Development and Assessment of a Training Workshop on Intellectual Property Literacy | Centre for Teaching Excellence

Photographed above from left to right: Jenn Coggan, Wayne Chang, and Esteban Veintimilla.

Grant Recipients

Wayne Chang, Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business

Ada Hurst, Management Sciences

Chris Rennick, Engineering Ideas Clinic

Esteban Veintimilla, Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business

Jenn Coggan, Chemistry

(Project timeline: January 2021 - December 2022)

This project will develop and assess a training workshop in Intellectual Property (IP) literacy targeted at 4^th year undergraduate engineering students in their capstone design courses.
This project aims to create a set of workshops that provides students with foundational knowledge to better understand the IP landscape and the associated skills.
These workshops will provide worked examples related to their disciplines of study, and the necessary research methods of how to identify new potential IP opportunities.

Whether students that complete the workshop exhibit better knowledge and skills of IP, and better abilities to identify, and recognize new potential IP opportunities.

Improve entrepreneurship and innovation in the Faculty of Engineering through the topic of Intellectual Property (IP), specifically building core IP literacy in students.
Broadly speaking, IP is important for students to understand, particularly for those who end up in R&D roles in industry, or in academic positions.
We ultimately envision a series of workshops that instructors can integrate into existing courses to improve student innovation, entrepreneurship, and understanding of IP.

85% of students Strongly Agree and Agree they would recommend this training module to future students in their engineering program,
90% of students Strongly Disagree and Disagree that this training module was not relevant to their discipline,
79% of students Strongly Agree and Agree they learned something new in the training module
67% of students completed the training module in less than 1hr (anecdotal comment: some students chose to learn and research module content in greater depth due to topic relevance and interests, hence spent more than 1hr in total time)

In Fall 2021, over 200 students enrolled in LEARN training module from 9 different undergraduate engineering departments, from undergraduate course on venture creation, from the Enterprise Co-op program, and from the Master’s of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology part-time program.
Presentations and summary reports to be shared with Faculty of Engineering departments’ Capstone Course Instructors; and Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business Course Instructors for undergraduate and graduate courses.
Presentation planned for the 2023 UW Teaching & Learning Conference after ongoing user-testing with students in 2022
Abstract submitted January 7, 2022 to the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA-ACEG) Conference 2022 (June 19-22), Title: 'An Online Learning Module On Intellectual Property Literacy'.

Winter 2022
- A few courses within the Conrad School of Entrepreneurship and Business will use the module.
  - Better help students prepare for projects, and group consulting work with partner startups.
- At least one member of 4th Year Engineering Capstone teams will complete the module.
Winter, Spring, and Fall 2022
- Enterprise Co-op program students will complete the training module.
Spring, and Fall 2022
- Module will be offered to 3B and 4A engineering students in Capstone Courses.
CTE Faculty Learning Community (FLC) Fall 2021 series of workshops on student-led individually created course (SLICC) teaching model for experiential learning – 5 sessions 1hr each with faculty-wide peer community of course instructors and support units
CTE Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Fall 2021 miniseries - 5 sessions, 1 hour each, with faculty-wide peer community of course instructors

1. Engineers Canada, Accreditation Criteria and Procedures

2. At the core of entrepreneurship is intellectual property rights, August 1, 2019 with the Federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. https://uwaterloo.ca/stories/core-entrepreneurship-intellectual-property-rights