It may be the tough funding environment, but I have run across a number of grant proposals by various faculty that are somewhat gap-filled. There are proposals for a full program of courses that have no pay for the instructors in other departments (as if they would work for free). Or there are proposals for development grants that suggest a type of learning of creating learning objects but without actual deliverables. Or faculty will suggest the building of learning objects but suggest that they’ll magically deliver these LOs without any player or any way to play the contents or the measure the performances.

HR, Technology Resources, and Wherewithal

People who read grants have to assess whether those proposing a grant have the human resources, the technological ones, and the willpower to actually deliver on their work. They are in their positions to be skeptical—to see through the correct terminology and the song-and-dance—to see whether the team can actually deliver. And they also look to see that they can make the work accessible to a wide group of users, protect the work into the future, and to magnify the value and impact of the grant-funded work (through publication and other endeavors). Grant funders want to see that the funded work is part of the general mission of the various grant partners. They want the endeavors to be successful, and they want to mitigate their own risks in spending in the six and seven figures.

Gaps in the Chain

Now that I’m a couple years into consulting on grants and have been part of both funded and non-funded endeavors, I have learned that even small gaps in a grant proposal are highly dangerous (in terms of non-funding). Grants are about action, and being able to execute on proofs of concepts. When situations are highly competitive in terms of funding, a small gap may be problematic.

End-to-end Grant Support

Instructional designers who have grant training can support grant PIs in terms of follow-through—to actually delivering on the funded work. By this, I mean legally correct and accessible trainings. Then, there’s also support for proper reportage to the grant funders as needed, particularly in terms of the proper IT terms.

There are those who’ve gone ahead and used the verbiage of grants, gotten funded, and then got tossed up on the shoals of non-delivery, and that has its own risks. The tough work for a grant starts after the funding comes through, and bringing instructional designers on just for the planning but not writing them in on the budget lines seems risky to me. Instructional design—if done properly—is not extraneous to the teaching and learning; it’s not extraneous to the development and deployment work.