Project Proposal Assignment

Main assignment for this unit will be a two-page single-spaced proposal for a project that you would work on after praxis in the style of a grant application. Try to hit on the following categories (though it’s only two pages so each one will be pretty short!):

• Project description
• Literature review
• Technical overview
• Project development timeline
• Outreach/audience strategy
• Sustainability and Copyright
• Budget

You might, instead, try to follow the format of the DH Fellows applications. The goal is for this to be useful to you, so you can also opt to produce something more specific to your particular interests and career goals (like a proposal for a digital exhibition, symposium, etc.). If you go down one of these alternate routes chat with me first about the genre and how we can help. We will have in-session consults about each of your proposals, so they will be due by 9am on the Monday of the week you’ll be on deck.

Logistical guidance for students:

• Plan on sharing a google doc with editing permissions in the praxis channel containing your two-page project proposal.
• If you have any specific questions for us or points you’d like feedback on, please list those as well. They might help staff focus feedback.
• Share by 9:00 AM the Monday before your talk to the group.
• Ping the staff in the channel to let us know you have done so as well.
• Please read each other’s proposals! You’ll be welcome to give feedback on each other’s work as well in the interests of collaboratively making the projects as best as they can be.
• We’ll plan on giving verbal feedback in session, but staff might give written feedback as well.
• Plan on giving a 10-20 minute informal spiel about your project idea to kick things off. Mostly just in case people didn’t get a chance to read it and to orient things.

Logistical Guidance for staff:

I imagine these looking much like the standard type of consultation we might give to a stranger who emails with a project idea they want to discuss on [email protected]. Hopefully they’ll be easier, given that the students will give us way more content and have had way more training than those cold calls typically do!

• Read the student’s proposal if they get it in on time and you have a chance.
• Give written feedback if you’re moved but this is not required.
• In the session, we’ll plan on spending an hour roughly to each person.
• Have the student start out giving a short 10-20 minute spiel about what they want to do.
• From there, just give feedback on anything that comes to mind! I think treating it as a group conversation meant to improve the work would be generative (rather than grilling the student in the hot seat). There are certain bullet-point categories above they’ll aim to hit, so those would be good starting places for questions. But if you run out of ideas for facilitating conversation, try these:
• How can this be more doable? Is there an easier way to do what they’re describing?
• What pieces can we break off as prototypes?
• Where would they start?
• What most scares you or the students about the project?
• How can we make this best serve their career goals?
• What resources or people do we want to make sure they know about as they pitch this?
• Specifically invite the other students into the conversation if they are quiet / not saying much.