I-Corps-L ExecSum QED 2014 5.0. Docx

8/10/2019 I-Corps-L ExecSum QED 2014 5.0. Docx

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QED, May 2014 I-Corps-L Pilot Executive Summary

Innovation Corps for Learning

I-Corps-L Pilot EvaluationExecutive Summary

May 2014

By

Gary Lichtenstein, Ed.D.

Cathleen Simons, Ph.D.

Sheri D. Sheppard, Ph.D.

The I-Corps-L pilot was planned from June through December 2013. During that time, NSF

Program Officer Dr. Don Millard recruited Dr. Karl Smith as lead PI for the course, and he in turn

recruited Dr. Ann McKenna and Dr. Chris Swan as teaching team co-PIs. The PIs also recruited

Drs. Russ Korte, Micah Lande, Shawn Jordan, and Bob MacNeal as co-instructors, as well as

Brandy Nagel as course TA. Jerry Engel, I-Corps National Faculty Director, provided consulting

support. ASEE provided logistical support, with Rosio Chavela as the lead contact.

During December 2013, Dr. Millard recruited 11 teams to participate in the pilot (9 teams began

and completed the process). Dr. Millard selected the teams from a pool of currently funded PIs

executing EHR grants. As with I-Corps, each team consisted of an Entrepreneurial Lead (EL),

Principal Investigator (PI), and Mentor (M). Also as in I-Corps, each participating team received a

$50,000 supplement for participating. Unlike I-Corps, the I-Corps-L ELs were usually mid-career

engineering education professionals rather than graduate students, and the Mentors usually did

not have business experience. The pilot was launched with a 3-day Kick-Off in Washington D.C.beginning January 8, 2014, continued with five weekly webinars in January and February, and

concluded with a 2-day Wrap-Up on February 27-28, also in Washington, D.C.

Evaluation data include surveys at Intake, after the Kick-Off, after the Webinars, and after the

Wrap-Up. Survey response rate was 80% overall, although response to the Wrap-Up survey

dipped to 69%. Surveys were adapted from those used in I-Corps courses (the National Collegiate

Inventors and Innovators AllianceNCIIAgenerously provided I-Corps survey instruments and

comparison data to QED). In addition, QED interviewed each PI, each team at least once and

some up to three times, NSF Program Officers, and other stakeholders (25 interviews total). QED

also used I-Corps and I-Corps-L program documents, LaunchPad Central resources, and

observation notes.

Outcome data revealed some similarities among as well as differences between the I-Corps-L

cohort and typical I-Corps cohorts. Average increase in participants knowledge of the 9

components of the Business Model Canvas, upon which the course was based, was similar.

Proportion of go vs. no-go decisions was also similar. Approximately 83% of PIs from both

groups report that they will use the concepts of the course in their future research.


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Yet only 50% of I-Corps-L ELs and PIs reported that will seek other funding for their innovation

after the course, compared to 81% of those from I-Corps. Also, 44% of I-Corps-L participants

reported that they found a viable commercialization path for their innovation, compared to 80%

of those in I-Corps. In terms of course ratings, 29% of I-Corps-L participants reported that the

course fell below their expectations, compared to 4% in I-Corps. Comparable numbers in each

group reported that the course met their expectations (about 30%), while 43% of I-Corps-L

participants reported that the course exceeded their expectations, compared to 64% for I-Corps.

Overall course rating for I-Corps-L was 3.6/5.0 (betweenfairly goodand very good).

Key successes among the I-Corps cohort include:

Participants highly valued the process of customer discovery. Even during the course,

they began applying it to their teaching and other projects. Respondents reported

that customer discovery was the most valuable part of the course.

Participants were excited about the potential of the Business Model Canvas (BMC).

88% believe the BMC has moderate or extreme potential for designing learning

innovations, and roughly 80% agreed that they will apply the BMC in their teaching

and research.

Projects were modified (some substantially) to improve scalability and sustainability.

Key challenges include:

Preparing the teaching team. PIs acknowledged that they did not have sufficient

training or background to translate BMC components into the education ecosystem

context. Only 45% of respondents agreed that the teaching team effectively applied

the BMC to learning innovations.

Delivering the course. Only 67% of respondents (compared to 95% in I-Corps) agreed

that activities were well-suited to the objectives of the course. I-Corps pedagogy was

challenging to the I-Corps-L participants, only 48% of whom agreed that the

educational climate was conducive to learning.

Incorporating elements of the engineering ecosystem into the I-Corps language and

BMC. Team members were challenged by two BMC components in particular:revenue streams and cost structure. While they acknowledge that the underlying

concepts are relevant, disconnects between decision-makers and users adds

complexity to the ecosystem that was not addressed by the examples used during the

course. Many participants were challenged in applying the BMC to their specific

innovations, and several commented that they were hampered by the teaching

teams not being familiar with their innovation.

QED recognizes the terrific potential of I-Corps-L as a vehicle for improving scalability and

sustainability of learning innovations. In order for the promise of I-Corps-L to be realized, values

of scalability and sustainability need to be integrated into and aligned with the engineering

education ecosystem. Two key issues include:

Building expectations, supports, and incentives for scaling and sustaining learning

innovations into the grant solicitation, review, and evaluation process. NSF program

officers, as well as I-Corps-L team members and I-Corps-L PIs, agreed that if NSFs

goal is to promote scalability and sustainability of initially funded projects, that


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expectationas well as supports and incentives for integrating those valuesmust be

built into the grant solicitation and review process.

Building expectations, supports, and incentives among PIs and higher education

institutions.PI team members do not typically see it as their role or responsibility toscale and sustain learning innovations. Current higher education incentive structures

so not typically support for those sorts of activities.

QED believes that, although the I-Corps-L pilot wasnt perfect, everyone involved benefitted from

going through it and they recognize the potential of the approach for improving implementation

projects as well as research projects. We offer the following recommendations:

Successes

1) Continue to offer I-Corps-L courses for engineering education PIs, ELs, and

Mentors. All participants valued the customer discovery process as well as applying

the BMC to their innovations.

2) Continue to adapt I-Corps to the I-Corps-L Community. Uniformly high results on

I-Corps surveys suggest that I-Corps is expertly tailored to the audience and

ecosystem of the start-up environment. Lower ratings on many I-Corps-L survey

items suggest that course content and delivery were not aligned to the expectationsand/or dispositions of the I-Corps-L audience. If customer discovery were conducted

on I-Corps-L, either through review by an advisory board and/or by putting a

team through I-Corps (or I-Corps-L) with I-Corps-L being the learning innovation

developed, we anticipate that the outstanding results obtained with I-Corps would

begin to be reflected by I-Corps-L teams.

Challenges

3) More training for I-Corps-L instructors. The new faculty training for I-Corps, as

described in the 2013I-Corps Faculty Development Program Workbook, includes 22

hours of formal training with experienced I-Corp faculty, in addition to participating inI-Corps sessions, coaching two participant teams, providing feedback during team

presentations, and shadowing the teaching team. The I-Corps-L teaching team

worked very hard in a short amount of time to get up to speed on the many facets of

I-Corps and we commend them. In future cycles, QED recommends that the I-Corps-L

budget and timeline include structured and mentored training by experienced I-Corps

instructors. Also, if prospective I-Corps-L faculty served as adjuncts in an I-Corps

course prior to leading I-Corps-L, their familiarity with the course and the Business

Model Canvas would be strengthened.

4) Build professional diversity into the I-Corps-L teaching teams. Include on the

I-Corps-L teaching team I-Corps instructors who have both business experience and

expertise in higher education contexts.

5)

Review appropriateness of I-Corps teaching strategies for the I-Corps-L participants.

I-Corps-L participants careers focus on researching and/or implementing best

practices related to teaching and learning. While some valued the very direct and

aggressive instructional strategies used in I-Corps, many others were put off and/or

offended by them. The teaching team reverted to a more collaborative approach mid-

way through the course. In the future, I-Corps-L developers should anticipate

participants expectations of what constitutes effective learning and consider whether

standard I-Corps instruction is the best approach for this customer segment.


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6)

Increase the value of team presentations by generalizing teachable moments to all

teams. Implement a flipped classroom approach to lectures, so that participants and

faculty can relate their own examples from and experiences within the education

ecosystem to all elements of the BMC.

7) Include authentic and relevant examples. I-Corps-L teams struggled to see how some

elements of the BMC applied to their learning innovations. Authentic and relevant

examples that include the complexity of higher education ecosystems could be

integrated into future I-Corps-L courses. Showing how these examples play out ineach of the 9 BMC component boxes would deepen team members understanding of

the model and their ability to apply the model to their own innovations.

8) Consider adaptations of the BMC tool. Some representations of the BMC have

modified cost structure and revenue streams boxes that might be more relevant to

I-Corps-L teams, such as that offered at www.businessmodelyou.com. To be more

effective for participants, revenue streams, for example,might be framed to reflect

sustainable and scalable benefits in higher-education beyond revenues, such as

student learning, life outcomes, and/or retention, as well as university branding,

and/or publication rates, for example.

9) Conduct customer discovery on I-Corps-L. Consider an advisory board and/or a team

that develops I-Corps-L as an innovation in an I-Corps or I-Corps-L course. (This

recommendation is also included under Successes.)

Aligning Partners & Channels into the Engineering Education Ecosystem

10)Integrate goals of scaling and sustaining innovations into the NSF ecosystem. Modify

the grant award process so that it incorporates expectations for customer discovery,

scalability, and sustainability from the beginning.

11)

Incentivize for scaling and sustaining effective learning innovations in the education

ecosystem. Anticipate that those who research and/or implement learning

innovations may have motivations that differ from I-Corps team members. Currently,

programs such as SBIR and STTR may not be seen as relevant to many PIs in

engineering education. Incentive structures in higher education can make scaling andsustaining an innovation challenging. These incentive structures, however, can be

leveraged, if NSF and other partners address the value propositions that drive

engineering education researchers and program developers. The I-Corps discovery

process is a potentially powerful vehicle by which to identify the means by which to

scale and sustain learning innovations.

Web:www.QualityEvaluationDesigns.com

Email:[email protected]
http://www.businessmodelyou.com/http://www.businessmodelyou.com/http://www.businessmodelyou.com/http://www.qualityevaluationdesigns.com/http://www.qualityevaluationdesigns.com/http://www.qualityevaluationdesigns.com/mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.qualityevaluationdesigns.com/http://www.businessmodelyou.com/

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