Budget
1. Budget Amount
How much are you requesting? This amount must be between $30,000 and $250,000. The budget should be carefully considered, as reviewers will pay close attention to soundness of budgets during the selection process. Applicants are therefore advised to submit realistic, moderate budgets. Only a small number of the most outstanding projects may be considered for maximum funding levels.
$135,200
2. Itemized Budget
Itemize your project budget in table format (e.g., Excel). Use 10 or 12 pt font. ".XLS", ".DOC" or ".PDF" format required. Please be advised that the selection committee may require budget revisions upon review. Budget categories might include the following, as well as any others deemed necessary by the applicant:
- Project director time/salary percentage
- Project staff (administrative, technical, consulting)
- Project hardware and software equipment
- Project materials and supplies
- Indirect costs assessed on up to 15% of direct costs, if applicable
- Airfare (or other transportation), transfers, lodging and meals for a 2-day conference showcase in Chicago, IL, USA (Budgeting for this event is required)
3. Budget Narrative
Explain all budget items and the rationale for the budget in detail. Provide the amounts recorded in the itemized budget. Max 500 words.
Project Director
The project director will take the lead on the following tasks, doing a total of 1600 hours in the course of the year at $30/hr ($48,000 total):
- Architecture and Template Development (500 hours)
- MySQL Database Programming (400 hours)
- MySQL Database Programming (400 hours)
- Iterative Testing and Revision (300 hours)
Staff
Temporary, project-based staff will support the director with expertise in the following areas (for 1585 hours at an average of $30/hr, a total of $55,500):
- Translation (1000 hours @ $25/hour)
- Localization Consulting (50 hours @ $30/hour)
- Technical Publishing Consultant (100 hours @ $75/hr)
- MySQL Database Consultant (100 hours @ $75/hr)
- Website design (150 hours @ $50/hr)
- Illustration (75 hours @ 50/hr)
- Technical writing (100 hours @$20/hr)
- Photography (10 hours @ $75/hr)
Non-staff Expenses
Non-staff Expenses are broken into two sections, technical and conference. Technical expenses total $4,350 and conference expenses total $1435.
- Technical - Usability testing lab (3 days @ $1250/day)
- Technical - Web Hosting ($500/yr)
- Technical - Development tools, software, etc. ($100)
- Conference - Airfare (BWI to Midway) $800
- Conference - Lodging (2-nights) $475
- Conference - Meals $80
- Conference - Ground Transportation $80
The prevailing logic of this plan is to have the project director establish the website design and set project management deliverables and goals. This takes advantage of strengths in application development and leaves room for content creation experts such as illustrators, website design specialists, and technical publishing and database programming experts to assist with parts of the implementation requiring special skills.
The single largest item in the budget is $25,000 for translation. This is the most important investment in the project, because this brute-force approach to rapidly localizing content will have the intended effect of multiplying the audience of the content, where it would otherwise only be available to users with the same language as the content creator.
The only significant non-staff technical expense is a rental for a usability testing lab (at $1250/day), which is considered a best practice, and has a proven return for software development projects. Since this project makes use of open source, hosting and a token amount for development tools cost just $600. There is no provision for computers or other software.
According to University of Baltimore policies, 8% fringe benefits for staff are applied for all staff expenses ($8280), and the combined staff and non-staff total is assessed 15% indirect costs ($17,635).
4. Other Funding
List all sources that have already funded or have committed to funding your project. For each source, list the amount of support, the source's general expectations, the informal or formal agreement regarding ownership of any work products, and any agreements about profits.
All funding for this project has thus far been out-of-pocket and is limited to web hosting, and resources like software and computers which are generally useful to my work as a student. The copyright of all prototypes and other creative assets are 100% owned by me, and will be donated to the project if it is funded.
5. Other Potential Funding
List other sources to which you are applying or have applied for funding, with results pending.
I am committed to working on this project in one form or another regardless of the outcome of the Innovation In Participatory Learning proposal. My greatest hope is that the network will become a valuable resource for many users world-wide, and that it will attract a base of individual donor and philanthropic support that is similar to that of Wikimedia Foundation.
If the project is not funded and remains my property, I will release it with many fewer features and less polish. The business model will still be advertising-free, however the service will likely become two-tier, with a free service for individuals and non-profits, and a for-fee service for for-profit organizations.
