Call for Projects
Status: open
Dear teachers and colleagues,
We are happy to announce our HOOU Call for Projects for this semester! Within the Hamburg Open Online University (https://www.hoou.de/) initiative at our university, we will be funding a number of different projects aimed at spreading the wealth of knowledge present amongst our ranks to the public. The basic idea of the HOOU is to slowly but surely produce free-to-use learning materials, focusing primarily on bachelor level and up, which could be used both to enhance the existing lectures and to allow people all over the world to learn some new, interesting things we have to offer!
Regardless if you want to share some expert tips, shed light on a specific subject, provide the world with some basic or advanced knowledge about your field, or create an entire online course – we’d love to hear about it!
The connection between the materials you wish to create and the regular lessons is important for us – the more interconnected they are, the better! We are especially interested in projects that aim to be directly integrated into your lessons, either by providing additional materials or whole units for the course, or even preparing an entire digital course. The scope of the projects we aim at is up to one year in duration and up to 10000 Euro, but if you have ideas for something more grand (that especially goes if you plan to create an entire digital course), we are happy to take it into consideration. If you have already done some work on preparing your materials for online semester and would like to get some further help from us, you can also feel free to contact us!
Deadline for this round of applications is Sunday, 19.03.2023 till 23:59.
For the HOOU, four criteria are important – Lernendenorientierung und Kollaboration; Wissenschaftlichkeit; Öffnung für neue Zielgruppen und zivilgesellschaftliche Relevanz; and Openness/OER.
Lernendenorientierung und Kollaboration – we encourage the projects which have collaborative elements, but we are not exclusive there. The materials should be focused on the student, and the more learning-by-doing there is, the better.
Wissenschaftlichkeit – all the materials should have an adequate level and be factually correct. Depending on the target audience, references and a literature list might be appropriate.
Öffnung für neue Zielgruppen und zivilgesellschaftliche Relevanz – we are trying to reach wider audiences and to cover more of the currently relevant topics. That being said, we are not excluding the topics for narrow, expert audiences.
Openness/OER – admittedly the most important criteria. Everything published (baring some exceptions from the field of medicine) needs to be freely available and under CC license, where we strongly encourage the CC BY SA flavor (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode). In short, the materials produced and published under the HOOU umbrella can freely be used, shared and re-mixed by anyone.
For a more detailed overview, please visit https://www.hoou.de/footer-items/6f8c52c9-74e1-4303-aa35-1ea174995a8b
Apart from creating the materials and the framework, you are also responsible for posting it online. Default platform for that is hoou.de – in case of some special requirements we could discuss other options. Video materials will also be posted to our HOOU@HfMT YouTube channel and the project will be presented at our HOOU@HfMT Webpage.
So, how does it work? We’ll now take you through some basic steps!
First would be to decide – What is it you wish to teach the world?
You have a great amount of freedom when choosing your topic – it can range from stuff that is interesting to a huge audience, such as “Does music help alleviate pain?” to expert questions, such as “Articulation in the late cembalo works of J.S.Bach”. Important thing is, that after going through your course and/or materials, the viewer has learned something new.
Who exactly you aim to teach it to?
Very important decision that will shape the project is the target audience. The same topic presented for an ambitious retiree who wants to learn something new and for a fresh Master student who will have an exam on that topic will have different ways of presentation and radically different depth. For a course and/or material to be successful, it has to be consistent and target group oriented.
How best to teach it?
The format your materials will have is varied, and the best results occur when using many different media. We suggest choosing and mixing videos, animations, video-podcasts, audio-podcasts, audio recordings, text documents (docx and pdf), interactive content such as H5P etc. The main focus will almost always be on one type of media, but it should be supported and/or expanded on by using some of the other media as well.
How long will it take me to produce all the materials?
Timeline is a very important part of the project planning and we will need to see one in your project proposal. The speed varies depending on many factors, but the amount of time should not be underestimated. What we saw in praxis is that most difficult task is often to find the timetable which fits all of the participants. Video and animation require storyboards, which take time to write, and for many types of content, the post-production phase is much longer than the recording itself. We are happy to help with creating the timeline for your proposal!
Do I have to do it all by myself?
Short answer: no. You can plan to hire personnel to help, be it as coworkers or as student help, and assign tasks to different members of your team. It is also possible to bring the project into the classroom, and reward students for their help and participation through credit points.
The production is another thing you can get help with – we primary work with MMKH (https://www.mmkh.de/) when we need to produce video materials, but lots can also be done in-house by our HOOU media team, by cooperating with interested students from HAW, HfBK or TUHH, hiring outside help, or doing things on your own. Our media team will also help with audio productions and audio podcasts, and for all the other things it’s possible to hire experts to help (we have an animator with whom we often work, some in-house voice talents for voice-overs etc.).
Do I have to write a report at the end?
Yes, but not a huge one. Apart from the end of the project report, which should be between 1 and 2 pages long, we expect a short report (from one or two sentences up to few paragraphs) every three months.Don’t worry, we will help with that as well!
How much will all that cost?
The size and the length of the project are deciding factors in the budget. We’ve seen that the biggest costs are usually personnel costs, and, in some cases, production costs. Here too we are happy to provide help and advice when developing the budget proposal. Our wish is to have projects which fit the 10 000 Euro budget – smaller is better, and bigger projects are possible upon consideration.
And lastly – preparing the project proposal!
Project proposition is more-or-less simply putting all the previous steps on paper, organizing and polishing it. Once the proposal is ready, you will need to officially send it to us and our team will then discuss it and decide if your project will receive the funding.
Should you decide to embark on this journey with us, please contact us and we will send you the forms for the project proposal, budget and timeline, and will happily help you fill these out!
Don’t worry, we’ll happily help you every step of the way!
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, via email or directly! Our project coordinator Goran Lazarevic is always looking forwards to hearing about new ideas! You can reach him at goran.lazarevic@hfmt-hamburg.de or schedule a Zoom call.
Dear students,
We are happy to announce our HOOU Call for Projects for this semester! Within the Hamburg Open Online University (https://www.hoou.de/) initiative at our university, we will be funding a number of different projects aimed at spreading the wealth of knowledge present amongst our ranks to the public. The basic idea of the HOOU is to slowly but surely produce free-to-use learning materials, focusing primarily on bachelor level and up, which could be used both to enhance the existing lectures and to allow people all over the world to learn some new, interesting things we have to offer!
Regardless if you want to share some expert tips, shed light on a specific subject, provide the world with some basic or advanced knowledge about your field, or create an entire online course – we’d love to hear about it!
The connection between the materials you wish to create and the regular lessons is important for us – the more interconnected they are, the better! We are especially interested in projects that aim to be directly integrated into the lectures, by providing additional materials or whole units for the course. The scope of the projects we aim at is up to one year in duration and up to 5000 Euro, but if you have ideas for something more grand (that especially goes if you plan to work on an entire digital course), we are happy to take it into consideration.
Deadline for this round of applications is Sunday, 19.03.2023 till 23:59.
For the HOOU, four criteria are important – Lernendenorientierung und Kollaboration; Wissenschaftlichkeit; Öffnung für neue Zielgruppen und zivilgesellschaftliche Relevanz; and Openness/OER.
Lernendenorientierung und Kollaboration – we encourage the projects which have collaborative elements, but we are not exclusive there. The materials should be focused on the student, and the more learning-by-doing there is, the better.
Wissenschaftlichkeit – all the materials should have an adequate level and be factually correct. For student projects it is necessary to have a teacher as a mentor or a supervisor – someone who will guarantee the factual correctness and will help with the methodology and didactics. Depending on the target audience, references and a literature list might be appropriate.
Öffnung für neue Zielgruppen und zivilgesellschaftliche Relevanz – we are trying to reach wider audiences and to cover more of the currently relevant topics. That being said, we are not excluding the topics for a narrow, expert audiences.
Openness/OER – admittedly the most important criteria. Everything published (baring some exceptions from the field of medicine) needs to be freely available and under CC license, where we strongly encourage the CC BY SA flavor (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode). In short, the materials produced and published under the HOOU umbrella can freely be used, shared and re-mixed by anyone.
For a more detailed overview, please visit https://www.hoou.de/footer-items/6f8c52c9-74e1-4303-aa35-1ea174995a8b
Apart from creating the materials and the framework, you are also responsible for posting it online. Default platform for that is hoou.de – in case of some special requirements we could discuss other options. Video materials will also be posted to our HOOU@HfMT YouTube channel and the project will be presented at our HOOU@HfMT Webpage.
So, how does it work? We’ll now take you through some basic steps!
First would be to decide – What is it you wish to teach the world?
You have a great amount of freedom when choosing your topic – it can range from stuff that is interesting to a huge audience, such as “Does music help alleviate pain?” to expert questions, such as “Articulation in the late cembalo works of J.S.Bach”. Important thing is, that after going through your course and/or materials, the viewer has learned something new.
Who exactly you aim to teach it to?
Very important decision that will shape the project is the target audience. The same topic presented for an ambitious retiree who wants to learn something new and for a fresh Master student who will have an exam on that topic will have different ways of presentation and radically different depth. For a course and/or materials to be successful, it has to be consistent and target group oriented.
How best to teach it?
The format your materials will have is varied, and the best results occur when using many different media. We suggest choosing and mixing videos, animations, video-podcasts, audio-podcasts, audio recordings, text documents (docx and pdf), interactive content such as H5P etc. The main focus will almost always be on one type of media, but it should be supported and/or expanded on by using some of the other media as well.
How long will it take me to produce all the materials?
Timeline is a very important part of the project planning and we will need to see one in your project proposal. The speed varies depending on many factors, but the amount of time should not be underestimated. What we saw in praxis is that most difficult task is often to find the timetable which fits all of the participants. Video and animation require storyboards, which take time to write, and for many types of content, the post-production phase is much longer than the recording itself. We are happy to help with creating the timeline for your proposal!
Do I have to do it all by myself?
Short answer: no. You can plan to hire personnel to help, be it as coworkers or as student help, and assign tasks to different members of your team. It is also possible to bring the project into the classroom, and reward students for their help and participation through credit points.
The production is another thing you can get help with – we primary work with MMKH (https://www.mmkh.de/) when we need to produce video materials, but lots can also be done in-house by our HOOU media team, by cooperating with interested students from HAW, HfBK or TUHH, hiring outside help, or doing things on your own. Our media team will also help with audio productions and audio podcasts, and for all the other things it’s possible to hire experts to help (we have an animator with whom we often work, some in-house voice talents for voice-overs etc.).
Do I have to write a report at the end?
Yes, but not a huge one. Apart from the end of the project report, which should be between 1 and 2 pages long, we expect a short report (from one or two sentences up to few paragraphs) every three months. Don’t worry, we will help with that as well!
How much will all that cost?
The size and the length of the project are deciding factors in the budget. We’ve seen that the biggest costs are usually personnel costs, and, in some cases, production costs. Here too are we happy to provide help and advice when developing the budget proposal. Our wish is to have projects which fit the 5000 Euro budget – smaller is better, and bigger projects are possible upon consideration.
And lastly – preparing the project proposal!
Project proposition is more-or-less simply putting all the previous steps on paper, organizing and polishing it. Once the proposal is ready, you will need to officially send it to us and our team will then discuss it and decide if your project will receive the funding.
Should you decide to embark on this journey with us, please contact us and we will send you the forms for the project proposal, budget and timeline, and will happily help you fill these out!
Don’t worry, we’ll happily help you every step of the way!
If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to ask, via email or directly! Our project coordinator Goran Lazarevic is always looking forwards to hearing about new ideas! You can reach him at goran.lazarevic@hfmt-hamburg.de or schedule a Zoom call.