Academic Innovation Design Initative (AIDI)
The Academic Innovation Design Initiative (AIDI) is a multifaceted program from Academic Technology Services (ATS) designed to support departments and colleges in reaching their strategic, curricular goals. The first part of the program is a departmental level strategic design process. From there, AIDI provides a variety of support options to help faculty in those departments design, redesign, convert, and enhance their courses using technology based on their strategic design.
Departments may start the process by applying to AIDI at the end of the fall semester.
The first stage of AIDI is a 5-week departmental strategic design program.
The department chair as well as up to 3 other faculty members learn the basics of design thinking, academic technology, and after 2 weeks of structured discussion, they present their plans for utilizing ATS resources. Departments are encouraged to utilize academic technology to solve challenges with bottleneck courses, classroom scheduling, and to achieve other departmental goals such as analytics for accreditation or integrating specialized technology into the curriculum.
The department chair and participating faculty receive a stipend for their time.
Departments identify which courses would benefit the most from converting their format as well as which faculty members are best suited to lead the process and teach these courses.
According to the department plan, ATS provides support for faculty:
- to convert a course to an online format
- to convert a course to a hybrid format, which is particularly well suited to allow classes to share classrooms to increase enrollment capacity
Faculty also receive a stipend for their time.
Departments identify a plan to use BeachBoard or various technologies in their courses.
- Enhancement with BeachBoard - Faculty receive support to enhance their courses using tools in the learning management system (BeachBoard). This can be as simple as using the gradebook or quizzing tools or as advanced as department wide assignments and rubrics used to facilitate the accreditation process.
- Enhancement with Academic Technology - Faculty receive support to enhance their courses using tools in the learning management system (BeachBoard) as well as other tools and software provided by ATS.
- Enhancement with Department Technology - Departments identify a plan to use various specialized technology in their courses. Faculty receive support to enhance their courses using specialized department technology.
Faculty also receive a stipend for their time.