Clarifying the project idea

Key points from the data:

• An initial challenge faced by many aspiring applicants is clarifying the project idea for a grant application.
• Clarifying the project idea can be a time-consuming process.
• A good starting point is for aspiring applicants to think first of all about learning and teaching in terms of what they are trying to achieve in their courses and programs. This can inform the 'problem' or identify the 'gap'.
• Looking at OLT Good Practice reports and reviewing completed project reports and resources can be instructive.
• Applicants should not pursue a grant solely because of the kudos or for the benefit of their CV. They should have a genuine interest in the learning and teaching issue at hand. Also, projects demand a significant work commitment over an extended period of time.
• Applicants should discuss their ideas with their department and faculty learning and teaching leaders, as well as any relevant professional bodies 'to see what they think' of the project idea and the level of commitment of human and other resources that might be required.   

An initial challenge faced by many aspiring applicants is clarifying the project idea for a grant application. Suggestions from a number of interviewees are particularly instructive in this regard. Their advice is to give it adequate thought over a reasonable time and do it for the right reasons. For example, Lucy (C-size institution) advises:

Don't apply for grants if really you don't have an intrinsic interest in it. People have asked me, ‘How do you get an OLT grant?’ I’m, like, ‘Well, what's your topic? What are you interested in?’ … If you're just applying ‘cause you think you're going to grab a bunch of money and this will somehow be good on your CV, well, I just don’t think so.  But if you have a really intrinsic interest, something that you really want to find out or you believe you can make a contribution, put your grant application together.  That passion for the topic will come through in your work.

Bill’s (D) advice complements Lucy's position. He suggests that rather than starting out writing a grant application, aspiring applicants should think first of all about learning and teaching in terms of what they are trying to achieve in their courses and programs. He said, 'So to take a real strong look not from a grant orientation but from a learning perspective and to start on that basis … and start to grow that work'. In Chapter 9 (Do the work anyway!), it will be shown that Bill (D) is a believer in ‘the project before the project’, that is, finding like-minded people (even with different strengths and perspectives) to engage in pilot work—unfunded if necessary—to ‘action research’ an idea and provide evidence of its efficacy and worth. His poignant reflections are worth relating in full:

So if you know well more than a year beforehand people need to be sort of building up things, maybe doing abstracts for conferences on the theme that they're interested in … I think it's at least a year and a half lag, two year lag before … submitting (an application). They'd be doing the substantial work.  You're hearing so often about 'Oh the grant rounds are coming up what are we going to do?' I've actually you know had conversations with people who have asked me that sort of question, 'What can we get together?' … I don’t like that mentality at all. I think people should actually already have a trajectory and then they say, 'Okay now we've got a trajectory … we've piloted it, we've got a little bit of internal funding, you know we've done some good evaluation, we've started to go to conferences, now maybe we can …' So there's a track record that says this thing might work.

This was Mikko's (A) advice, too. He suggested it was important to 'do something intrinsically important'.

Vivien (C) also encouraged people to start from the point of forming a question or identifying a gap. She said, 'Look, what is it that you’re looking to achieve from this?  What’s the outcome and for whom?' Her statement below indicates that while there was 'busy work' involved in developing the grant application, it may have benefited from a more focused effort to articulate the foundational aspects of the project idea and develop the application from there:  

So when I look at the unsuccessful one that was being led from elsewhere where they were trying to get two people from each uni in each state around the country. So it was a 'cast of thousands' kind of a project and because I was a very minor bit player in that one I didn't get too involved in the actual writing of the grant and my general impression of it was that they didn’t really know what they wanted to do. They knew who they wanted in it and which disciplines, but they didn't really know what they wanted to do.

In terms of identifying a gap or an area for a possible project Gerry (D) said, 'The best resources are the OLT website of previous grants. Avoid what has been done before unless it needs to be extended'. Sally (C) agreed, stating that people interested in developing an application should visit to the OLT website: 'They've got to go there and look at previous grants and do a good search to make sure it hasn't been previously done'. She also encouraged potential applicants to discuss their ideas with their department and faculty learning and teaching leaders, as well as any relevant dean of teaching professional bodies 'to see what they think'.