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Distance Education Initiative funding
Guidance notes on creating a proposal
Call Number: #1
SUBMISSION DATE: 26th April 2011
for fast-track, 24th January 2011
What sorts of proposals are we seeking?
The goal of the Distance Education Initiative (DEI) is to substantially increase the range and scale of
postgraduate online distance education offered by the University of Edinburgh. These programmes and
modules must be of the same high quality as on-campus education, and are not ‘second class’ provision.
(If you need more information on the Distance Education Initiative, this is available on the DEI wiki:
https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/DistanceEducationInitiative/DEI
Follow the University of Edinburgh access level link, and login using your EASE username and password.)
As a consequence we are seeking proposals from Schools for funding to develop new, or expand existing,
programmes. To qualify for funding, proposals must:
 come from Schools and not from individuals;
 set out a sound academic case, including evidence of ‘fit’ with the School’s academic plan and market
demand;
 provide a sound financial case, including estimates of income and realistic development and delivery
costs;
 provide a sound work-plan, applying good practice project management with realistic milestones and
deliverables;
 provide the track record of the team in developing postgraduate education and experience in the use of
e-learning for on-campus or distance education;
The educational design or technologies used need not be ‘cutting edge’ unless demanded by the nature of the
programme, but they do both need to be of high quality.
What restrictions are there on applying for funding?
Any School can apply, without limit to the number of applications. All proposals will be evaluated and
successful projects monitored. Further details on the process are given below. Please read these carefully.
You should note that proposals to recreate or “decentralise” activity which currently is offered at a
University wide or College level (eg VLE, portal, marketing) will require a very strong case proving:
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“...greatly reduced costs or a genuinely locally specific specialisation of activity would justify
decentralisation”
CMG extract, Item 11, 22-09-04
Funding to re-design support services for students or academic staff will be managed more centrally and
coordinated across services. For more information, members of Support Groups should speak with Shelagh
Green for SASG, Liz Welch for CSG or Sarah Gormley for IS.
Funding levels for programme or course development
Curricular nature of development
Normal funding
range
A full Masters degree programme (180 SQCF credits at Level 11) with exit points at
Certificate and Diploma (pro rata for Diploma or Certificate)
CPD or training modules at SQCF Level 11 or above.
£150k - £250k
£25k - £50k
(A group of related modules would attract proportionally less funding per module.)
Scaling up of an existing online distance programme, requiring substantial re-design
£50k - £100k
More on SQCF levels can be found at: http://www.scqf.org.uk/TheFramework/The-Framework-Home.aspx
The decision as to which category to apply within may be problematic for some proposers, and so questions
about this choice or the financial limits should be addressed in the first instance to your College
representative (see later) or to Sarah Gormley (sarah.gormley@ed.ac.uk).
What commitments do you need to make?
Enrolments – the DEI fund will only support the development of online distance education programmes or
modules that aim to enrol substantial numbers of students, and can demonstrate net income generation within
a few years (‘steady state’). This net income can be re-invested into any legitimate activity, for example this
might be in employing new academic staff who can add to the research efforts of the School as well as
teaching on the programme. In accepting the DEI funding, the School is committing to aiming for the
financial outcomes set out in its proposal.
Note that Proforma B (spreadsheet) specifies a 20% topslice to Support Groups from PGT fee income. This
is a correct calculation, although how Colleges and Schools subsequently handle the 80% of the fee income
that the College receives may vary. Discussions are taking place on ensuring that distance education
programmes are sufficiently and transparently funded from the income stream that they generate. The
financial viability of the DE programmes funded by this Initiative will therefore be assessed on their ‘top
level’ fee income vs expenditure.
Commitment to quality - the University is committed to very high quality Masters level provision, and to
that end has produced a statement of principles as guidance to Schools. These principles can guide
development of off-campus as much as on-campus education, but with the additional factors of high quality
technology infrastructure and appropriate choice of technologies to be applied. Each Project must
demonstrate its commitment to these quality standards.
Reporting – each project will be required to submit a final written report at the end of the project, and for
projects of longer than one year, annual progress reports will be required. Information will be sought on the
use of the DEI funds and, where appropriate, on student enrolments. The burden of this process will be kept
to a minimum. If you foresee problems with progress, please talk with us about how to help you to resolve
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them! The College representatives, supported by the DEI Team, will stay in touch with developments in
their Colleges to provide constructive advice and support.
Engagement with the Distance Education Initiative team – we wish to learn from the experiences of each
participating School to enable us to support and advise others later, especially those with less experience of
e-learning and distance education. We also need your input into the re-shaping of central support services,
especially those directed towards students. Teams must be willing to become involved in these activities.
Accessibility – your project should take account of accessibility issues, ensuring access to the materials for
disabled students. Further information on accessibility is available from:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/accessibility ; for details, see under Practical Advice
What sorts of information do you need to provide?
The Distance Education Steering Group needs to be able to evaluate the proposals and so requires
information as set out on the accompanying pro-forma (Form A) and financial spreadsheet (Form B). You
should read the Guidelines for Proposers and the Evaluation Criteria, against which proposals will be graded,
before completing Proposal Forms A and B.
What is the duration of the DEI fund? How much money is available?
The DEI started in FY 2010-11 as a five-year commitment, approved by Court and Central Management
Group. The funding profile is shown in the table below:
Year
Funding
Year 1 (AY10-11)
£0.5M
Year 2 (AY11-12)
£1.0M
Year 3 (AY12-13)
£1.0M
Year 4 (AY13-14)
£1.0M
Year 5 (AY14-15)
£1.0M
Total:
£4.5M
As many of the online distance education developments are likely to be carried out over more than one year,
funding will be allocated to successful Schools in annual tranches on 1st August. The funds must be kept in
an account with specific codes and not spent on items other than those for which funding was given, and nor
should funds be added to the account. In this respect they will be analogous to research grants on R codes.
Further details will be given to successful Schools at the time of award.
How will proposals be evaluated?
After they have been submitted to Sarah Gormley, comments will be sought on each proposal from the
College representatives on the DEI Steering Group about the fit of the proposal with the College’s strategic
plans for post-graduate education. It is strongly recommended that Schools considering putting a proposal to
the fund contact their College representative for advice early in the process. The whole Steering Group will
consider the proposals, and College comments, as soon as possible after the closing dates for bids, guided by
the Evaluation Criteria.
For the FY 2011-12 round, it is intended that the Steering Group will meet in late April and allocations be
notified by mid May 2011 at the latest to enable any new appointments to be made for 1st August 2011, when
funds will be available to successful Schools.
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As we are aware that some Schools might wish to submit proposals for an immediate start, for this call only
we will offer a ‘fast-track’ process using the same pro-formas and evaluation process but with submission by
1700hr 24th January 2011 and response by 1700hr 28th January. Funding for these projects will be available
immediately, within the limit of £0.5M set aside for FY2010-11.
Feedback will be given on successful and unsuccessful proposals. Support will be available to Schools
which were unsuccessful in their bid, if the proposal was judged to be of high quality, should they wish to go
ahead and develop online distance education. Re-submission of previously unsuccessful bids will be
encouraged, subject to suitable modification in the light of feedback given.
Where to get help in building a proposal
The University has a guiding principles and a ‘toolkit’ to help Schools to create high quality Masters level
programmes, which can be found at:
http://www.docs.sasg.ed.ac.uk/AcademicServices/Policies/Masters_Guiding_Principles.pdf
www.hss.ed.ac.uk/Postgraduate/documents/NewProgrammeToolkit1.pdf
Within each College there is a member of the DEI Steering Group who will be able to help you with
creating a proposal, and advise on what local or central support may exist for it:
HSS: Dr Sian Bayne, Education – sian.bayne@ed.ac.uk
MVM: Professor Jeremy Bradshaw - jeremy.bradshaw@ed.ac.uk
SCE: Dr Judy Hardy, Physics - j.hardy@ed.ac.uk
Please address queries about the process of bidding for funds, the mechanisms of allocation, or to find out
what central support might be available to your project to your College representative or to Sarah Gormley –
sarah.gormley@ed.ac.uk
Members of Support Groups should speak with Shelagh Green for SASG, Liz Welch for CSG or Sarah
Gormley for IS.
Research into e-learning & online distance education
The University would like to promote greater research into online distance education and e-learning as this
enhances our REF submissions and assists some academic and support staff in their career development. We
anticipate that many of the projects funded under this Initiative will be capable of generating research data
suitable for publication.
Project teams are encouraged to consider this opportunity and make use of the expertise that exists within the
university for support. Further advice on options in this area please contact Professor David Dewhurst
(d.dewhurst@ed.ac.uk, 651 1564) or Professor Jeff Haywood (jeff.haywood@ed.ac.uk, 650 6497).
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