Overview

The instructional technology award at KFUPM honors faculty members who have demonstrated effective and efficient use of technology in their teaching over the past academic years. DAD hopes that this award will bring out the best in KFUPM faculty by stimulating them to develop technology-based innovative instructional strategies, educational materials, and sustainable technology-based educational infrastructure. These will consequently enhance teaching and learning through technology, and increase access to technology-based learning by other KFUPM faculty members and their students. For this, KFUPM annually recognizes the achievements of up to three faculty members who have demonstrated their distinction in using technology for teaching and learning with the aim of enhancing and improving students' educational experience.

All active KFUPM faculty members at the time of application who have not won the ITA before and satisfy both of the following criteria are eligible to apply for the award:

1. They completed two or more academic years of continuous teaching in the University and have used instructional technology extensively in some of the courses they taught at KFUPM during this period,
2. Their average student evaluation in the two semesters prior to applying for the award is higher than the average student evaluation of their colleges.

Faculty members who won the award before will regain eligibility for applying for the award if they satisfy all the following eligibility criteria:

1. At least two years have passed since their successful application,
2. Their average student evaluation in the two semesters prior to applying for the award is higher than the average student evaluation of their colleges,
3. They are applying for the award based on completely new instructional technologies that are different from all their previously awarded technologies and not variants of them.

The focus of the instructional technology award is the effective use of instructional technology to motivate students and enhance their learning processes. The award review process evaluates the outcomes of using educational technology by applicants for the award. Therefore, the use of an instructional technology in teaching and learning that does not show clear enhancement of the teaching and learning processes has a low chance of winning this award. DAD stressed here that the use of technology in itself is not the goal but is only a means for achieving enhanced learning. The essential criteria for the award are the following (detailed description of each criterion is provided later):

• Usefulness,
• Cognitive Domain,
• Novelty,
• Reusability,
• Practicality,
• Efficacy,
• Risk,
• Adoption.

The candidate for the award carries the full responsibility of displaying the compliance of his/her instructional technology to each of the above eight criteria, and he/she is responsible for showing clear evidence to support claims made in this regard. Sources of evidence to support the candidates’ claims can be obtained through different means including applicant-designed student surveys, comparison of student assessment results before and after using the proposed instructional technology, surveys of and documented discussions with colleagues, documented students’ comments supporting the claims of the applicant, … etc. The stronger the provided evidence is, the better the chances for the candidate’s instructional technology to get higher points for different criteria, and eventually win the award.