For Denise Comer, Director of Duke’s First Year Writing Program, teaching an English Composition MOOC was a way to share her love of writing with thousands of students around the world. But the massive online experience turned out to be the start of an even bigger exploration of using online technologies to teach writing. The MOOC has inspired Comer to rethink the way she approaches her on-campus course, served as the basis for two Gates Foundation-funded research projects, and led Comer to develop an online resource to help  Duke international students better understand U.S. academic writing.

Now, Duke faculty are invited to submit their own ideas for online education projects that encourage pedagogical innovation, strengthen Duke’s global partnerships and showcase Duke’s academic excellence. The Call for Proposals is coordinated by Duke’s Online Education Initiatives and sponsored by Provost Sally Kornbluth and the Advisory Committee for Online Education.

“We see this as a great opportunity for Duke faculty to try some of their most creative and potentially impactful ideas that would benefit from online technology,” said Kornbluth.

The call for proposals seeks projects that have a significant online component and address one of the following priorities:

• Propose a model for online education that has the potential to be adopted beyond the project team.
• Develop a set of online courses, modules, or other curricular units that collectively have impact beyond a traditional individual course.
• Be co-developed and/or co-taught by multiple faculty across institutions and create more than an individual course.
• Demonstrate a mechanism to transcend the limitations of traditional semester-long courses in a manner that creates time and opportunity for high-value opportunities or for more in-depth learning.
• Address Duke’s goal of being a truly global institution by extending the university’s global reach and strengthening global partnerships.

Brief initial proposals are due 5 pm on Dec. 10, 2014. Applicants will be notified by Jan. 5, 2015 if they are invited to submit a full proposal. Faculty can view complete project requirements and download an application at the Online Education Initiatives website.

Duke’s Online Education Initiatives was launched in 2012 to encourage innovation, experimentation, and learning from new approaches and tools for online teaching and learning. Online Education Initiatives has supported numerous faculty experiments in online teaching, from a summer online statistics course for undergraduates to a course on tropical parasitology developed collaboratively with a university in Tanzania. See other previously supported projects.

Questions about the Call for Proposals can be sent to online@duke.edu.