The office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning has awarded 14 grants to professors wishing to realize their experiments in online education. The recipients of the grants came from disciplines ranging from materials science to psychiatry.

The majority of the grants have been awarded to educators whose aim is to implement online learning technology positively for Stanford students and not for a global, online audience. Instructors were made aware of the result of the grant awards at the end of fall quarter.

Mathematics Professor Rafe Mazzeo, for example, proposed to develop online aides to supplement and enhance Math 51 lectures for both the Stanford students who take the class every year and the Education Program for Gifted Youth participants who take the course every summer.

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology Robert Siegel will use his grant to enhance the learning experience of his Bing Overseas Studies Program summer seminar, Biological and Cultural Aspects of Island Geography: Madagascar.

Students in the seminar will create video material on a number of subjects, ranging from culture to climate change that will be used by students in later seminars and in a Sophomore Seminar in 2014.

Professor of Computer Science Jennifer Widom was also given a seed grant to teach Introduction to Databases on Class2Go. She had previously taught the class using Coursera. Her class is open to public and currently has at least 37,000 students enrolled.

The next round for VPOL seed grants will open in mid-February and then once again at the end of Spring Quarter.