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2011-2012 Faculty Research and Teaching Grants Guidelines

Purpose

The College of Integrated Science and Technology will offer research grants and teaching grants for the 2011-2012 academic year. The purpose of the Faculty Research & Teaching Grants program is to stimulate and assist teaching effectiveness, advance one's scholarship agenda, and reflect academic unit, college, and university-wide goals. Proposals in any field of creative activity may be submitted, and faculty members are encouraged to consider projects involving student activity and those of an interdisciplinary nature. Grants are to be used to sustain activities necessary to complete the proposed activities, including travel expenses and other related costs (see budget section for restrictions). Each grant award will not exceed $4,000.

Faculty Eligibility

The program is open to full-time faculty members of the College, including academic unit heads. Each grant is awarded with the understanding that the recipient will devote sufficient time and energy to ensure successful completion of the project. Faculty members are eligible to apply for both a research grant and a teaching grant for the same year; however, only one grant will be awarded. Proposals will be accepted from either an individual faculty member or a team of faculty. If proposals are submitted by a team, all team members must be full-time faculty members in the College of Integrated Science and Technology.

Please be cognizant that a candidate submitting a proposal cannot currently be serving on the College Faculty Development Committee.

Application Submission Procedures

The proposal must be approved by the faculty member's academic unit head for initial endorsement.  If endorsed, the academic unit head shall submit a formal letter of recommendation to the Dean’s Office by Friday, December 9, 2011.  The letter will be submitted online on the new web page after it is available.  

Reports and Acknowledgements

At the completion of grant activities, a written report detailing project accomplishments and describing benefits of the grant activity to the recipient’s service as a faculty member, to the academic unit and to the College, MUST be submitted as part of the Faculty Activity Report to be included in the annual performance review.

Additionally, recipients of teaching grants must conduct a college-wide activity reporting on their activities and accomplishments. Recipients of research grants will be expected to present as part of the CISAT Faculty Research Day, or a comparable event.

Any publication, presentation or exhibition resulting from activity assisted by these grants shall indicate:  “This work was supported by the James Madison University College of Integrated Science and Technology’s program of grants for faculty development.”

Proposal Format

The CISAT Faculty Development Committee strongly recommends conforming to the following format:

Project Summary:

Include a short and descriptive project title and a one-paragraph abstract.

Narrative:

Project descriptions will vary with specific intentions of the principal investigators.  The proposal must provide information on methodology, scholarly and or pedagogical significance and other relevant matters; however, the proposer should not presume extensive knowledge of the subject by the reviewers.  This description of the project is the only demonstration that the College Faculty Development Committee will have of the substance and potential of your proposed activities.  Therefore, since members of these committees may not have a specialized knowledge of your field, the proposal must describe the project in plain, non-technical English.

  1. State clearly and briefly a problem to be addressed.
  2. Incorporate statements concerning justification of the project, including a concise review of pertinent literature or state of affairs.
  3. State the objectives of the project and their relationship to individual professional goals, unit mission and goals, and/or College mission and goals.
  4. State the procedures to be used.
  5. Indicate the nature and extent of student involvement, if any.
  6. Include a timeline covering all project activities and major benchmarks for assessing progress.
  7. State what future scholarly activities or pedagogical intervention/development might be expected as a result of the grant.

The proposer will also note research and scholarly activities that might occur after conclusion of the grant, enabling the investigator to seek external funding for long-term project support.  These activities could include continued research, publication or presentation in a professional forum.

The narrative is not to exceed four double-spaced typewritten pages or 1,000 words.

Budget

A detailed budget is required.  The budget should clearly link specific activities of the proposal with anticipated costs.  College support of each grant will not exceed $4,000.  Review the Guidelines for Expending Funds.  These regulations and rules are very important when planning for the Grants you will be submitting. 

All supply purchases must be made through the JMU procurement system—eVA.  All funds must be spent by May 4, 2012.

Professional Resume

The proposer shall provide an up-to-date outline of professional activities and accomplishments relevant to the proposed project and indicative of ones ability to successfully carry out the proposed project.

Note that the College Faculty Development Committee will evaluate grant applications first and foremost on the merit of the proposal.  Professional credentials will be considered when reviewing proposals of equal or comparable merit and when determining the applicant's potential to successfully accomplish grant activities.

Criteria/Governing Policies

All research and teaching grant proposals submitted for consideration for funding must include a letter of endorsement from the academic unit head (see endorsement form, page 6).  The head will forward proposals to the Dean’s Office for distribution to the College Faculty Development Committee, which is composed of full-time faculty members from the respective academic units.  This committee will review the applications and make recommendations to the Dean.

The Faculty Development Committee will make recommendations based on the following criteria and governing policies:

  1. Competition is open to all full-time faculty members of the College.
  2. Proposals must be written in a clear and concise manner.
  3. If eligible, faculty may apply for both a research grant and a teaching grant for the same year; however, in the case that both proposals are accepted, only one grant will be awarded.
  4. The definition of research for purposes of this competition and criteria used to evaluate it are noted in the attached document “A Definition of Research at JMU.”
  5. Proposals for teaching grants may include activities related to program development, curriculum development, course revision or refinement, development of assessment techniques, and the use of technology in instruction.
  6. Awards will not be given for completing degree requirements or merely polishing a dissertation for publication.  Proposals clearly identified as extensions of completed dissertations may be submitted.
  7. Support will not be given to projects intended for funding by publishers and directly related to remunerative publication contracts.
  8. If projects involve research or data collection using human subjects, the proposer must acknowledge that Institution Review Board (IRB) approval, according to policy number #1104, is required of all awarded grants.
  9. If projects involve research or data collection using live, vertebrate animals, the proposer must acknowledge that Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee approval, according to policy number #2202, is required of all awarded grants.
  10. Faculty are expected to be familiar with and adhere to the University’s Intellectual Property policy (#1107).
  11. Final choices will be based upon judgments made by the Faculty Development Committee regarding the relative merit of each proposal.

Evaluation Procedures

The College Faculty Development Committee will review all proposals eligible for consideration.  The Faculty Development Committee shall make recommendations regarding funding to the Dean.  Grants will be awarded on the basis of the merit of each proposal.  The Faculty Development Committee's recommendations are not subject to appeal, but the committee will maintain records of its deliberations and, upon written request of an applicant, can provide a brief summary evaluation of the applicant's proposal after the announcement of the recipients.

Notification of Grant Award

The Dean of the College will notify grant recipients in writing by the first week of February 2012.

A Definition of Research at James Madison University

The definition of research used by the peer selection committee in the Research Grants awards process is an internally generated definition created by a representative faculty group.  This definition is found in Part One of "Research at JMU:  Possibilities and Realities," which is the report on the 1987 Madison Conference.  A summary of and key quotations from this document follow:

Research is a multidimensional process that is best defined operationally.  It includes scholarly inquiry and investigation, and formulation of a cognitive or affective creative activity or expression into a representative form.

After making clear that research must be broadly construed to include the methodologies used in all disciplines, the report continues:

Information retrieval alone does not constitute research.  Rather, research is a systematic investigation structured to provide new insights with the goal of increasing the total knowledge of a subject.  Research usually requires the satisfaction of at least the following conditions:

  1. An orderly investigation of a defined problem.
  2. The presence of creativity, intuition and speculation in suggesting and directing the research.
  3. The use of appropriate research methods.
  4. The gathering of adequate and representative evidence.
  5. The exercise of logical reasoning which eschews false assumptions and biased statements and draws conclusions based on evidence.
  6. An outcome that demonstrates the reasonableness, elegance and wisdom of the researcher.
  7. Results that yield general principles, laws, artifacts or information that can be used with confidence.

Although the methodology, strategy or approaches used vary with the subject matter and individual researcher, there are five equally legitimate approaches to research.  They are (1) opinion/behavioral, (2) experimental, (3) archival, (4) analytic, and (5) artistic.  Since combinations of approaches may be used within a single research project, it is far more important that research endeavors meet the seven conditions listed above than that they fall within a particular strategy or approach.

The definition of research noted above strongly suggests that the methodologies of all disciplines are appropriate.  Judging research proposals by their internal quality according to the seven conditions noted above is therefore more appropriate than comparing proposals based on the degree to which their methodologies represent a strict conformity to "experimental" designs.

APPLICATION CHECKLIST OF REQUIRED ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

_____  Project summary and abstract

_____  Narrative not to exceed four double-spaced pages or 1,000 words

_____  Budget for grant

_____  Current Vita

OTHER REQUIRED MATERIALS

_____ Letter of recommendation from academic unit head, signed and delivered to the Dean’s Office

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ALL MATERIALS
Friday, December 9, 2011

INCOMPLETE PROPOSALS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED

Submit an Application for a Research or Teaching Grant Login with your JMU eID and password

NOTE: You will need to login to the VPN client in order to access the form off-campus. VPN software and instructions are available on the JMU website.