Submitting a Project Proposal

The goal of this new project proposal process is to allocate the necessary time and effort of the GCU & GCE IT teams in a fair, consistent and transparent manner, in accordance with the strategic priorities of the University, making sure that both academic and administrative projects receive an appropriate share of the IT team’s hours.

The Project Scoring application is under development
Please note that this is a new process, and some features are still in development. 


Background

GCU IT receives more requests for projects than can be accommodated. Furthermore, the projects that are requested often present competing priorities: while projects that support instruction may have long-termimportance to the academic mission of the College, they might compete with business urgency and impact projects that support administrative processes at the University or department level.

The project approval IT Steering Committees (ITSC) uses a proposal process to prioritize requests, applying specialized rubrics to weightacademic and administrative project requests, so that both types of projects receive the desired proportion of the IT team’s resources.

The information available to you here is to help inform you how to successfully complete and receive approval to your project proposal. Please view this information as advocacy rather than a new obstacle.

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How to Submit a Proposal
First step for a project request 

If you intend to write and submit a project request, we recommend that your first step should be to contact Garron Hale, Campus Applications Manager:
[email protected] 
We can talk about your project idea, refer you to previous successful proposals online, and help you plan the best way to write your proposal.Campus Technology wants to be your advocate and help you to get your project approved.  


Using the request process 

The project request forms offer several branches depending on the type of project request being submitted. Users first select from the following choices:

  1. Maintenance request: A request for small changes or edits to an existing web site or web application, or to report a problem.Note: Maintenance requests do not require steering committee review and scoring.
  2. Small Project request: a request for a project that might require a few hours of development work. Small project requests require a timeframe, criticality ranking, and a brief description. After you submit your Small Project request, someone from the team will get back to you to talk about your needs. Note: Small Project requests do not require steering committee review and scoring.
  3. Project request: a proposal for a project that will require a more involved planning process and likely many hours of developmentwork. Project Proposals are reviewed, scored and prioritized by the IT Steering Committee (ITSC) before being inserted into the development work plan. (Before filling out and submitting the form, please be sure to read the information found on this page.)

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Academic vs. Administrative projects 

If you have chosen the Project proposal option, you will have a choice between Academic and Administrative project proposals.

Proposal review workflow

The workflow for Academic and Administrative project requests is as follows:

  1. [Proposal submissions are only possible during the quarterly Proposal Windows. The Proposal Windows are open for two weeks four times a year. Proposals are not accepted during closed periods.]  – optional
  2. The Campus Applications Manager reviews proposals and recycles incomplete proposals, or proposals with easily addressable flaws, which are returned to the submitter to get fixed.
  3. Campus IT reviews proposals and adds rough time/effort estimations into the proposal and into the scoring system.
  4. [After the Proposal Window has closed], scoring begins for the steering committee members.
  5. Steering committee members score each category for each proposal on a 1-15 scale. (See below for information about categories).
  6. The steering committee meets to review their individual scores and negotiate a single consensus score for each category of each proposal.
  7. The steering committee reviews the IT services work plan and decides which proposed projects will be placed on the next work cycle in order to maintain the desired balance of administrative and academic projects, for instance.
  8. The Campus Applications Manager writes letters to all applicants with the results of the process

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Scoring Categories for Administrative Projects 

Administrative project requests are scored on a 1-5 scale by IT Steering Committee members on the following criteria. An average score of eachcriteria group is generated by the system scorecard (e.g., the scorer’s eight scores under Strategic Alignment produce a single average for that category.)

Strategic Alignment 

  1. Meets a current stated institutional priority
  2. Increases breadth and quality of research and graduate education
  3. Supports retention of faculty/staff/students
  4. Improves visibility and identity
  5. Furthers equity and diversity
  6. Impacts a broad audience
  7. Promotes balanced access to IT resources
  8. Promotes sustainable use of resources

Financial Impact 

  1. Includes grant funds
  2. Is affordable (ROI, Budget impact, maintenance costs)
  3. Adds revenue

Efficiency

  1. Improves administrative efficiency for faculty or staff
  2. Promotes efficient use of research or instruction relatedresources
  3. Leverages existing services and technology

Risk

  1. Is legally mandated or required to comply with institutional policies
  2. Avoids financial penalties
  3. Is time sensitive
  4. Mitigates security risks

Project Readiness 

  1. Has organizational support and sponsorship
  2. Key project roles are identified and assigned (Project manager, Subject Matter Experts, and so on)
  3. Has an approved, identified funding source
  4. GCU IT has skillset and experience to implement and support the product
  5. Technologies and products are identified and available

Institutional Coordination and Integration 

  1. Promotes technological integration and cooperation among multiple units
  2. Uses enterprise systems and/or data
  3. Aligns with the University’s current technology strategic plan

IT Steering Committee 

Current voting steering committee members are:

  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX

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Scoring Categories for Academic Projects 

Administrative project requests are scored on a 1-5 scale by committee members on the following criteria. An average score of each criteria group is generated by the system scorecard (e.g., the scorer’s eight scores under the Strategic Alignment produce a single average for that category.)

Strategic Alignment 

  1. Meets a current stated institutional priority
  2. Improves the visibility and academic reputation of GCU
  3. Furthers equity and diversity
  4. Impacts a broad audience
  5. Supports retention of faculty/staff/students

Research Impact 

  1. Increases quality of research
  2. Increases quality of graduate education
  3. Has a broad reach, impacting many researchers and/or graduate students

Teaching Impact 

  1. Increases breadth and quality of instruction
  2. Improves student access to instructional resources
  3. Creates innovative pedagogical methods

Financial Impact and Efficiency 

  1. Has external funding source (e.g., grant funding)
  2. Has internal funding support (e.g., grant from the Humanities Center or Faculty funds)
  3. Is affordable (ROI, Budget impact, maintenance costs)
  4. Promotes efficient use of research or instruction relatedresources
  5. Leverages existing services and technology
  6. Promotes integration and cooperation among multiple units

Project Readiness 

  1. Has organizational support and sponsorship
  2. Key project roles are identified and assigned (Project manager, Subject Matter Experts, and so on)
  3. Proposed project has an identified funding source
  4. GCU IT has skillset and experience to implement and support the product
  5. Technologies and products are identified and available

Academic Scoring Committee 

Current voting steering committee members are:

  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX
  • XXXXX XXXXX

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Committee Members score proposals along the following criteria guidelines – Keep these criteria in mind when filling out the project application form

Point Value 

Award Guidelines 

1

Proposal directly conflicts with the statement and may have a detrimental or counteracting effect with regard to it.

2

Proposal may not align well with the statement or have a negative effect with regard to it.

3

Proposal is neutral or non-applicable with regard to the statement.

4

Proposal aligns with, supports or promotes the statement and would have a net benefit with regard to it.

5

Proposal aligns with, supports or promotes the statement and would have a significant benefit with regard to it.

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Appendix: More information about the Project Scoring process:

(Linked pages below are not yet written)
Starting a proposal: What the requestor sees
A scorer’s view of a proposal during scoring
Category and total scores for a project under review
Scorecard showing scores from multiple scorers in progress
Queue of projects ready for scoring
Operations available to the site administrator for existing proposals