Project Budget

This is my first and rough budget breakdown. For now, all I know is that I need people who can help organize a curriculum of the program and create about 20 online courses in two years. I also need people to help with enrollment process and people who will mentor/grade students once the program starts. Please note that I’m planning to cap the enrollment number to 100 students for the first two years. Then the program goes well, we can gradually increase the enrollment size and eventually to complete open enrollment.

Budget for the first two years

• Project Director (1 Full-Time) $75,000
• Sr. Instructional Designer (2 Full-Time) $65,000 x 2 = $130,000
• Jr. Instructional Designer (6 Part-Time) $18,720 x 6 = $112,320
• Student Mentor/Grader (6 Part-Time) $18,720 x 6 = $112,320 (*16 students per mentor)
• Enrollment Manager (1 Full-Time) $55,000
• Enrollment Assistant (1 Part-Time) $15,600

Yearly Salary Total: $499,920 * 2 = $999,840

I probably need to budget for software, computer, server, benefits cost for the full-time employees, building fees, etc…, but I don’t exactly know how much these items cost. So, for now, I will not include the breakdown of the cost. Also, we are charging tuition for the students who want to enroll to the program. That will give us:

Student Tuition $2,700 * 100 = $270,000 a year, and in two years = $540,000

So, just looking at salary (which I believe where the majority of the expenses go), I need to request someone to fund us bout $459,840 in two years. But, of course, there are other expenses that I didn’t include, so let’s say we ask $1,000,000 for the first two years.

Thoughts on maintenance

Now good news is that once we complete all courses and standardize our enrollment process, we can increase our enrollment number. So, if we have 300 people enroll to the program:

Student Tuition $2,700 * 300 = $810,000 a year

And I believe the maintenance team budge for 300 students will look like this:

• Project Director (1 Full-Time) $75,000
• Sr. Instructional Designer (1 Full-Time) $65,000
• Jr. Instructional Designer (3 Part-Time) $18,720 x 5 = $56,160
• Student Mentor/Grader (18 Part-Time) $18,720 x 18 = $336,960 (*16 students per mentor)
• Enrollment Manager (1 Full-Time) $55,000
• Enrollment Assistant (4 Part-Time) $15,600 * 4 = $62,400

Yearly Salary Total: $650,520

That means that we have $810,000 from tuition and it cost $650,520 to maintain the program, so we will have $159,480 as a leftover!

Well, this is a really optimistic calculation, but I’m pretty sure that as we increase the number of enrollment, we will become more capable of sustaining the program without relying on external funds! (And I hope I’m right about this…, and I really think paying $2,700 a year for a master's degree from BYU is a way way waaaaaaaaaay and supeeeeeeeer deal.)

Project Timeline

• (September, 2010) Form the IP&T open master’s program initiative committee.
• (October, 2010) Define the program’s learning objectives and outcomes.
• (November, 2010) Create the program requirement document.
• (November, 2010) Identify the courses necessary for the program.
• (December, 2010) Organize/hire the program development team.
• (December, 2010) Create a plan for the online learning/teaching infrastructure and environment.
• (January, 2011) Train the development team.
• (January, 2011) Start to develop the first year course materials.
• (January, 2011) Create a plan for the 1st year project execution and identify the hiring process.
• (February, 2011) Start marketing the program.
• (April, 2011) Hire the execution team.
• (May, 2011) Train the execution team.
• (June, 2011) Start the enrollment process for the first year (Enrollment Cap: 100).
• (September, 2011) Start the 1st year of the program.
• (September, 2011) Start to develop the 2nd year course materials.
• (September, 2011) Evaluate execution process and write grant proposal for the year 2013 and 2014.
• (September, 2012) Start the 2nd year of the program.

BYU’s IP&T program goes open and beyond

Okay, it’s been frustrating and challenging weeks for me to decide the exact project I would like to propose. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know yet. So, I decided to pick a project that is not realistic in actuality (I would say it won’t happen for while or at least not easily), yet really exciting to me. My proposal is to get a grant to make our IP&T master’s program open and online degree-offering program.

Let me explain more.

Making our master’s program open means the following:

1. We create an online-based master’s degree program.
2. We will develop instructional materials for all of our master’s courses and share them to the public via the Internet (lecture videos, lecture slides, syllabus etc.).
3. Eventually, we will make the master’s program OPEN ENROLLMENT (yes, we will not reject anyone. Everyone is accepted and get their degrees as long as they can meet the degree requirements).
4. We will reduce a tuition fee by 75% of current non-BYU student tuition rate (So, financially more accessible for student), but we will not sacrifice the quality of the program.
   

Now, I know this is a challenging project, but I guess that’s why it’s perfect for this class assignment (and beyond, in my option). So, let us not worry about if BYU allows this initiative or any other possible obstacles. I’m doing this JUST for this class. However, I am committed to make this proposal as realistic as possible and if BYU ever allows, then we can say that we already have a pretty solid plan. Well, enough said, I’m now working on the project outline and budgets.



Please wait for the update...

Introduction

Well, for some reasons, I struggled in this assignment. I still don't like this intro, but I have to put up something.... So, this is what I have so far.

Isaku

"Open Educational Resources (OER) are one of the promising educational phenomena that could alter our current educational models and practices. For centuries, many educational institutions have practiced the closed or constrained system of education. Excluding a few exceptions, those organizations put intellectual, geographical, financial, and admission-related constraints on people if they desire to access their education.

OER could provide a way to remove these constraints, allowing any organizations or individuals to access, use, and reuse teaching and learning materials at no cost. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (n.d.) states “At the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Worldwide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge.”

Perhaps the most famous example of OER is the OpenCourseWare (OCW) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2002, MIT launched their OCW and started to share course syllabus, lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations, recorded lectures, and other instructional materials over the Internet. By late 2007, MIT published over 1,800 courses from 33 academic fields, almost the entire curriculum of MIT.

Other universities followed the MIT’s OCW initiative, and the OER movement gained more attention; however none of these initiatives was intended to be a degree- or certificate-granting program. In contrast, a few scholars (Wiley, 2009, Smith & Casserly, 2006) and people argue that OER should be used as a part of programs that offers educational degrees and certifications. Currently, there are a few institutions that offer open and free educational program developed from OERs.

Although this open and cost-free aspect of the open educational program (OEP) might be initially appealing to some, the critical question still need to be answered to prove their creditability; how do they create and maintain an educational program that useful, meaningful, and creditable when financial and educational resources are limited? Good educational program requires much more than organizing courses and course materials. It requires experienced teachers or mentors that can monitor and assist the learning progress of the students, the trustworthy assessment system that can demonstrate competitive learning achievement of the students, and a strong administrative infrastructure that can support and maintain the institution and its growth. In order to prove the creditability of the program, any OEP needs to meet these requirements."