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Grant Funding for Instructional Computing Labs: Incentives for Principal Investigators

Information Technology Systems and Services (ITSS) encourages academic departments to work with us to bring in additional funding, through grants or other sources, to support instructional computing laboratories and electronic classrooms. Although we have some student fee money to build computing laboratories, this money is not sufficient to meet all of the needs of the campus or of individual departments. Partnerships between ITSS and academic departments that result in grant funding for instructional computing laboratories benefit the entire campus. If an academic department, working cooperatively with ITSS, is successful in:

1. bringing in additional funding of approximately 50 percent of the cost of an instructional computing laboratory,
2. working with Academic Administration to identify space that can be used for an instructional computing laboratory,

then ITSS may provide the following incentives to the department in exchange for the lab being available for use by the rest of the campus. ITSS reserves the right to refuse to help maintain and finance a laboratory due to lack of funding or if the laboratory does not serve the needs of the campus well.

Money generated by the administrative fees for basic access and lab support administered by ITSS does not qualify as additional funding. Funding must be from sources not normally available to ITSS for lab development and support. This may include any departmental fees for lab development and support.

These incentives will remain in place for the life of the equipment and can be renegotiated if further funding is obtained. The life of the equipment is assumed to be approximately three years. ITSS retains the right to close a lab if the equipment can no longer be adequately maintained and adequate funding is not available to replace the equipment.

Incentives for the funding academic department

1. The funding academic department will be given first priority for scheduling classes in the lab.
   • Labs are now being scheduled along with other classrooms by Room Scheduling, who will schedule the classes of the funding academic department in the funded lab before scheduling any other department's classes in that lab.
   • In the case of later schedule changes where conflicts arise, ITSS will facilitate moving classes to other labs whenever possible.
   • In the case that a late schedule change results in a conflict that cannot be resolved, the funding department does not have the right to bump a previously-scheduled class out of the funded lab.
   • During time periods when no classes are scheduled, the lab will be available for use as an open lab for any UMD students.
2. ITSS will provide maintenance, repair, and staffing for the laboratory.
3. ITSS may provide some grant matching funds. This is to be negotiated with the academic department.

Related policies and information

Computer Lab and Laptop Services for Academic Units

Student Laboratory Support

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