IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - March 2016 - 106

education

Back to School
Paolo Fiorini and M. Ani Hsieh

t is once again that time of the year-
time to consider submitting a proposal to the IEEE Robotics and
Automation Society (RAS) Technical
Education Program (TEP) for 2017. The
RAS Member Activities Board and the
Technical Activities Board jointly run
the RAS TEP, also known as the Summer School Program. Each year, RAS
sponsors and cosponsors up to three
TEPs. One of the three summer schools
will be fully sponsored and financially
supported by the RAS, up to US$40,000,
and it will rotate annually through RAS's
three geographic regions. Full sponsorship in 2017 will be for a program held
in Geographical Area 1 (Americas). The
other two summer schools will be cosponsored and financially supported (up
to US$20,000) with other interested organizations in the remaining two geographical regions.
Similar to all Society-sponsored educational activities, proposals are evaluated
based on technical content, operational
logistics, and RAS member impact. In
general, proposals must show that there
will be a general, broad interest in the
topic(s) covered during the course of the
school. Interdisciplinary themes involving collaborations across several fields are
particularly welcome. Educational activities that lend themselves to interactive
participation are highly encouraged. Proposals should include an assessment plan
for the proposed activities in the form of
participant feedback. Collaborations with
the IEEE Chapters, other Societies, uni-

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2015.2511679
Date of publication: 8 March 2016

106

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

Participants at the 2015 Summer School on Agricultural Robotics, The University of
Sydney, Australia.

versities, sponsor companies, and other
forms of additional support should also
be included in the proposal. The RAS
TEP will not support events with a local
outreach or a very narrow scope.
Financial support for the fully sponsored RAS school is intended for sponsoring lecturers and providing scholarships
for student participants. Based on the
availability of funds, the selection of
student scholarship recipients is expected
to be quite competitive, and students not
awarded scholarships are expected to bear
the costs themselves. Therefore, the proposal should include a detailed student recruitment and selection plan and include
a description of the selection and formation of the scholarship awards committee.
To better fulfill our mission of
serving the RAS community, the RAS
Education Committee expects TEP participants to consist of roughly 50% or

march 2016

more RAS student members. As such,
all funded TEP awards in 2017 must
submit a detailed budget plan on how
RAS funds will be spent before receiving the award. TEP awardees are highly
encouraged to provide evidence of their
RAS student participant recruitment
efforts. RAS student participation not
only benefits the individual summer
school programs, but students also
benefit from the larger RAS support
structure and help ensure the continued
prosperity of our community.
Organizers are encouraged to contact both the cochairs of the Education
Committee and the relevant technical
committee (TC) chairs and cochairs
early with a brief description of the program's scope. The Education cochairs
(continued on page 115)

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