Mentors
The OURS program supports faculty and staff who mentor students in research.
The OURS program offers seed funding to The College faculty and research staff who wish to provide group-based research experiences to online students. Interested faculty and staff should submit a proposal to apply for funding by the specified deadline.
Seed funding is available to The College of Liberal Artrs and Sciences faculty and staff and should primarily serve ASU Online students pursuing degree programs within The College.
Getting to work with ASU Online students through the OURS Program is such a privilege. This opportunity has brought together a group of student researchers living across the world from each other — from Okinawa to New York — to engage in a shared goal of conducting biology education research.
Katelyn Cooper
OURS mentor
Assistant professor, School of Life Sciences
OURS seed funding application
In order to increase research opportunities for undergraduate online students, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (The College) and EdPlus will award seed funding of up to $10,000 per semester to support faculty and staff in developing and launching group-based research experiences for ASU Online students. Seed funding is only available to faculty and staff within The College.
| Funding cycle | Application deadline | Decision announcement |
| Spring 2025 | Aug. 31, 2024 | September 2024 |
| Summer 2024 | Jan. 16, 2024 | February 2024 |
| Fall 2024 | Jan. 16, 2024 | February 2024 |
As someone who experienced most of my education online, I know firsthand how impactful these kinds of opportunities are. That is why we, in the Arizona Cancer Evolution Center, are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with bright, inquisitive and hard-working online students through the OURS program.
Cristina Baciu
OURS mentor
Research program manager, Arizona Cancer Evolution Center
OURS mentorship frequently asked questions
The ASU Online population is growing every semester, and the group-based design allows for scalability to serve more students than the standard 1:1 faculty-student mentoring model. In addition, group-based experiences provide online students with an opportunity to connect with their peers who share similar research interests across the world.
More information can be found in the InfoReady application. You must be logged into your ASU account to access InfoReady.
Seed funding is limited to The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty and research staff.
Each proposal is capped at $10,000. Please do not request the maximum amount if not needed. More experiences can be considered and offered if less funding is used.
All standard ASU rules and regulations apply for OURS program seed funding. Faculty and staff should work with their unit-level business office manager to determine the proper ways to use the funding.
Here are some examples of how funding can be used:
- To cover faculty or graduate student teaching support.
- To cover the research-related costs for expendable materials, program subscriptions, etc.
- As stipends to online students who are participating in the research experience.
A faculty or research staff member can be included in multiple proposals. However, the goal of the OURS program is to provide a mechanism for a meaningful faculty-student relationship, and this would be challenging to accomplish if the faculty is involved in multiple research experiences during the same semester.
This heavily depends on the faculty member’s area of expertise and/or the culture of the research group. We have funded group-based experiences that are as small as 5 students to as large as 50 students.
We consider experiences that are both credit and non-credit bearing. The preference varies by the department and the particular online degree program. Please consult with your unit-level leadership to determine what is best for you and the online students.
If the experience is offered as an online course, preference will be given to faculty who follow the 7.5-week session format.
Barrett Honors credits can be given to Barrett online students with the standard "HON" designation, but they can also receive department-specific research credits that can be applied towards their required honors credit hours. Please direct your students to their Barrett Honors advisor for more information.
Funded group-based experiences can include synchronous activities. In the past, other faculty have proposed group meetings, 1:1 mentoring, etc. as synchronous activities in their proposals.
Please provide the descriptions of the synchronous activities in your proposal submission for review. Keep in mind that the majority of the online students are non-traditional students located across the globe who have work or family-related commitments when proposing synchronous activities.
We support proposals that include an in-person component if the activities are justified and sensible. The OURS program has supported several in-person, hands-on experiences for online students, such as lab-based experiences, extended summer research and archival research.
If you have other research opportunities that serve online students and would like to share the information on the website, please contact OURS Program Director Ara Austin.