DELTA Grants FAQ

DELTA Grants support the creation, redesign and improvement of face-to-face, online, blended and hyflex courses; explore new technologies for teaching, the seeding new online programs and spreading innovative ways to teach to faculty across campus. These grants are part of a competitive awards program and include Course Design (CD), Exploratory, Critical Path (CP), and Faculty Fellows (FF) grants. DELTA Grants promote innovation in the use of instructional technology in digital education by providing support in the form of DELTA personnel hours and funds. With the grants, we seek to cultivate instructional excellence in online instruction through experimentation with new ideas, teaching methods and technologies.

DELTA especially encourages projects that serve the needs of significant numbers of potential students and are consistent with department and college initiatives. DELTA also encourages projects that yield materials which can be used in on-campus courses or extension activities in addition to their intended digital and face-to-face education usages.

If you want to substantially modify, revise or expand your course with new materials, or if you plan to create a new resource for teaching that course, then you can apply for a DELTA Grant.

We encourage you to reapply and suggest that you Attend a Group Consult and Information Session with a staff member to discuss how to strengthen your application for the next cycle.

No. Each year, DELTA receives a mix of proposals across the grant categories. The number of grants awarded in each category will depend on the total number of proposals, quality of proposals, amount of funds and DELTA staff time available, and other standard review criteria. Based on grant awards from previous years and the resources we expect to have available, we do have approximate expectations of the number of grants that will be awarded in each category.

The answer will vary with each proposal depending on the complexity of the grant and the information you will need to gather. We work to keep the application process for a DELTA Grant simple and streamlined. Having strong support from your department or unit, your college and/or within DELTA will increase a proposal’s chances for success. Because proposals benefit from departmental and college support, you should factor in meeting times with your department head and with your college’s distance education coordinator. You may also wish to Attend a Group Consult and Information Session, which usually last about an hour. The estimated time for compiling and preparing a strong proposal, therefore, is approximately 5 – 20 hours over a period of several weeks.

Please email deltagrants@ncsu.edu with any questions.

Any member of the NC State faculty or staff who is at least 3/4 time may submit proposals. Certain grants require applicants to possess some experience teaching the course to which the proposal applies. Specific eligibility guidelines are outlined in the Request for Proposals (RFP).

Yes. However, since part of the grant review criteria emphasizes reusability, we will consider how long a graduate student’s project will continue to be used. The grant application will likely be stronger with a faculty or staff member as the principal investigator.

At this time, DELTA Grants are only available to develop for-credit online and distance education courses and programs. In some instances, course materials can be cross-purposed for use in for-credit and non-credit courses; in those cases, we can support the development of materials whose primary purpose is online and distance education.

DELTA receives many great proposals in each cycle, but unfortunately, we lack the resources to support them all. We encourage applicants to reapply the following year, especially after receiving feedback from DELTA about making the proposal stronger. In addition, the Instructional Technology Services unit of DELTA offers assistance to faculty through workshops, instructional consultations on instructional technology issues, and limited production support for instructional materials. Contact DELTA Instructional Support Services staff via learntech@ncsu.edu.

If your project is currently supported in other ways, it’s not necessarily a problem. If the different resources are complementary and help you finish a large project, that is appropriate. However, we do not want to support a phase of your development that another mechanism is already supporting.

Yes. As the last stage of the proposal submission process, your department head will review your proposal. In this review, they can accept or deny the proposal and can add their comments or endorsements. Your department head must accept the proposal in order for your submission to be complete. Therefore you should make sure that your department head is expecting the email. The goal of the department review is to ensure that the proposal is consistent with departmental objectives, that the proposal is feasible given faculty activities, commitments and responsibilities, and that the proposal will be supported by departmental resources after the DELTA Grant is over.

College deans or their designees review all proposals submitted by faculty or staff in their college except for Faculty Fellows grants. They score and rank the proposals and can also add comments or endorsements. The goal of the college review is to ensure the proposal is consistent with college priorities, that the proposal is significant to the college’s strategic initiatives and that the proposal strengthens related activities in the college.

During the DELTA internal review process, DELTA personnel review proposals for their potential to strategically impact online and distance education programs or the general distance education environment at NC State. The reviews by the departments and colleges are also taken into consideration at this time. At any time in the review process, DELTA staff may contact you for more information about your project. DELTA review criteria for different grant categories are available in the Request for Proposals.

The college scores and comments are a very important part of the process, and we take them seriously. However, other considerations also factor into the review process. For example, a proposal may be in-line with college and department objectives, but DELTA lacks the necessary technical resources to support development. Alternatively, a proposal that finds less enthusiasm from the college may still get funded because it will increase online and distance education enrollments and require very little support for success.

DELTA notifies colleges and faculty about the awards via email—usually the first week of August.

No, you may not pay graduate student tuition with state-appropriated funds. If you are simply hiring an individual as a temporary employee paid on an hourly basis, you do not need to be concerned about a slot, even if they also happen to be a graduate student. However, if you are using these funds as part of a formal graduate assistantship, then you will need to be concerned about the Graduate Student Support Plans (GSSP). If your department/college has an available slot, it would be appropriate to use the funds from your DELTA Grant for the actual monthly assistantship payments during this fiscal year and use the slot for the GSSP.

You should plan to complete your project in a single year. In cases where further support is necessary, you should consult with DELTA staff to consider options for continuing support.

DELTA Grant funds are state-appropriated funds transferred to a department on a fiscal-year basis with the intention of those funds being expended that fiscal year. Once transferred, these funds are subject to rules and procedures within your department and college. If the college should receive exceptional approval from the university to carry forward state-appropriated funds into the next fiscal year, it is possible that this approval could include distance education funds. If an exception is granted by the university, please be sure to work closely with DELTA to extend the proposed completion date of the grant.

Your college business officer will be notified via email from the DELTA Office of Finance and Business when the transfer of funds has been initiated. Either you or your departmental bookkeeper should work with the Business Officer for your college to ensure that funds are available in the appropriate account codes and ready to be expended.

You may pay monthly employees (EHRA teaching, EHRA non-teaching, SHRA), temporary employees or contractual labor. You may pay for graduate assistantships and associated benefits provided that you have the appropriate department, college and university approval for assistantships; however, you are not allowed to pay tuition.

Yes. However, specific agreements regarding release time are internal to your department and/or college.

These are state-appropriated funds transferred to a department/college on a fiscal-year basis with the intention of those funds being expended that fiscal year. Once transferred, these funds are subject to rules and procedures within your department and college. If the college should receive exceptional approval from the university to carry forward state-appropriated funds into the next fiscal year, it is possible that this approval could include online and distance education funds. Requests for carryover must be made through your academic department to the university, as DELTA cannot grant carryover exceptions. If an exception is granted by the university, please be sure to work closely with DELTA to extend the proposed completion date of the grant.

The funds are transferred as EHRA Teaching funds or Operating funds. Your college Business Officer will be notified when the transfer of funds has been initiated. You should work with the Business Officer for your college to ensure the funds are moved to the appropriate account codes (personnel and operating) as specified in your budget. The budget flexibility rules which apply to all state-appropriated funds apply to the DELTA Grant funds. If you are not familiar with these rules, your college Business Officer will be able to assist you.

Before submitting a DELTA Grant proposal, notify the DELTA Grants Program Manager of your phased retirement status to find out if you’re eligible to receive DELTA Grant funding. The State Retirement System monitors this very closely, and you will be penalized by the State Retirement System if you receive additional funds. If you have questions about your eligibility to receive DELTA Grant funding in addition to your negotiated salary, you should contact your department or the University Benefits Office.

Please contact the Assistant Vice Provost, Business Operations for DELTA Jessie Sova.