Impact: Innovation Through Multidisciplinary Projects And Collaborative Teams

IMPaCT (Innovation through Multidisciplinary Projects and Collaborative Teams) is a collaborative effort between faculty, students and industry representing engineering, business and other colleges. The goal of IMPaCT is to support multidisciplinary design experiences for engineering, business and other students (for example: graphic design, nursing, and education.) As a result, IMPaCT promotes a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation throughout the wpkxgtukv{"cpf"tgikqp0"KORcEVÓu year-long multidisciplinary design projects provide opportunities for students to experience the entire research, development and marketing process. IMPaCT courses provide vertical integration by including freshman through senior students in the product design process as well as horizontal integration across various disciplines and majors. IMPaCT students can earn technical elective credit as well as capstone design credit. To date, IMPaCT teams have included a variety of junior and senior engineers (mechanical, biomedical, electrical) along with finance, marketing and MBA students. Introduction and Background As of January 2007, IMPaCT is in its first year of full-scale operation. The IMPaCT program began during the 2005-06 academic year and received two years of NSF funding beginning in the 2006-07 academic year. IMPaCT began as an adaptation of PurdueÓu"jkijn{"uweeguuhwn" EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service). The EPICS program was initiated in the fall of 1995 with NSF funding and has been hugely successful. 1 In surveys of 1078 students who jcxg"rctvkekrcvgf"kp"vjg"rtqitco.":6'"qh"vjg"uvwfgpvu"tcvgf"vjg"rtqitco"cu"cp"qxgtcnn"ÐCÑ"qt"ÐDÑ" on a letter grade scale. The students rated such areas as how much the program helped their communication skills, ability to work on a team and understanding the design process, along with several other categories. The program has won several awards including the 1997 ASEE Chester F. Carlson award for Innovation in Engineering Education. Also, Iowa State, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, Case Western, Penn State and others have all implemented an EPICS program. Several recent developments at Louisiana Tech University have laid the groundwork for IMPaCT and other collaborative efforts. In 1996, the science and engineering departments of Louisiana Tech were merged to form a new College of Engineering and Science (COES), and an innovative administration structure was employed to facilitate strong interdisciplinary collaborations for both research and education. 2, 3 This structure has allowed for the development of innovative interdisciplinary undergraduate programs such as our Integrated Curricula and multidisciplinary programs such as our Center for Entrepreneurship and Information Technology (CEnIT). For purposes of this paper, interdisciplinary is defined as collaboration within a specific field such as engineering, while multidisciplinary refers to collaborations between diverse fields such as engineering and business. Multidisciplinary Teams One of the central themes of IMPaCT is its multidisciplinary nature. IMPaCT creates an environment in which students from various backgrounds come together to work as a team to solve problems. No longer do engineering students simply design a product without considering the financial viability of their device or its aesthetic form. Also, business students get experience working on real world projects and are involved in the entire design cycle. Other students who have interest in product development can also get involved; perhaps graphic artists want to try their hands at product design. One key aspect of IMPaCT is providing situations where students learn to communicate and work with people outside of their college discipline. Vertical Integration The structure of IMPaCT allows students from freshman level up to graduate students to participate in the process. There is a core team of senior engineers who are working on an IMPaCT project for the entire year, earning senior design credit hours (ENGR 401) required to graduate. In addition to this core group, other students can join the team for one, two or three quarters and earn elective credit hours (ENTR 430). Vertical integration also creates the opportunity for multi-year projects. A student can take the IMPaCT series of courses for one year as technical elective credit and the next year can earn senior design credit working on a continuation or spin-off of the same project. Figure 1 graphically shows how students from freshman to seniors can be involved in the IMPaCT program. Horizontal Integration Possibly even more valuable than vertical integration is the horizontal integration that IMPaCT fosters. Teams consist of a variety of engineering disciplines such as mechanical, electrical and biomedical, but the integration does not stop there. Students from a variety of majors outside of engineering work together to solve a common problem; each bringing their specialized training to the team effort. Business students provide an economic point of view that engineering students donÓv"cnyc{u"vjkpm"cdqwv0"Gpikpggtkpi"uvwfgpvu"rtqxkfg"vgejpkecn"know-how that business students may not have. Other students such as graphic designers bring form to the function, political science students bring social relevance, nursing students bring a passion for serving, each student brings their own experiences and knowledge to form a team that can function with a much broader vision than otherwise possible. Figure 1 graphically shows how students from engineering, business and other majors can be involved in the IMPaCT program. teams meet with their advisors on a regular basis and will often treat the advisor as Ðvjg" ewuvqogt0Ñ"The frequency of team-advisor meetings are determined by the team and advisor, but average at least one contact per week. These contacts may be face-to-face, conference calls, web meeting, or written progress reports. The advisors also lend technical advice to the teams when needed.