This session will be led by senior academic administrators who have collaborated on multi-institutional research and development projects supported by the Productivity and Innovation Fund (PIF) in Ontario. This year the PIF process distributed $45 million to colleges and universities to support projects designed to enhance educational offerings and to increase efficiencies across the vast network of institutions. Since one half of the funding was earmarked for multi-institutional submissions, universities were encouraged to band together to design projects with a positive potential impact beyond their own institutions.
Session facilitators will point to their involvement on two of the major projects funded under this program to describe the opportunities, challenges, and potential benefits of the process as well as the projects themselves. The two major projects involve the first steps towards the creation of a teaching evaluation toolkit designed to build the basis for better teaching across the province and an exploration of the mechanisms for the development of shared, modular university credit courses. The session will use these two projects to raise the issues around inter-institutional collaboration and the opportunity for academic administrators, such as vice-provosts and associate vice-presidents, to take a leadership role in funded educational development projects. Participants will be invited to identify what they believe to be the significant obstacles and barriers as well as pathways and incentives for increasing inter-institutional collaborations in the essentially competitive higher education environment.