Work in Progress: Piloting a Human-Centered-Design Software Innovation Course for First-Year Engineering & Business Students

James Edward Toney; Kristina Kennedy; Julie Rose Cupka; Roger Allen Bailey

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Conference: 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE)
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Publication Date: July 28, 2024
Start Date: July 28, 2024
End Date: July 30, 2024
Page Count: 4
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--48646
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48646
Download Count: 45

Paper Authors

biography

James Edward Toney The Ohio State University

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James Toney earned the Ph.D. in applied physics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1998 and the B.S. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1984. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Engineering Education at Ohio State.

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biography

Kristina Kennedy The Ohio State University

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Kristina Kennedy joined The Ohio State University in 2021 as an Associate Professor in the College of Engineering and Faculty Director for the Integrated Business & Engineering Program (IBE) – a multidisciplinary, cross-college program serving both business and engineering honors students. In this role, Kennedy teaches the IBE First-Year Cornerstone and IBE Senior Capstone courses. Additionally, she oversees the program – creating meaningful experiences for students, raising funds, and forging industry partnerships for student success.

Prior to her current role, Kennedy worked as an engineer with Honda Research & Development. Her roles included test engineer, interior quality lead and most recently, project leader for the Honda Odyssey and Acura MDX. During her time with Honda, she founded the first global Business Resource Group - the Women in Engineering Network – to support, develop, and highlight the work of its members. She participated in a number of leadership programs and is featured in the “Who Makes a Honda” series.

Kristina holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Iowa and an MBA from The Ohio State University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family (game nights, cheering for her kids’ sports teams, and puzzling), traveling, and volunteering.

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Julie Rose Cupka The Ohio State University

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Roger Allen Bailey The Ohio State University

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Abstract

Our University launched a Software Innovation track within our existing Integrated Business and Engineering Honors Program in 2023. In the Spring 2024 term, we delivered the initial offering of our Fundamentals of Engineering II course for the Software Innovation cohort made up of engineering and business students. The course helps students develop an understanding of the engineering design process within an entrepreneurial context by introducing human-centered design. Using an existing Entrepreneurial Mindset Learning (EML) curriculum as a starting point, the course presents basic concepts of business model generation and conceptual design within a software context. In teams of 4, students engage in a semester-long project in which they choose a problem to solve grounded in research, identify unmet market needs, generate and select design concepts, and create a software prototype. Value creation, business model generation, and price models are emphasized. To foster an interdisciplinary approach, each team consists of a mix of business and engineering majors from various disciplines. All business majors in the program are pursuing an engineering minor, and vice versa. The technical side of the course focuses primarily on high-level design. Teams produce user interface prototypes with a no-code design tool such as Figma and use Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams to represent the object-oriented structure and behavior of their application. In the final weeks of the course, students experience a limited version of agile development, in which they create and prioritize a feature backlog and execute a 2-week “sprint”, implementing and verifying the core functionality of their project in the programming language and platform of their choice. Frequent oral and written communication are emphasized; the largest contributor to the course grade is the quality of the final report. The course culminates in a pitch competition, in which students present their business models and conceptual designs to industry representatives. Since this is a pilot, the teaching team, which consists of faculty and teaching assistants from the College of Business and the College of Engineering, is focused on continuous improvement. An end-of-course survey will be used to gauge the impact of the course on students’ attitudes and understanding of the software development and business model generation process, through direct and indirect assessments. This feedback will be used to enhance subsequent iterations of the course. Data will be analyzed across demographic categories to ensure equity and inclusion with respect to underrepresented groups.

Citation
Format

Toney, J. E., & Kennedy, K., & Cupka, J. R., & Bailey, R. A. (2024, July), Work in Progress: Piloting a Human-Centered-Design Software Innovation Course for First-Year Engineering & Business Students Paper presented at 15th Annual First-Year Engineering Experience Conference (FYEE), Boston, Massachusetts. 10.18260/1-2--48646

TY - CPAPER
AB - Our University launched a Software Innovation track within our existing Integrated Business and Engineering Honors Program in 2023. In the Spring 2024 term, we delivered the initial offering of our Fundamentals of Engineering II course for the Software Innovation cohort made up of engineering and business students. The course helps students develop an understanding of the engineering design process within an entrepreneurial context by introducing human-centered design. Using an existing Entrepreneurial Mindset Learning (EML) curriculum as a starting point, the course presents basic concepts of business model generation and conceptual design within a software context.
In teams of 4, students engage in a semester-long project in which they choose a problem to solve grounded in research, identify unmet market needs, generate and select design concepts, and create a software prototype. Value creation, business model generation, and price models are emphasized. To foster an interdisciplinary approach, each team consists of a mix of business and engineering majors from various disciplines. All business majors in the program are pursuing an engineering minor, and vice versa.
The technical side of the course focuses primarily on high-level design. Teams produce user interface prototypes with a no-code design tool such as Figma and use Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams to represent the object-oriented structure and behavior of their application. In the final weeks of the course, students experience a limited version of agile development, in which they create and prioritize a feature backlog and execute a 2-week “sprint”, implementing and verifying the core functionality of their project in the programming language and platform of their choice.
Frequent oral and written communication are emphasized; the largest contributor to the course grade is the quality of the final report. The course culminates in a pitch competition, in which students present their business models and conceptual designs to industry representatives.
Since this is a pilot, the teaching team, which consists of faculty and teaching assistants from the College of Business and the College of Engineering, is focused on continuous improvement. An end-of-course survey will be used to gauge the impact of the course on students’ attitudes and understanding of the software development and business model generation process, through direct and indirect assessments. This feedback will be used to enhance subsequent iterations of the course. Data will be analyzed across demographic categories to ensure equity and inclusion with respect to underrepresented groups.

AU - James Edward Toney
AU - Kristina Kennedy
AU - Julie Rose Cupka
AU - Roger Allen Bailey
CY - Boston, Massachusetts
DA - 2024/07/28
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Work in Progress: Piloting a Human-Centered-Design Software Innovation Course for First-Year Engineering & Business Students
UR - https://peer.asee.org/48646
DO - 10.18260/1-2--48646
ER -