 (Estimated Project time: 21.5 hours).

Level 3 - OER Creation
Create a substantially new open textbook or fully open course where it is possible to demonstrate that quality resources are not currently available to meet learning objectives. Funding is equivalent to $1500

Level 4 - OER Innovation
Propose a different kind of project not covered by the three categories above. This model works either as a single faculty member project or as a collaboration between two faculty members. Each faculty member receives $750 (Estimated Project time: 21.5 hours).

All current faculty and part-time professional staff members are eligible to participate in the Minigrant program.  

All Minigrant projects should be discussed with your dean prior to applying.  All applications require approval from the your Dean.

 

Proposals may be submitted and funding requested at one of the following levels: $2,000, $1,500, $1,000, $500 or smaller amounts. Funding amounts are based on an hourly rate of $35 per hour.  Please note: Minigrants are intended to be paid as a stipend to staff and faculty for the work being completed.  They do not fund catering, speaker honorariums, travel, or purchasing equipment.  Minigrants are also not intended to supplement department budgets.

Course development funding will not be considered if they do not incorporate the areas of focus above.

Typical Examples of Project Compensation

• Development and assessment of a new course that primarily uses project learning
  $1,500
• Development or extensive revision of a course module to include networking and career development opportunities
  $300 - $500
• Compensation for projects and relevant activities that develop responsive systems and services throughout MCC that will have a direct impact on student success. (Examples of some types of activities: working on a high school articulation program with student affairs; developing, teaching, and assessing a training module to effectively work with at-risk student populations; developing new assessment tools that incorporate low-cost/no-cost applications; conducting a three-part workshop to increase persistence and retention)
  $35/hour

Although there have been many projects funded through the years, it sometimes helps to see what others have proposed and have been funded for.  Click here for a short list of examples of Minigrant projects that have been funded from 2014-2016.