National Science Foundation (NSF 07-564) Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)

WHAT:  Limited Submission Proposal for the National Science Foundation (NSF 07-564) Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)

WHO:  Texas A&M University faculty, including TAES, TEES and TTI personnel. 

WHY:  NSF anticipates making 12-15 Demonstration Projects awards with a maximum amount of $250,000 for a duration of one to two years; and making 7-12 Implementation Projects awards with a maximum amount of $1 million dollars for a duration of two to three years.

WHEN:  Internal proposal deadline of June 11, 2007.

HOW:  Faculty should submit internal proposal to osppc@tamu.edu for review by the internal selection committee.

THE FINE PRINT:

The funding agency below has limited the number of proposals to one per institution, regardless of whether it is a Demonstration Project or Implementation Project.  If the number of faculty wishing to submit a proposal exceeds the number allowed by the agency, we will conduct an internal selection process. Below are due dates for the program, including the due date of the internal proposal for review by the internal selection committee, the date for announcement of the internal selection and the due date for submission to the agency.                                                     

AGENCY:  National Science Foundation (NSF)

AGENCY PROGRAM TITLE:  NSF 07-564 Cyberinfrastructure Training, Education, Advancement and Mentoring for Our 21st Century Workforce (CI-TEAM)

BRIEF PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:  The CI-TEAM Program seeks two types of project proposals, both aimed at the preparation of a diverse, cyberinfrastructure-savvy science and engineering workforce.  Demonstration Projects are exploratory in nature, somewhat limited in scope and scale and have the potential to serve as pathfinders to effective larger-scale implementation activities in the future.  On the other hand, Implementation Projects are generally larger in scope and scale, draw on prior experience with the activities or the teams proposed and are expected to deliver sustainable learning and workforce development activities that complement ongoing NSF investment in cyberinfrastructure.  It should be noted that projects focusing primarily on new cyberinfrastructure resource and tool development or deployment are more appropriately directed toward other cyberinfrastructure funding opportunities.  CI-TEAM awards will:  prepare current and future generations of scientists, engineers and educators to design and develop as well as adopt and deploy, cyber-based tools and environments for research and learning, both formal and informal; and expand and enhance participation in cyberinfrastructure science and engineering activities of diverse groups of people and organizations, with particular emphasis on the inclusion of traditionally underrepresented individuals, institutions and communities as both creators and users of cyberinfrastructure.

All CI-TEAM Demonstration and Implementation Projects share certain key features:  goals and strategies to broaden and diversify the population of individuals and institutions participating in cyberinfrastructure activities specifically and, thereby, science and engineering more generally; activities that focus on achieving cyber-related science and engineering workforce development through the integration of research and learning at and across different levels of education (e.g., university, college, K-12, professional, lifelong learning); strong science and engineering-focused partnerships that support integrated research and learning among diverse institutions, including (but not necessarily limited to) as appropriate to the project goals:  academic institutions; not-for-profit organizations such as professional societies and museums; industry; federal, state and local government agencies or organizations; and international partners; procedures and arrangements to leverage current or extant cyber-based tools, services and systems as well as other state-of-the-art NSF investments, both domestic and international, to expand and enhance the deployment of cyberinfrastructure environments wherever possible; collaborative teams representing the expertise of at least one disciplinary domain with that of computer or information sciences and education or social sciences so as to inform project activities from an appropriately interdisciplinary knowledge base; in addition to sound implementation and management plans, a well-specified evaluation plan that describes the resources allocated to project evaluation; the benchmarks used to assess the project’s progress toward its scientific, educational and outreach goals; and, the strategic mechanisms by which evaluation results will be used to improve project operations (to the extent possible for Demonstration Projects); a long-term vision for wide replicability and potential scalability to national and international levels; and a commitment to adopt and adhere to open standards where appropriate and whenever possible.

Demonstration Projects proposals are supposed to carry out and test the feasibility and effectiveness of preliminary, exploratory activities aimed at preparing a diverse science and engineering workforce with cyberinfrastructure knowledge and skills.  Further, new, multidisciplinary team collaborations and partnerships are encouraged.  Demonstration Projects will seed the CI-TEAM program with new and creative activities, teams or tool deployments that promise to serve as pathfinders to effective larger-scale implementation activities in the future.

Implementation Projects proposals are designed to expand, complement or otherwise leverage previously tested and assessed activities with potential for successful application in the CI-TEAM program.  Such activities may be proposed in concert with other more exploratory activities.  In addition, the multidisciplinary team should have some history of prior collaboration with demonstrated track records.  Implementation Projects must be implemented over multiple scales or across multiple disciplines to show continued prospects for replicability and scalability to a national level.  The long-term sustainability of Implementation Projects must be addressed in the project description.

Project activities that may be undertaken in either Demonstration or Implementation Projects include:  developing faculty expertise in two-year or community colleges to use cyberinfrastructure effectively to promote learning and advance discovery; designing a new online interactive and integrative research and learning program to prepare students in the use of cyberinfrastructure capabilities such as simulation, modeling and data visualization; building international networks of university faculty and students as well as secondary teachers and students trained in the use of cyber-based tools (e.g., portals, monitoring, devices, visualization tools) to gather, depict, compare and even reuse data which are collected from local sites and contributed to a common scientific investigation; devising new programs to train and/or retool digital librarians in the development, deployment and support of cyberinfrastructure tools and services; creating new participatory informal or formal learning environments (e.g., online games, professional-amateur collaborations, virtual worlds, open source ecosystems) that engage individuals in inquiry-based, problem-solving activities related to science and engineering; partnering cyberinfrastructure-experienced institutions with communities, organizations, groups and/or individuals new to cyberinfrastructure in order to share and, thereby, extend infrastructural, technological and logistical resources; connecting teams of faculty and students across disciplines, institutions, cultures and/or continents through the improved effectiveness of collaborations and with the express purpose of collectively addressing a research problem, question, task, etc. in a virtual learning environment; supporting activities to learn how to use, advance and create cyberinfrastructure tools and services via novel mentoring programs and mechanisms; including but not limited to reverse mentoring, cross-functional mentoring, citizen scientist mentoring, Al-based tutoring or peer-to-peer mentoring; exploring the complementary roles that for-profit and not-for-profit organizations play in supporting and sustaining cyberinfrastructure and the cyberinfrastructure workforce; implementing and analyzing collaborative reasoning tools across a distributed network of researchers to understand processes and outcomes of information sharing, knowledge production and scientific argumentation under synchronous an asynchronous technologically-mediated conditions; designing new instruments, metrics and methods that can be embedded into the technologies themselves to assess cognitive gains of cyberinfrastructure users and learners; and instituting training on best practices in safety, security, trust and ethics in cyberspace to complement cyberinfrastructure resource and tool use and development in other CI-TEAM activities.

More information can be found here.     

AGENCIES ELIGIBLE TO SUBMIT:  The CI-TEAM Program must be submitted by degree-granting academic institutions of higher education located in the U. S., its territories or possessions.

AWARD INFORMATION:  The CI-TEAM Program anticipates making 12-15 Demonstration Projects awards with a maximum amount of $250,000 for a duration of one to two years; and making 7-12 Implementation Projects awards with a maximum amount of $1 million dollars for a duration of two to three years.

ELIGIBLE PROJECT COSTS:  Indirect Cost (F&A) Limitations:  NONE.

COST SHARING:  NONE.    

Internal Selection Procedures and Deadlines

June 8, 2007:  Deadline for an email of intent, including the names of the PI and co-PIs, title of internal proposal and a 1-3 sentence description of the project.  Send email of intent to OSP.    

June 11, 2007: Deadline to obtain signatures of approval from your department head and college dean to submit an internal proposal to the Office of Sponsored Projects for review by the internal selection committee.  The internal proposal should include:

An executive summary, up to three pages, based on the proposal description as outlined in the NSF program announcement;
Summary budget;
Project and Management Plans (including team members)

The form for completing the internal proposal is here.  This completed form should be submitted electronically (via email) for review by the internal selection committee.

Please read the RFP carefully for specific requirements of the program here.   

Selection of a proposal will be based on NSF guidelines.  The needs of the university’s reinvestment plan will also be taken into account.

During the selection process, the internal selection committee may contact departments and colleges for their opinions and commitments.  They may also request additional information from PIs.

June 22, 2007: The Internal Selection Committee will notify PIs of the result of the internal competition.

August 27, 2007:  Deadline for full proposal: (due by 5 p.m. proposer’s local time).