A program to stimulate research activities among undergraduates at the nine primarily undergraduate institutions (PUI) in the North Dakota University System (NDUS) was launched in January 2024.

Built upon the shoulders of the Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR) established at Valley City in 2015, the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) ran in three cycles over two years, each Request for Proposal (RFP) invited student’s project and faculty’s equipment proposals.

Proposals, initiated and written by students, identified a faculty member who mentored the student and guided the projects over what could extend to a one year interval. Labor could total $2,000 and material costs $400.

Equipment proposals could reach $20,000 with the stipulation that the purchased gear could initiate and sustain undergraduate research activities, and ideally concurrently.

As $250,000 was afforded for the awards, approximately one-third was encumbered for each of the three RFP cycles.

The open-source WordPress framework hosted by WPEngine was selected as the website engine to manage proposal submission and archive functions. The web domain urop.vcsu.edu was mapped to the WPEngine instance with assistance by the VCSU Technology Department.

Invitations to participate were initially distributed to college and university presidents and vice presidents of academic affairs. In time, champions for undergraduate research surfaced and could be regarded as contacts for subsequent RFP cycles. The EPSCoR Newsletter was relied on for announcements.

What is in the RFP? Invitation with deadline, overview of access to WordPress links, access to sample proposals, student, mentor, and equipment, and associated scoring rubrics; and contact information.

Proposals received by designated deadlines were collected when applicants filled out a WordPress form using the add-on Ninja Forms survey templates created for one of three functions: student awards and corresponding mentor forms, and equipment forms. Well constructed forms include submission date-time stamps and security steps to ensure integrity. Direct solicitations to grantees or identified mentors were made when any irregularities were detected in the submissions.

A committee of referees was established for each RFP cycle, the first being primarily experienced SOAR advisors. As a footnote, SOAR services students with support for undergraduate research in all disciplines, while UROP has a STEM-only constraint.

Key to the evaluation process is the UROP Student Award Rubric and separately the UROP Equipment Award Rubric. Student proposals in PDF, mentor form summarized as a spreadsheet, and a scoring spreadsheet including score weighting overlayed on the UROP Student Award Rubric were distributed as compressed data folders to referees via email. Similarly, equipment proposals in PDF and scoring spreadsheet was bundled separately for distribution. Spreadsheets required pre-populating proposal data (name, email, title) in individual columns and automating scoring per rubric item, some of which were weighted.

The administrative assistance would reach out to referee’s to coordinate a date and time to review both student and equipment proposals in open conversations. Referees were given two weeks to read proposals, record scores on the scoring rubric, add comment, and submit spreadsheets via email to the rubric coordinator. Meetings were hybrid, hosted on Zoom and in person at VCSU, as the bulk of referees were from VCSU.

During the evaluation meetings, a rubric-based score sheet was shared with referees which had anonymous referee scores, these tallied to include an average, standard deviation, and a ranking. These meetings were typically rich in dialog, with solid experience in support of undergraduate research evident. Meetings were managed to stay within the 1.5 hour timeline. Minutes were recorded so that letters to applicants could be poignant. The goal for reporting back to applicants was set to be no longer than four weeks.

A template for both congratulations and regrets letters were fashioned for each RFP cycle. Letters were constructed by hand, and included salutations and date, each meant to be official notification. Content included the PI and project title, including the amount requested and the amount allocated. Information to coordinate between campus business office and budget hosting NDSU Research office was outlined.

Official notification letters were assembled and emailed individually by the UROP coordinator to the applicant and any relevant persons including budgetary persons. Letters of regret included suggestions for improving the proposal in time for the next RFP, and were coupled with subsequent invitations for hands-on consultations with the goal of ensuring future success.

A WordPress blog entry was constructed to report to the larger audience the names, campuses, project titles funded by the UROP program and the total allocation for the given RFP cycle.

Over time, the urop.vcsu.edu was envisioned to be a portal to the community of undergraduate researchers in North Dakota with announcements, periodic blog entries, observations, and resources that would better educate the merits of undergraduate research for the researcher, the mentors, the campus, and the State.

As a pilot, the UROP project serves as a tried and true lessons-learned repository of information that can inform future efforts to support undergraduate research for all academic disciplines.