After 16 years of recognizing exemplary engineering education courseware, the Premier Award ended in 2012. We are no longer accepting submissions.
The Premier Award competition is open to a wide range of submissions of “high-quality, non-commercial courseware designed to enhance engineering education.”
Recommendations for Submitters
We strongly recommend submitters:
- Review past Premier Award winners and especially the submission packets. While each year is slightly different, past submissions can provide you a good sense of the types of materials that the judges and the competition value.
- Carefully prepare your submissions. The submission packages play an important role in the overall evaluation of your courseware because the Premier Award “is about the entire experience and not just the courseware.”
- Highlight the portions of course website submissions (if applicable) that contain content that can be used in a variety of settings outside of the particular class or educational setting that you are submitting for review. Previous experience has shown that class websites that do not clearly indicate how other faculty can use the class materials do not review well.
- Highlight a specific implementation of a general tool submission (if applicable) that “enhances engineering education”.
Submission Guidelines
- Submit your courseware to Engineering Pathway (EP) by completing a catalog record with a link to your courseware or to a page describing the courseware. Log in will be required so please register first if you are not registered.
- Complete the online submission form.
- Provide both a PDF and three (3) printed copies of your submission packet, with the following items:
- Cover letter, not to exceed two (2) pages*, that must include:
- clear statement that you are authorized to submit this courseware for the competition;
- full contact information for the submitter, including mailing address and email address;
- clear statement of who holds the copyright(s) for the courseware and its components;
- names of all authors and contributors, their affiliations and whether they have been contacted regarding this submission;
- clear statement allowing the Premier Award to become a non-exclusive distributor of the courseware, submission packet and video, as submitted, for the Premier Award competition. As part of the competition, we distribute submissions using a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License and encourage adopters to contact courseware authors for other uses. (see also Eligibility Information);
- brief, two to four sentence description of the courseware that can be used as a citation for the courseware and that is suitable for promotional purposes; and
- login and password (if applicable) to access the courseware or any instructor-specific portions of the site. The judges will use this login during the review process.
- Submitter’s Dean and Department Chair and Co-Authors and their Dean’s and Department Chairs contact information.If your submission is chosen as the Premier Courseware, we will acknowledge your submission and send notification letters to your Dean and Department Chair. We will also acknowledge your co-Authors (if applicable) participation, and send notification letters to their Deans and Department Chairs. Provide full mailing addresses and email addresses in the submission package.
- Body, not to exceed ten (10) pages*.The text in the body should provide a comprehensive overview of your courseware, how it is used with learners, and how it meets the evaluation criteria.
In the body, you must include:- Specific response to each of the Premier Award Evaluation Criteria.
- Description of the impact of this courseware. For example, what topic areas are covered in the courseware? How and where has the courseware been used? In a lab or lecture section? At a different institution? In different departments? How many learners have been impacted by the courseware? A single class? An entire department?
- Description of how the courseware is used by a learner and instructor. Description of the support materials used in conjunction with this courseware, including pedagogical objectives, learning goals, lesson plans, instructor’s and user’s guides, etc.
- Description of the evaluation and assessment performed to assess student learning through use of the courseware. For example, was student learning improved? How was student learning measured? Was some process/product (e.g., report writing, test scores, etc.) measurably improved?
- Similarity to other courseware. Are there any, either commercial or non-commercial, courseware that are similar to your submission? If yes, how is your submission similar or different? And, what makes your submission stand out from others?
- Identify any specific operating systems, software or applications required to use the submission (e.g., Linux, MATLAB, Java, etc.).
- Letters/Statements of Reference. These letters/statements should be by instructors other than the author(s) that have either adopted or adapted the courseware. Ideally one or more of these instructors will be at a different institution than the author(s). Up to three can be included in the Body, any others may be included in the Appendix. This section is optional but adoption and/or adaptation by others may be viewed as a key measure of your courseware.
- Resubmission Documentation, for a resubmission only, not to exceed two (2) pages*.If you are resubmitting courseware submitted for a previous competition and meet the Eligibility guidelines, you are required to provide additional documentation. You must include a:
- Concise description of how the courseware has changed since the previous submission.
- Description of how your changes address the suggestions for improvement provided with your previous submission.
- Appendix, can include:
- Learner evaluations, surveys and survey results.
- Additional Letters of Reference.
- Journal or Conference Papers describing the courseware and its use.
- Any additional supporting material that may assist the judges in evaluating your courseware.
- Cover letter, not to exceed two (2) pages*, that must include:
- Provide copies of your courseware for judging purposes.
- If your courseware is web-based or downloadable from a website or ftp server, please provide the appropriate URL in your submission cover letter and via the online submission form.
- If your courseware is distributed on CD or DVD, then you must provide us with ten (10) copies of the courseware on either CD or DVD.
- Provide a screen capture video demonstration of your courseware with voice over to help our diverse panel of judges to more quickly understand your submission. The video should not exceed seven (7) minutes and it should include how both students and faculty would use your courseware.We prefer h.264/x.264 encoded video in a Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov/.mp4) container, though we will accept Windows Media (.wmv) files as well.
Please provide a URL on a publicly accessible web or ftp server so we can download your video demonstration, or submit ten (10) copies on CD or DVD with your submission packets. We must be able to run a copy of your video locally (i.e., we will not stream the video).
You may want to use the Free Trial version of Camtasia Studio for Windows or Camtasia for Mac from Premier Award sponsor TechSmith, or Snapz Pro X for Macs from Ambrosia software.
All items must be completed and arrive by the deadline.
Send submission packets to arrive by 5pm Eastern Time on the due date.
Email a copy of the submission packet.
Notes
- Submitter and/or graduate students and technical staff must be available August 1 – September to work with Premier Award staff. Due to the nature of the judging, this will require rapid response and unfortunately we won’t know the exact time that we may need your assistance.
- Courseware submitted to the Premier Award competition must be distributable by the Premier Award (Repeated from Eligibility Info.) By submitting to the Premier Award competition the submitter acknowledges that:
- they retain sufficient rights to allow the Premier Award to become a non-exclusive distributor of the courseware as submitted for the Premier Award competition -and-
- they will transmit to the Premier Award a full working version of their courseware (in some cases previews or demos of the courseware may be acceptable) in September if it is selected as the Premier Courseware (even if their courseware is web-based).
- * Page Specifications
- Paper: US Letter size (8.5″ x 11″)
- All A4 or nonconforming pages will be cropped as necessary to meet the US Letter size (8.5″ x 11″) requirement. Under extreme cases nonconforming submissions may be rejected.
- Three hole punched required
- 1″ Margins all around
- Font:10 to 12 point, Times, Times New Roman, or equivalent
- Line Spacing: At the discretion of the submitter.
- Do not staple or bind (i.e., paper tape, velo, spiral, etc.) your submission. You may choose to use binder clips or rubber bands to separate each copy of your submission
