TÜBİTAK's New Initiative To Support e-Learning

By Bahri Karaçay

Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TÜBİTAK) recently announced a new program to fund creation of electronic educational materials in the form of academic e-books or videos geared towards undergraduate and graduate studies.  TÜBİTAK will provide up to 120 thousand Turkish Lira (about $ 52,000) for the production costs of the material, and as much as $22,000 copyright fee to the authors.

In an e-mail sent to mostly Turkish scientist and scholars around the world, "Science and Society" directorate of TÜBİTAK announced that the organization plans to support 5,000 academic e-courses and 5,000 e-books. Both individuals and educational institutions can apply for the program.  However, the individual applicants are required to have a doctoral degree and experience in undergraduate or graduate teaching.  TUBITAK aims to support particularly the projects that use techniques such as animation, simulation, or video to create more effective and high impact teaching material. The application deadline is December 31st, 2014.

The goal of the program is to enrich the pool of Turkish educational material for Turkish students and academicians. Once completed, the e-books and e-courses produced through the program will be made available to public free of charge.
Further details about the program can be obtained from the following web site;
http://tubitak.gov.tr/tr/destekler/bilim-ve-toplum/ulusal-destek-programlari/icerik-5000-dijital-icerikli-acik-ders-kaynaklari-destekleme-programi