How do you turn a good idea into a feasible digital project, with a realistic aim and scope, manageable time line, and budget to match? That question is facing the people behind the 15 shortlisted ideas for the IT Innovation Challenges 2017 Student round.

The IT Innovation Challenges 2017 Student round attracted a record number of ideas – 47 in total. 15 of these have been shortlisted to proceed to the next stage where the people behind the ideas have to prepare a project proposal based on their idea and present this to the IT Innovation Challenges panel.

To help with the development of the ideas into projects, IT Innovation Challenges organised a workshop to introduce the teams to the process of preparing and writing their project proposals. After an introductory presentation, the projects were invited to start working on their project plans and make use of the opportunity to link up with the people who were there. ‘Collaboration’ is one of the criteria on which the project proposals will be assessed so it was encouraging to see how the teams talked to each other, shared ideas, and exchanged information. The IT Innovation facilitators and staff from IT Services were also available, ready to help anyone who wanted to talk about any aspect of their project.

The project teams now have until mid-April to prepare and write their project proposals, addressing the following questions:

• What is the reason for your project? (explain why your project is important)
• What do you plan to do? (describe what you will produce, create or deliver)
• How will you do it? (what technologies will you use and why have you chosen them?)
• How will you make your project a success? (discuss stakeholders, engagement, sustainability)
• Who will do it? (introduce the project team – roles and names)
• When will you do it? (create a project timeline)
• How much will it cost? (calculate the costs and produce a budget)

The project team is responsible for developing the project and making decisions about how it will be done, writing it all up in the project proposal. However, there is support available for those who want it. This may be a meeting with the IT Innovation facilitator to discuss some aspect of the project, support in putting together the budget, discussions about the choice of technology, opportunity to explore legal and data management questions, pointers to what is happing around the University in related areas, or something else.

The IT Innovation Challenges panel will decide on the final allocation of funding. They will base their decision in the project proposals and project presentations. The presentations will be held at a ‘pitch event’ in early May, where each project gets to present their proposal to the IT Innovation Challenges panel and talk to them about it. The panel will make the decision about what projects to fund shortly thereafter. It is expected that the funded projects will start some time after mid-June.

The presentation slides, prooject proposal guide, and other material used at the workshop can be found on the IT Innovation Challenges sharepoint site (Oxford log-in needed).