ISBM Educational Materials Development Program Guidelines for Proposals

The Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) announces its Educational Materials Development Program and solicits proposals for financial grants from full-time scholars seeking to create state-of-the-art business marketing pedagogical tools including:

• Case Studies
• Textbooks
• Software
• Computer Simulation Games
• Innovative Delivery Methods
• Studies of Educational Effectiveness

Nature of Funding

Primarily, grants should be used for the direct expenses associated with the development of educational materials. These direct expenses might include but are not limited to information collected from secondary sources, primary data collection, travel, communications, research assistant wages, mailing and printing. ISBM grants are not to support faculty release time during the academic year. Overhead, indirect costs, tuition, faculty salaries, equipment, and other durable equipment purchases will not be funded. The ISBM does not have video production, software writing, or publication capabilities in-house. However, the ISBM will work with scholars to identify acceptable commercial entities that do and are willing to work with the grant recipient on a given project.

Scholar Commitment

In return for ISBM support, the scholar must agree to the following:

1. Resulting educational materials or a paper summarizing the work must be added to the ISBM Working Series for release to our academic and corporate members. We request any working papers be provided in printed form and on a diskette.
2. Most universities, including Penn State, have an approval process for the use of human subjects in research. If the development of your educational materials involves human subjects, your efforts must meet all the human subject requirements of your institution.
3. The ISBM may require a presentation or demonstration of your materials at one of our conferences. Transportation expenses and related costs will be paid by the ISBM.
4. Up to twice a year, the ISBM may request a progress report on your project.
5. The ISBM should be given credit in any publication based on this grant. The credit should read, "The author(s) acknowledges the support of Penn State's Institute for the Study of Business Markets."
6. The ISBM should be notified of the publication or production of any educational materials and provided with copies.
7. If the support requested aids the scholar to develop a textbook or other material that a commercial publisher will market, the ISBM must be listed as a co-sponsor and be provided authors' purchase rates for the distribution of the book or materials to its member firms.

Proposal Format

Scholars interested in a support grant should submit a short prospectus of 2-3 pages describing the project, timing, and level of financial support needed. Please provide the following information in your funding proposal:

• Background —Briefly describe the nature of your project, comment on its importance, and describe how scholars can use resulting materials in business marketing courses at either the undergraduate, MBA, Ph.D., or executive education level(s).
• Project Objectives —Use bullets to summarize your pedagogical goals for the project. Tell us what you hope to achieve.
• Methodology and Timing —List and describe the steps that you will take to gather necessary information and create the proposed educational materials. Forecast how long each step will take to complete and when the entire project will be finished.
• Financial Support Requested —Provide an itemized listing of expected project costs and the total support you are requesting.
• Deliverables —Concisely describe the outputs of the project (e.g., a case study, a simulation game, a negotiations exercise, a textbook, and so on).
• Vita —Attach a copy of your current vita.

Approval Process

The ISBM directorate will make the final decisions on the awards. Send one copy of the proposal and address any related questions to:

Professor James A. Narus
Babcock Graduate School of Management
Wake Forest University
Suite 150, One Morrocroft Centre
Charlotte, NC 28211-3551 USA

Telephone: 704-365-6717
Fax: 704-365-3511
E-mail: jim.narus@mba.wfu.edu