Official Process for Institutions to Join SEISMIC

Overview

For the remainder of the period covered by the original SEISMIC grant (1/1/2019 – 12/31/2023), new institutions can apply to join the SEISMIC collaboration with the understanding that SEISMIC Central is not required to provide funding to the institution and participation in the remainder of SEISMIC 1.0 does not guarantee involvement in the next version of SEISMIC beyond 2023.

To join SEISMIC as an institutional affiliation, new institutions are subject to the original application protocols, as detailed below:

 

Personnel

Applying institutions must include a team composed of at least 5 individuals in faculty, staff, or administrative positions (not counting students) from diverse departments and disciplines. At least one individual must be in a position to ensure data access for local researchers (see below).

 

Data

Essential data for this project comes from Student Information Systems (SIS) present on all campuses. SIS data include admissions, demographic, and transcript level data about each student. This is the kind of data used in the Matz et al. (2017) paper, and all participating institutions must have good research access to this data.

Existing Reform Effort

Participating institutions should be able to use SEISMIC as a tool for launching, supporting, and enhancing existing local efforts to reform STEM classes.

Contributions

Each participating institution should commit to paying the travel costs for at least four team members to attend the annual SEISMIC Summer Meetings.

Approval Process

Upon determination of viability, interested institutions will submit a letter of intent that addresses how each of the four previous points are fulfilled through a google form. The request will be evaluated by the SEISMIC Collaboration Council and a resolution will be provided within 15 business days of submission.

Upon approval of the request by the Collaboration Council, the institution will participate in all the benefits granted to the ten founding institutions, with the exception of the monetary share granted only to the original ten founding institutions. Institutions must also comply with the responsibilities expected from the founding institutions. 

SUBMIT LETTER OF INTENT

Benefits

Benefits for the participating institutions include:

  1. Participation in all the activities, meetings and programs within all Working Groups
  2. Ability to propose collaborative research projects for the collaboration
  3. Participation in the annual SEISMIC Summer Meetings
  4. Leverage the multi-institutional nature of the collaboration in the submission of grants and research projects
  5. Access to all the collaboration communications (e.g. monthly newsletter, Working Group email lists, website)
  6. Access to the services provided by SEISMIC Central

Responsibilities

Responsibilities of the participating institutions include:

  1. Commitment to the mission, vision, and values of SEISMIC
  2. Adherence to the SEISMIC Community Guidelines
  3. Bring together a local community of education researchers and practitioners motivated to explore and improve equity and inclusion in foundational STEM courses, led by an institutional PI and supported by an administrative patron.
  4. Host six or more SEISMIC-related speakers (virtually or in-person) for the local campus community.
  5. Provide research access to student data to local researchers so the institution can participate in SEISMIC parallel analyses.
  6. Connect existing local STEM reform efforts to the larger SEISMIC project.
  7. Pay the travel costs for four local team members to attend the annual SEISMIC Summer Meeting.