The Penn State Office of The Vice President of the Commonwealth Campuses, in partnership with The Office for General Education, offers funding to full-time faculty to submit a Request for Proposals to develop courses to offer through the Digital Learning Cooperative (DLC) in support of innovative teaching.    

• Priority will be given to proposals for courses that fulfill the General Education requirements and focus on sustainability.

  Penn State has adopted the following as its formal definition of sustainability: Sustainability is the simultaneous pursuit of human health and happiness, environmental quality, and economic well-being for current and future generations. 

• Proposals in which the development of these courses occurs in collaboration with faculty across the Commonwealth campuses will also be given priority.   
• Courses that are currently offered in an asynchronous format but propose to be redesigned for delivery in a remote synchronous format will be considered.  Courses currently offered on the DLC in a hybrid or remote synchronous format will not be considered.  
• General education courses that are at the 100 level are preferred; 200 level courses will also be considered.  

A set amount of funding is available next calendar year (January 2024-December 2024); up to 10 awards at $500-1000 per awardee for course development are available. Courses must be delivered in a remote synchronous format.  

If accepted, participating faculty will be expected to:   

• work closely with learning designers to develop the course and     
• deliver the courses and to participate in General Education assessment and   
• attend when possible Commonwealth Campus events at which other recipients share their work and 
• complete the ‘Online Synchronous’ module in the Teaching Online Program (TOP) Level 1 and
• obtain approval to offer the course on DLC from your campus and  
• sign the Intellectual Property Agreement. 

Content developed for this initiative will become part of a shared repository of courses and will be made available to other faculty upon request.  Awardees must sign an intellectual property agreement.  

Application Process

Proposals for development during the spring and summer semesters and then offered in 2024-2025 must be submitted online by October 31.  There must be a commitment by the campus to offer the course in Fall 2024 or Spring 2025 on the DLC.    

Applications are now open and will be accepted until Tuesday October 31 at 11:59 pm To apply, submit a proposal which includes: 

• A description of the course   
• CO-PIs  
• A few brief sentences on why you would like to offer this course on the DLC and how it focuses on sustainability.  
• Approval to offer a course on the DLC from your campus (including the DAA for the University College and the School/Division Head, and Associate Dean for Abington, Altoona, Berks, Erie, and Harrisburg) 
• For questions, please contact Elizabeth Huck at eah47@psu.edu.   

Timeline:  

Call for applications                                        October 2023  

Selection of participants                                January 2024 

Course Development                                      Spring-Summer 2024  

Initial Course offering                                     Fall 2024 or Spring 2025 

Awardees will be paired with a campus instructional designer to support the course design and development for the online synchronous format of teaching. Instructional designers will support your efforts to create an interactive course by taking advantage of Canvas, Zoom, and other educational technologies to ensure our students have an engaging and rigorous learning experience. 

There are many considerations for teaching an online synchronous course to students from multiple campuses. There are are several resources available to support instructors:

• Gen Ed on the DLC Kick Off Meeting
• 1:1 Instructional Design Support
• Gen Ed on the DLC Canvas Template
• Teaching Online Program (TOP): Online Synchronous Module 

2024-2025 Gen Ed on the DLC Course Offerings

2023-2024 Gen Ed on the DLC Course Offerings

2022-2023 Gen Ed on the DLC Course Offerings

2021-2022 Gen Ed on the DLC Course Offerings