From: C. Evans, J. Sage, A. Taormina, D. Thompson

cc: Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Wyles, Dr. Sylvas 

Date: 25 June 1999

Overview

We have developed this proposal in response to the request of Dr. Wheelan (6 May 1999) to submit a proposal for funding to continue the work of the Dogwood project (http://www.nvcc.edu/dogwood/, begun and developed during the 1998-99 academic year at Northern Virginia Community College. That project, in turn, was the result of an earlier NEH-funded faculty study project, "Teaching the Humanities in a World Wide Web Environment" (http://www.nvcc.edu/grants/neh/.

Dogwood is intended to be an interdisciplinary, web-based, virtual learning environment of teaching and resource materials for the faculty, staff and students of Northern Virginia Community College (now) and the Virginia Community College System (in the future). Thus, it is intended to increase collaboration and cooperation among disciplines and across campuses at NVCC. The project site will include web resource sites (such as Franklin Roosevelt), user resources (such as the Web Design Center) and links to web-based courses (such as History of the Contemporary World).

We seek an additional $25,000 in funding from Northern Virginia Community College to

• Continue to refine Dogwood's overall site architecture;
• Develop an effective database for the components (web resource sites) of Dogwood and create a viable search engine of the database;
• Develop more projects for inclusion on the Dogwood site;
• 10 faculty from all five NVCC campuses will be selected to develop web resource sites.
• Integrate this group of 10 faculty with the first dogwood group to position at least two Dogwood mentors on each campus to foster continued growth;
• Maintain and expand the critique discussion forum (using Allaire forums);
• Continue the mentoring, critique process begun by Dogwood;
• Develop an effective liaison (through a series of presentations) to both the campus and college TLTRs to integrate the dogwood project with TLTR goals;
• Hold a winter web authoring institute in cooperation with the Technical Applications Center (TAC) for Dogwood participants and other interested faculty;
• Attempt to increase collaboration and cooperation across disciplines and campuses through inter-campus workshops and demonstrations;
• Develop a closer relationship with TAC and the new dean of technology to support the development of the participant projects for Dogwood;
• Disseminate information about Dogwood to college (TLTRs), state (New Horizon) and national (Community College Humanities Association) audiences; 
• Seek additional grant funding from both the VCCS and national sources (We have already sent a proposal to the VCCS at the request of Dr. Carole Schultz.).

Staff
Charles Evans (LO)

• Manage overall project administration
• Collaborate on Dogwood site development
• Mentor project participants
• Present at conferences

Jud Sage (AL)

• Collaborate on Dogwood site development
• Mentor project participants
• Co-run winter institute and meetings
• Present at conferences
• Recruit participants
• Act as liaison to college and campus TLTR

Diane Thompson (WO)

• Manage the critique forum
• Collaborate on Dogwood site development
• Mentor project participants
• Co-run winter institute and meetings
• Present at conferences

Agatha Taormina (LO)

• Collaborate on Dogwood site development
• Supervise the programming of the search engine/database
• Mentor project participants
• Present during the winter institute
• Present at conferences

Project participants

• Attend and participate in all Dogwood activities (meetings, discussions, etc.)
• Develop a content-based web project for inclusion in Dogwood
• Mentor other faculty to develop web projects
• Seek other projects to add to Dogwood

Proposed schedule

Fall 1999: Implement recommendations from project evaluation; begin construction of project database and search engine

15 October 1999: Issue call for participants

1 November 1999: Notify participants and undertake initial contacts

3 December 1999: Hold initial planning meeting

20-21 January 2000: Winter web-authoring institute

Spring 2000: Actively seek the inclusion of web projects from all faculty at NVCC to submit their sites for inclusion in Dogwood.

4 February 2000: First Dogwood meeting

February-March 2000: critique, review and mentor project development

14 April 2000: One-on-one laboratory fine-tuning of projects

5 May 2000: Dogwood final presentation

Reassigned time (spring 2000)

• 3 directors @ 1 courses each @ $1,500 per course 4,500
  • Charles Evans
  • Jud Sage
  • Diane Thompson
• Faculty participants
  • 10 @ 1 course each @ $1,500 per course 15,000

• Staff participant/consultant @ $1,000 stipend 1,000
  • Aggie Taormina

• Registration 300
• Travel 700

Software (fall 1999-spring 2000) 1,000

Winter Institute (spring 2000) 1,000

TOTAL 25,000