Welcome To The "Real World" Balancing Practical, Legal, And Educational Issues In Implementing Industrial Sponsored Student Design Experiences

Engineering programs across the U.S. have long recognized the value of incorporating “realworld” active learning experiences into the curriculum. ABET’s EC2000 Criterion 4 further solidified the approach of the many engineering programs that offer a “real-world” team-based senior capstone design experience with its mandate that students be provided a “culminating major design experience which incorporates appropriate engineering standards and multiple realistic constraints”. While these types of project experiences can be “created” within engineering departments, many programs have found that the most effective “real-world” experience comes from projects that are defined and sponsored by industry. Students participating in these projects have the opportunity for mentoring by industrial project managers and face an increased expectation of results and diligence similar to what they will encounter when they begin their professional careers. In addition to technical and project management experience, these students also gain valuable skills in such things as client development, structuring business relationships, and intellectual property management and rights distribution. At Michigan Technological University, both the Senior Design Program and the more extensive Enterprise Program rely heavily on the supply of these “real-world” project experiences from industry. In this model, the industry sponsor typically provides financial and technical support and becomes a “client” of sorts to the student project team. The financial and technical involvement of external project sponsors introduces a number of related issues such as project deliverables, sponsorship costs, non-disclosure requirements, publication/presentation review, and intellectual property rights. While providing a more holistic experience, the handling of these issues often presents a further challenge of balancing the primary educational mission and scope of the projects against sponsor expectations for value from their investment of effort and financial resources. Furthermore, Michigan Tech views these project experiences to be a potential IP generator through student development of new products and technologies that could then ideally be commercialized through licensing or new business start-ups. How rights to this student generated IP are negotiated then becomes a key factor in allowing for this possibility. For industrially sponsored projects, this results in an analysis, and often negotiation, of reasonable distributions of IP rights and sharing of proceeds from commercialization of that IP. This requires finding an optimum where not only the sponsor is comfortable with the investment of financial and intellectual resources but where the students also have some reasonable opportunity to benefit from the relative value that their independent creativity generates. Furthermore, as observing parties to the negotiation, students can be engaged in discussions with contract personnel on both sides about the relative value of their ideas versus the value of the experience and input that the sponsor is providing. This process can lead to a more sophisticated understanding of the relative value of ideas and the importance of commercial experience and execution than students would otherwise obtain strictly through classroom exercises. P ge 12603.2 This paper will discuss Michigan Tech’s approach to searching out and securing these real-world industry-sponsored project opportunities, and considerations for addressing the associated legal, pedagogical, and practical issues and challenges. A comprehensive comparison of student/capstone design experiences across universities can be found within the 2005 National Survey of Engineering Capston Design Courses (Howe, Wilbarger). The goal of this paper is to focus in on the subset of student design programs that utilize externally sponsored projects and drive a contextual sharing of practices, perspectives, and experiences in this area among the increasing numbers of engineering colleges taking this and similar approaches to student design projects. I. Background and Description of Capstone/Entrepreneurial Student Design Programs The primary rationale for capstone project experiences is to meet ABET objectives by providing students the opportunity to apply engineering theory and principles, using a real problem with objectives and constraints. Secondarily, these projects have the potential to drive development of new technology and commercialization opportunities for students, universities, and project sponsors. Universities are increasingly turning to industry for the identification and sponsorship of these real-world experiences as they typically identify a practical need and provide valuable technical and non-technical interaction between students and industry. The traditional project experience is one that occurs during the senior year, and may be one or two semesters in length as required by the university, college, or department. Further, many of these programs (like Michigan Tech’s) have evolved to encourage teams across the various engineering disciplines. Beyond these ‘senior design’ programs, many universities are also recognizing the value of taking the team concept beyond the engineering ‘design-build-test’ cycle, and have implemented broader ‘interdisciplinary programs’ – programs that promote entrepreneurship, innovation, and teamwork across the campus. Michigan Tech’s Enterprise Program, the University of Florida’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Purdue University’s EPICS Program, and the Illinois Institute of Technology’s IPRO Program represent some of the existing programs that fit this category. The following section describes some of the primary considerations for describing programs across universities: Team size and composition The experience of working in teams is perhaps the biggest source of learning on these projects, in many cases much more so than the technical aspects of a particular design problem. Furthermore, the composition of the team directly influences the approach to the problem, and therefore is critical to the overall quality of the experience. Most ‘capstone’ design programs involve a team of about 3-5 students, where most ‘interdisciplinary’ programs are likely to involve larger teams. Michigan Tech senior design teams consist of teams of approximately five students, and, while the program is administered at the department level within the College of Engineering, coordination across departments takes place to facilitate multi-discipline engineering teams. Michigan Tech’s Enterprise program on the other hand is administered at a University level, and Enterprise teams are perhaps more accurately described as organizations or ‘virtual companies’ composed of various functional and technical teams. These organizations may consist of students from Arts & Sciences, Business, Engineering, Forestry, and Technology, and range in size from 10-80 students. In these Enterprises, a P ge 12603.3 leadership team (e.g. President and Vice President positions) and one or more project sub-teams (e.g. Project Manager and associated team member roles) is a typical organization structure. Project duration The size and scope of the project, and therefore the amount of experience gained by the student, are directly influenced by its duration. Most capstone design projects appear to span in duration from one quarter to one full academic year. Michigan Tech senior design projects span one academic year (two semesters), which equates to roughly 1000 total student hours invested in a project. By contrast, projects within one of Michigan Tech’s Enterprise teams can vary from one semester to multiple academic years; a student who joins the Enterprise Program in their sophomore year therefore has an opportunity to get six semesters or more of project and organizational experience. Students take responsibility for the Enterprise and seek to develop into a self sustaining entity by serving internal and external clients and securing resources for continuing projects. The size, multi-functionality, and duration of Enterprise teams allow, and indeed require them to function more like a business than like a discrete project team with a clearly defined endpoint and single set of technical objectives. Sponsorship fee Michigan Tech and many others have adopted the practice of a fixed sponsorship fee. Upon reviewing several program websites and conducting a brief survey, project fees ranging from $1,500 to $41,000 per project exist today. Also, this fee can vary by department within a university’s College of Engineering. The funding is often described as a tax-deductible ‘donation’, ‘gift’, or ‘educational grant’ to the university. Typically, the student team receives a portion of this funding to use directly for project materials and travel. The remainder is allocated to supporting university / college infrastructure (such as software, hardware, professional staff, etc.). A review of available information from several university websites, along with the above-mentioned survey, finds that the team budget can range from 850% of the total. For reference, Michigan Tech’s Senior Design Program requires a fixed fee of $15,000 for a two-semester project; of this, up to $4,000 is available directly to the team. For Michigan Tech’s Enterprise Program, the sponsorship fee is more flexible, due to the variation in team size and project duration, but ranges from $500 to $40,000. In the case of fixed-fee sponsorship, if the budget necessary for a given project is likely to exceed the team’s allocation, universities like Michigan Tech request additional funding from the sponsor, or alternatively, request a change in scope consistent with the team’s budget allocation. In short, while the concept of a project sponsorship fee is quite common, both the overall level of funding and the subsequent allocation to the project