Intent

Computer Science techniques and software have become ubiquitous. There many disciplines outside of the traditional tech disciplines that either use computational methods or influence the use of computers.   The CS04All CUNY OER initiative seeks to provide a set of open educational resources (OER) that serves as a resource for the creation of general education, pathways courses in tech. CS0, or non-major, computer science courses, strive to give students an understanding of the field of computer science, with the intent of creating a knowledgeable digital citizen. The first phase of this project created a set of tech-based materials, focused in the computer science domain, all available as OER. In phase two of this project we wish to collate materials that embrace the CS plus X or X plus CS nature of tech, where X is any field other than traditional computer science. For example, in art, one can use computers to generate art or display multimedia art. The field of biology uses computers to analyze gene sequences. The field of digital humanities combines the field of computers with some of the disciplines found in the humanities. It is most likely that students taking a general education course in computer science are predominately non-majors and interested in other disciplines. CS+X4All CUNY OER extends the CS04All CUNY OER initiative by adding to the CS0 repository, lecture, labs, assignments, and assessments in areas that use computational thinking and computer science within the discipline.

Timeline:

December 3: RFP published

January 9: Proposals due

January 10 – 28: Review completed, funded proposals selected

Scope

The Office of Academic Affairs seeks proposals from university full time and part time faculty whose outcomes include:

1. Creation of two 3-hour class sessions organized as 2 hours of lecture and 1 hour of guided computer lab and/or assignment(s) as an Open Educational Resource (OER).
2. Week 1 (first 2 hour lecture/lab) would be an overview of the “X”. Week 2 would be an in-depth extension of some part of week 1. In the scheme of a larger semester long course, week 1 materials would be suited to a CS general education course focused on a “breadth of content” approach, whereas the week 1/week 2 sequence would be for a general education course that approaches content in more depth.
3. Materials should include appropriate assessment of learning outcomes.
4. All materials proposed need to be original OER creation, especially ancillary materials.
5. You may assume that students would have at least 3 weeks of coding experience.
6. Please keep in mind that this content would be for freshmen students.

Faculty compensation for this proposal is will be $1,000 summer pay.

Any materials adopted, adapted, or created as a result of this grant should adhere to university-wide accessibility standards.

Any original OER materials created must be assigned a Creative Commons License and be submitted to CUNY’s institutional repository, Academic Works. CUNY librarians can assist and advise if needed.

The scope of work must be completed by May 15, 2018.

Proposals are due by January 9, 2018.

Guidelines for Proposal Preparation

All proposals must include a completed project template (see Appendix A).

Included in the template are:

• A proposal narrative (No more than 2 pages not including references) that includes a high-level description of the lesson and the associated OER materials.
• Please include information such as the number of students this can scale to, software needed, equipment needed, and a description of how the lectures and lab/assignments will be structured and organized as shown in the project template in Appendix A.
• A certification that the college provost or appropriate institutional administrator has reviewed and approved the proposal. Submit any questions and ultimately the proposal to Susan Imberman ( imberman@cuny.edu ). Susan is the University Associate Dean for Technology Education.

Appendix A