Work

Benchmarking the Innovations Capstone Course at Oklahoma State University: Lessons learned and changes made

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Beginning January 2010, through April 2010, an evaluation was conducted regarding the Innovations Process course at Oklahoma State University.This evaluation was conducted as a way to provide participant feedback to the Innovations Process faculty in order to benchmark the course.As a unique course funded by a USDA Higher Education Challenge grant this project allowed the faculty of the interdisciplinary course to reflect on the first year of the project and use feedback from the students of that year to make changes for future years.Student participants in the Innovations Process course are placed in interdisciplinary teams and challenged to solve a real-world problem in partnership with a local (Oklahoma) sponsor company.The participants combine engineering, business and communications skills to develop a prototype, budget analysis and a comprehensive communications plan with their sponsor company.The objectives of the Innovations Process, as stated by the grant proposal, are to create workplace-ready graduates who are capable of participating in and eventually leading private sector innovation; enhance the education experience of participants in agribusiness, engineering and communications in an effort to increase enrollment in those areas; and develop and disseminate interdisciplinary curricula for adaptation and use by other universities.This report addresses three main research questions, the research methods used, findings and recommendations.The course seems to be of benefit to its participants, even just one year after completion.The majority of former Innovations Process participants reported they were "likely" or "very likely" (see Table 2) to mention their experiences in the course in a job interview or with colleagues.However, the response wasn"t quite as positive when asked, "How beneficial was the course to your job search?"Also, the former participants tended to raise significant concerns about the course.For example, some felt that their opportunities for learning major-specific details suffered because of the course.The former participants tended to report that time spent in class was not as useful as time Proceedings of the 2009 Midwest Section Conference of the American Society for Engineering Educationspent working with their team on their projects.This may be a reflection of feeling overwhelmed by the number of professors regularly involved in each class period.

Source: ASEE Midwest Section Conference

DOI: 10.18260/1-2-1153-51548