Save the Office for Learning and Teaching Petition

The Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) is an Australian Government body which funds research to improve teaching at universities. The Australian government plans to close the OLT in mid 2016. There was a report "A New National Institute for Learning and Teaching" calling for a new body, based at an Australian university, but this has not progressed. In response Associate Professor Angela Carbone, Monash University has set up a petition "Save the Office for Learning and Teaching" calling on the government to either continue the OLT or proceed with the new center.

While I support work to improve university teaching, OLT has not been very effective at doing that. OLT funds research, whereas what is needed is training. The problem is not that there is a lack of research on how to teach, just a lack of incentive to apply it in universities.

Tips for Getting a Teaching Grant

Rosalind James and Cathryn McCormack's "Grant Application Handbook for Office of Learning and Teaching Grants: Tips and tricks for grant application preparation" (OLT, 2013) is more than just a set of tips and tricks. At 142 pages this document is large enough to be the notes for a 12 week course. It is also a large 6.8 Mbyte PDF download. The promised "TIPS AND ADVICE FOR WRITING A PROPOSAL" section is in part 9, half way through the manual.

The handbook suffers from a verbose style, as an example the introductory "Who this is written for" does not get around to saying who the manual is for, until the second last paragraph. There is a useful summary at the end of the section, which should be at the beginning:

You may find this handbook useful if you are:

• preparing a teaching and learning grant for submission to the (OLT) for the first time,
• refining a previously rejected application for resubmission,
• developing an Expression of Interest into a full application,
• a successful grant applicant who is keen to improve a following application, or
• supporting or mentoring grant applicants within your university.

While as the manual says it would be useful for applying for many sorts of grants, it does not get around to explaining what an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) grant is until part 2. This should be up front so as not to waste the reader's time.

The manual duplicates much of the detail of grant processes available from the OLT website. This information will likely change frequently and it would be better left out of the manual. This would then be a shorter, more readable, more general purpose manual.

The manual is published under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 AU), so it would be possible to edit the document, removing the superfluous material, cleaning up the slightly jokey writing style and produce a more usable manual about one third the size.

Table of Contents

PART 1. INTRODUCTION

1. WHO THIS IS WRITTEN FOR
2. USING THIS HANDBOOK
3. ABBREVIATIONS
4. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

PART 2. OVERVIEW OF OLT GRANTS

1. WHAT ARE OLT GRANTS?
2. FUNDING RANGE AND PROJECT DURATION
3. ELIGIBILITY
4. RESEARCH STATUS OF OLT-FUNDED PROJECTS
5. AIM OF THE OLT GRANTS PROGRAMS
6. OLT ASSESSMENT PROCESS

PART 3. HOW READY ARE YOU?

1. ARE YOU READY?
2. INSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
3. PROPOSAL EVALUATION CRITERIA

• Project outcomes and rationale
• Approach
• Value/Need for Project.
• Project Management
• Budget

PART 4. APPLICATION PREPARATION

1. THE PROCESS OVERALL
2. IDENTIFYING INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES
3. SUBMISSION DATES 
4. RESPONSIBILITIES
5. IDENTIFYING SUPPORT AND RESPONSIBILITIES

PART 5. GENERATING AND DEVELOPING IDEAS

1. GETTING IDEAS THAT GET FUNDING
2. DON’T HAVE AN IDEA?
3. DEVELOPING YOUR IDEA
4. NEW IDEA?
5. BEFORE YOU START WRITING
6. CONCEPT MAPPING

1. PART 6. IMPLEMENTING YOUR IDEA: PROJECT PLANNING
2. WHAT WILL YOUR PROJECT ACHIEVE?
3. PROJECT OUTCOMES/DELIVERABLES
4. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?
5. DISSEMINATION
6. PROJECT EVALUATION

PART 7. BUILDING A TEAM AND ORGANISING COLLABORATORS

1. PROJECT PERSONNEL
2. COLLABORATIONS/PARTNERSHIP AND OTHER ROLES

PART 8. PREPARING YOUR BUDGET

1. DISCLAIMER
2. INTRODUCTION
3. RECOMMENDED APPROACH
4. PREPARING YOUR BUDGET
5. ADEQUACY AND ACCURACY

PART 9. THE NITTY-GRITTY OF WRITING

1. TIPS AND ADVICE FOR WRITING A PROPOSAL
2. ORGANISING COLLABORATIVE WRITING
3. PROJECT ABSTRACT
4. WRITING THE GRANT APPLICATION: LEADERSHIP FOR EXCELLENCE IN LEARNING TEACHING; INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT.
5. WRITING THE GRANT APPLICATION: SEED PROJECTS
6. SUGGESTED PROPOSAL STRUCTURE: EXTENSION GRANTS

PART 10. COLLATING FOR SUBMISSION (FINALLY!)

1. DOCUMENT FORMAT
2. THE APPLICATION CHECKLIST
3. STRUCTURE OF PROPOSAL
4. FORMATTING TO REDUCE LENGTH
5. TEXT FORMATTING
6. PRESENTATION
7. PROJECT TITLE AND ABSTRACT
8. BUDGET
9. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

• APPENDIX A: OLT PROJECT CONCEPT FORM
• APPENDIX B: SUPPORT LETTER TEMPLATES AND EXAMPLES
• APPENDIX C: BUDGET WORKBOOK
• APPENDIX D: BUDGET DEVELOPMENT—WORKED EXAMPLE
• APPENDIX E: EXAMPLES OF BUDGET JUSTIFICATION
• APPENDIX F: EXAMPLES OF TIMELINE FORMATS
• APPENDIX G: HOW TO AVOID 10 ‘FATAL’ MISTAKES