CITE Wins LAAP Grant

The Consortium for ITS Training and Education (CITE) received an award for a three-year Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP) grant through the U.S. Department of Education Office of Post Secondary Education. The grant began on October 1, 2001 and continued through September 30, 2005.

It was a tribute to the CITE organization that its proposal was ranked third in a highly competitive environment that included 394 pre-qualification submissions and 89 proposals. Due to uncertain LAAP funding for FY 2002, only six contracts were awarded.

The entire ITS community benefited from the activities that were implemented as a result of this grant to CITE. John Baniak, Executive Director of the I-95 Corridor Coalition stated, "Our members from Maine to Virginia are excited by the expansion opportunities for CITE's program that this grant will support. The Coalition originally provided the seed funding to initiate CITE recognizing that CITE could provide our members a convenient way to provide ITS training to current employees and facilitate graduate level ITS education for potential new employees."

Many of CITE's university partners provided match toward the project and their support is greatly appreciated.

What is LAAP?

LAAP was a highly competitive grant program for distance education projects that are asynchronous, innovative, scalable, and have national significance. The program was authorized by the 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965. The LAAP program supported partnerships among colleges and universities, employers, technology companies, and other relevant organizations to create postsecondary programs that deliver distance education "anytime and anywhere."
For more information on LAAP, visit their web site at: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fipselaap/intro.html

CITE's Proposal

One of the primary factors leading to the formation of CITE was the national requirement for effective ITS training and education. CITE has endeavored to fulfill this need, and is having a significant impact on the technical education of the ITS workforce. This impact will be significantly increased when CITE carries out the program enhancements that were outlined in the LAAP proposal. Below is an excerpt from the proposal that summarizes its goals and objectives.

CITE's ultimate goal of contributing to the expansion of the ITS professional community and increasing the quality of its work, can be attained by:

• Increasing the number of CITE partnerships, particularly with minority institutions, to ensure increased student enrollment; a number of strategies have been outlined in the proposal, including an aggressive outreach program, a course on the benefits of career in ITS, and a Spanish version of the Fundamentals course as an additional means to reach the Hispanic community.

• Increasing the available ITS course offerings and incentives, through expansion of the existing curriculum and the creation of a Certificate Program. These strategies will ensure that CITE offerings retain their high quality, and will reinforce their attractiveness to potential students.

• Further adding to the effectiveness of CITE's distance-learning techniques through the addition of varied interactive capabilities and improved course development software; these strategies will assist students in many respects, from helping the inexperienced with internet-based distance learning to hands-on (and more participatory) education.

Below is a table of the goals and objectives included in the proposal that were carried out by CITE.

View a copy of the entire proposal.

Grant Partners

Lead Partner: University of Maryland

Private Sector Partners: Elemx Group, LLC, Interactive Instruction Inc., Webtraffic

University Partners: George Mason University, Michigan Technological University, Morgan State University, New York Polytechnic University, North Carolina A&T University, Texas Southern University, University of Vermont, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech.