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For several years, a course on Creativity and New Product Development (C&NPD) has been offered at the University of Virginia. Two different delivery modes have been used: a traditional on-campus class and the distance-learning mode. The course has been taught twice in our academic outreach program. These two offerings were quite different from each other, and both differ from the experience of more traditional classes. In each class, student teams develop a new product concept, prototype it, create a business and marketing plan, and produce a patent application and a funding proposal. Last semester, I taught C&NPD in distance learning mode with 12 on-grounds students, and 12 off-grounds. The off-grounds students were all engineers working full-time in industry. The on-grounds students included both undergraduates and grad students. We assembled teams so that most teams had at least one member at a remote site. One class each week was delivered in the asynchronous mode (as streaming video on the internet), while the other was conducted in real time (as a live television broadcast with two way video capability). Throughout the semester, we did extensive evaluation of team and individual performance, as well as assessing the class itself and student reactions to it. In this paper, we provide an overview of the course, present some of the assessment results, and review the lessons learned: what worked, what didn’t? Introduction A course on Creativity and New Product Development has been taught at the University of Virginia since 1995. Henry Bolanos and Dave Lewis developed the original version of this course. Henry is an independent inventor and has founded several businesses; Dave worked for IBM before joining the faculty of the University of Virginia. He owns a small business and holds several patents. They proposed a course that would teach the new product development process by simulating it in class. Student teams would come up with ideas for new products, design and prototype a concept, develop a bill of materials and manufacturing plan, and prepare a financial analysis, a marketing strategy, and a business plan. Each teams’ final presentation for the course would be a briefing to a group of venture capitalists appealing for funding for their new company. Each team was also expected to submit a disclosure document or provisional patent to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. When I assumed responsibility for this course in 1998, I sought to maintain its original vision while introducing some new topics and approaches. Page 843.1 The course now covers topics in four categories: Technical skills focus on issues of product specification, concept selection, product architecture, modeling and documentation, bill of materials, prototyping (virtual and physical), manufacturing, and production planning. Thinking creatively explores how to generate ideas; how to elaborate concepts and alternatives; what psychologists, artists, engineers, and scientists know about creativity; and how to develop and foster, or stifle and kill, creativity. Business strategies include assessing customer needs; project scheduling; financial analysis; protecting your ideas; marketing, advertising, selling; and entrepreneurship. People skills involve team dynamics and roles; negotiating styles and strategies; appealing to the customer; understanding individual differences and preferences; and how to present your ideas effectively. Some classes are devoted to lectures and discussion, and others to guest speakers on particular topics such as patents, intellectual property, and venture capital. But, most class periods are devoted to team interactions, with the professor observing, facilitating, and occasionally advising. We assign readings on new product development [1,2,7] and entrepreneurship [3], and suggest web resources on creativity, invention and design, modeling and prototyping, patents, and entrepreneurship. Initial Distance Learning Experiment (1999) Distance learning is now a critical component of the educational delivery system for many schools. At the University of Virginia, we have offered distance-learning programs since 1983 [4,5]. In 1999, we offered Creativity and New Product Development for the first time through Virginia’s Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program [6]. Our Distance Learning courses have traditionally involved televised lectures and videotapes, supplemented by the Internet and e-mail. For a hands-on, team-based, project-oriented course, the distance-learning environment presents some challenges. In the first distance-learning version of this course, there were 33 students at 8 sites in Virginia and Pennsylvania. On-campus we had a mix of undergraduates and graduate students; the off-grounds students were all graduate students with full time jobs in industry. In this initial course, there were seven teams: three teams developed ideas that were patentable, designed and built a reasonable prototype, and had convincing business plans. Two teams had reasonable ideas, but failed to achieve convincing business plans. Two other teams developed analytical approaches they were not able to realize as working prototypes. The best teams had one or more champions for their project members with a personal interest in the idea and enthusiasm for the product. These students reported generally high levels of satisfaction with the course and its content. They felt they got what they wanted from the class, and that we covered the material well. The only consistent complaints were from a few graduate students and most of the undergraduate students who don’t like the distance-learning format. Off-grounds students expressed some dissatisfaction with the on-grounds students; they felt that the undergraduates weren’t serious enough about their duties and deadlines, and that the graduate students were too concerned with theory and analysis, and not focused on practical issues. Overall, the students were far more satisfied with the course than I was. P ge 843.2 This initial experience with a project-based course taught in the distance-learning environment left me with many ideas for improving future offerings. The remainder of this paper discusses the 2002 Distance Learning version of Creativity and New Product Development. This Year’s Class (2002) Creativity and New Product Development was offered in distance-learning mode for the second time in the spring of 2002. Lectures and demonstrations were available asynchronously via streaming video on the Internet. Class met formally only one day each week, but the students were expected to have viewed the on-line lecture prior to each meeting. Class time was reserved for team interaction and group activities. Additional facilities were made available for video-conferencing, so teams could arrange meetings outside the scheduled class period. Twenty-four students were enrolled in this class: 12 on-grounds at the University of Virginia, and 12 located at other sites. Four were women and 20 men; 8 undergraduates, and 16 graduate students. Six teams were assigned by the instructor. Table 1 shows the composition of these teams. Table 1: Team Composition Team Local Remote Women Men Graduate Undergrad Ergonomic hand basket 2 2 3 1 2 2 Water balloon launcher 0 4 0 4 4 0 Screw driver guide 3 1 0 4 4 0 E-zzz Wake Alarm 2 2 0 4 3 1 Walker/mobility aid 2 2 0 4 2 2 Collegiate back pillow 3 1 1 3 1 3 Assessments and Evaluations Table 2 lists the many assessments we gathered during this class. This paper will focus on the first day survey, the midterm survey, and the end-of-course survey. These provide information on how the students reacted to the course and its structure, and some reactions to their team experience. Another paper will focus more on the team and project assessments. On these surveys, our primary interest was focused on the questions: what did you expect from this class, is the class meeting your expectations (giving you what you wanted), and did you get what you wanted from this class? P ge 843.3 Table 2: Assessments used in MAE 692 First day survey Overall course survey Creativity survey Project ratings by faculty and students Learning Styles Index (LSI) Official course evaluation Midterm course evaluation Post Class Activities Team and project assessment Later communications with students The First Day Survey asked for basic background information from the students: who they were, how to contact them, what they wanted to get out of this class, and each student’s self-assessment of their basic computing skills and knowledge. Most students were Mechanical Engineers. The other demographic information for these students was summarized in Table 1, which also shows the composition of the teams. Data from the first day survey and information gained from the first few classes were used to construct these teams. Team assignment was not random, but it was not based on systematic methods either. It depended on my impressions of who would work well together, and some geographic constraints. Table 3 summarizes what students expected to get out of this class. Most of these corresponded very well with the instructor’s objectives. Table 3: What do you hope to get out of this class? Learn about the product design and development process To see the big picture of mechanical design Learn to generate and develop my own ideas How to decide whether an idea is good How to create a marketable product Become more creative; exercise my creative abilities Understand patents and intellectual property Marketing, market research, business plans Working on a team, what makes teams successful? Improve CAD/CAM knowledge The Midterm Survey was the most important assessment, because we could still make changes as the semester progressed. This survey was a combination of 13 open ended and targeted questions. The first three asked about the best and worst features of the class and what could be improved. Table 4 summari

Creativity And New Product Development: Working With Virtual Teams