The Computer Science Department at HCC-Brandon submitted in December two NSF grants. Both grants have passed NSF internal review and are now in the external review process. Funding decision notification should be in late April, May, or early June.

One grant will allow HCC and its partners to utilize special software to conduct Live Synchronous Distance learning courses using a product called Interwise Enterprise. The partners will be the first of 50 community colleges solicited to have faculty formally trained by Web Yoda Webmaster Instructor Certification, WOW Associate and Professional Webmaster Certification, and Click 2 Learn multimedia training. There will be no cost for the formal training for the faculty at the community college. The abstract may be read at:

NSF CCLI Summary (12/5/02)     NSF CCLI Complete pdf Document (498kb)

The second grant is a consortium partnership with WOW, League for Innovation in The Community College, Miami Dade Community College, The Naval Post Graduate School, and HCC to establish a national center for cyber security where HCC will coordinate and provide the instructional platform for WOW to formally train faculty from both four year and two year colleges. Approximately 500 college faculty will be given the opportunity in 2003 through 2005 to attend a NSF funded all day WOW workshop on Cyber Security. These workshops will be held at The League Conference in Information Technology at Milwaukee (2003) and Tampa (2004) plus eight regional workshops across the nation. The grant also calls for free participation (no cost to NSF or the government) of all military personnel recommended by the Naval Post Graduate School.

Currently the cost of the workshop is $300. From the workshop each participating college will be allowed up to two full-time faculty to complete the three module 54 hour online Cyber Security certification program and take the certification exam. Currently the cost of this program is $1000 per person for industry and $500 for community college faculty. Faculty or their college will have no training cost for face to face workshops, but will have to supply the cost of travel, if necessary. There will also be no online cost to the participating colleges. The abstract may be read at:

NSF Cyber Security Summary (12/5/02)     NSF Cyber Security Complete pdf Document (1.2 mb)

A third grant is in preparation (NSF-ATE), due April 21. This grant is an expansion of consortium partnerships with WOW, webmastercertification.com (Web Yoda), League for Innovation in The Community College, Miami Dade Community College, and HCC to establish a national center for webmaster certification where HCC will coordinate and provide the instructional platform for WOW/Web Yoda to formally train and test faculty from two year colleges. This would result in a network of Training Centers through community colleges for webmaster certification. Workshops will be held in conjunction with technology conferences where community college faculty will be in attendance.

Under consideration are the following events: TECA/TCCTA in Austin/Fort Worth Texas, FETC in Orlando, SIGCSE national and regional conferences, NECC at various locations (seattle this summer), Ed Tech in California and Chicago, Syllabus Conference in Santa Clara, NCCIA in North Carolina, and the League's events at Milwaukee (2003) and Tampa (2004). At the site will be an all day workshop to filter community college faculty into formal online synchronous training over a period of three to eight weeks. This training live and online will utilize the Interwise enterprise software. Several state and regional events (over 20 annually) are also under consideration for partnership to host the workshop entry point of training. Some of these smaller events include: Illinois Technology Conference, Wisconsin Technology Educators Association Conference, Michigan Association for Computer Using, or Maryland Instructional Computers Coordinators Association......(more coming as abstract is completed and grant submitted).