Open Education Week, 4-8 March 2024

Greetings from Athabasca University (AU), Canada, where I am attending an Open Education Week event on "Exploring Openness in Education 2024". The audience is mostly M.Ed. and Ed. Doc students and faculty. Am one of the alumni, having completed my MEd in 2017. The panel includes Dr. Rory McGreal, who was one of my Professors when I studied at AU. I am not actually in Canada (I have never physically been to AU), but using a video conference.

Dr. McGreal is enthusiastic on using AI to create educational content, and help teach students. Other panelists are more skeptical, and working on guidelines for this. 

ps: I hope to will have the opportunity to discuss these issues in person at OEGlobal 2024 in Brisbane, 13-15 November 2024.

pps: The audio cut out on my laptop after a few minutes, so I dialed in for the sound. I had just purchased low cost SoundPEATS RunFree Lite Open Ear Headphones. These look a bit odd, but worked remarkably well. I was inspired by Johnnie Moore, who uses a similar headset for making short philosophical videos..

Misconceptions and Challenges with Open Educaiton Resources

Dave Towey,
University of Nottingham

Greetings from Yogyakarta, at the IEEE TALE 2019 engineering education conference, where Dave Towey, University of Nottingham is speaking on  "OER: Six Perspectives on Global Misconceptions and Challenges". He identified the issue of costly US textbooks as one of the sources of interest, but also misunderstandings, with Open Educaiton Resources.

"Abstract—Open Educational Resources (OERs) are freely accessible materials for teaching, learning, and research that have been made available such that they can be freely used, modified, and shared. Prompted by the potential positive impact that OERs can have, a growing community of OER enthusiasts
has been advocating for their adoption in higher education, and elsewhere. The growing demand for computer science education and training (especially in areas related to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data) has led to speculation as to how OERs may be best leveraged to support such teaching and learning. The recent occasion of an international OER workshop at the 2019 IEEE Conference on Computers, Software and Applications (COMPSAC) allowed for six OER enthusiasts, all with extensive OER experience, to reflect on the status of OER adoption and understanding. These reflections, addressing misconceptions and challenges, form the basis for this paper."

The six misconceptions are (this is my interpretation, not the author's words):

1. MOOCs are open
2. If its on the Internet, it's open
3. If its open it's free
4. Lazy educators use open stuff
5. OER reduces cost
6. OER is low quality

At question time I suggested one way to promote OER is to apply the techniques provided in the start-up entrepreneurial centers at universities. OER done as an ad-hoc cottage industry will not be able to compete with for-profit professional publishing output. So I suggest applying the entrepreneurial approach used to set up new industries. This would look at how to produce a product which appeals to educators, how to obtain funding to grown the business. This is does not necessarily require a for-profit corporation, it could be a not-for-profit organization.

Developing my Philosophy of Teaching Statement

Greetings from the Charles Sturt University Canberra Campus, where Pam Roberts from CSU and Karin Oerlemans from Kairos are running a HERDSA workshop on "Developing your Philosophy of Teaching Statement"

This is no powerpoint click and flick exercise. We started at 4:30pm and are going through until 7pm, undertaking a series of short group and individual exercises exploring how we see teaching and our role in in. The workshop is aimed at helping those applying under the HERDSA Fellowship Scheme, but is also applicable to other educational fellowships, particularly the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

One exercise was the Curriculum Ideologies Inventory from "Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns" by Michael Stephen Schiro (2012).

Also I have been attending "Talk about Teaching and Learning" (TATAL) sessions at the Australian National University. These sessions take the educator through a series of exercises over several weeks to get them to think about their teaching practices (McCormack, & Kennelly, p. 8, 2009).

The reflective writing process is one now familiar to me having been through the process to be a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and before that in a  capstone for Athabasca University's MEd. However, this is something which still does not come naturally. Having do it several times I am tempted to use shorthand:

Tom Worthington's Philosophy of Teaching Statement

A social constructionist undertaking mentored, collaborative online learning  (Lindley, 2007) for scaffolded vocational professional education. For details, see my book "Digital Teaching In Higher Education".

Reference

Lindley, D. (2007, November). Computer professional education using mentored and collaborative online learning. In SEARCC 2007, Proceedings of the South East Asia Regional Computer Conference (pp. 18-19). URL http://ijcim.th.org/SpecialEditions/v15nSP4/P09SEARCC_ComputerProfessionalEducation.pdf

McCormack, C., & Kennelly, R. (2009, February). Talking about Teaching and Learning (TATAL). In A Transition Pedagogy: The First Year Experience Curriculum Design Symposium 2009 (p. 8). URL https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sally_Kift/publication/266461923_A_Transition_Pedagogy_The_First_Year_Experience_Curriculum_Design_Symposium_2009_Introduction_-_The_Contemporary_First_Year_Experience/links/54b5e1480cf26833efd3455e/A-Transition-Pedagogy-The-First-Year-Experience-Curriculum-Design-Symposium-2009-Introduction-The-Contemporary-First-Year-Experience.pdf#page=8

How Open is Australian Higher Education?

The e-book of "Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education", edited by Patrick Blessinger and TJ Bliss is available free in PDF and HTML. In Chapter 6 "Educational Policy and Open Educational Practice in Australian Higher Education", Adrian Stagg and Carina Bossu give a not very glowing report card. The authors note that low socio-economic background students at university increased only 1.29% from 2001 to 2014. Regional university students have fared slightly better, increasing from  15.4% (2001) to 19.3% in 2014. However, it should be noted that Stagg and Bossu do not include students in Vocational Education and Training (VET, which make up a significant part of Australian Higher Education. The VET sector has the potential to better address equity issues than universities.

Stagg and Bossu point to the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) and the use of Creative Commons licenses by universities as examples of open access policies. They suggest OER policies can have benefits for institutions, such as improved reputation by showcasing educational content and techniques. However, the authors do not explain what the benefits would be for individual academics who's promotions are based on how much research and course revenue they can bring in. Some vague improvement in reputation makes a weak case compared to revenue from students paying for courses using proprietary materials.

Stagg and Bossu try to make a case for Open Education in terms of access and equity. However, they do not really make the case for openness translating into access. Also the authors fail to address the motivations of individual academics and of institutional government policy. Most of those teaching in Australian universities are on short term contracts: how will they earn a living through Open Education? The few permanent long term academics in universities also need to meet financial targets from their research and teaching. Education is a major export industry for Australia: how can this income be increased through Open Education? I suggest that Open Education will not advance by simply ignoring this reality. A case can be made for Open Education enhancing individual careers and national education exports. However, Stagg and Bossu have not made that case.

Designing an Innovation Course: Part 5: Wikpedia Book of Readings

In Part 4 I prepared an "An Introduction to Entrepreneurship" for a course in "Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship in Technology". To complement this I have produced a 129 page book of readings: “Commercialisationand Entrepreneurship: Technology, Business and People”. This material is selected from the Wikipedia.
Searching for OER on “Entrepreneurship” I found a 96 page ebook "Entrepreneurship: A group of ideas around entrepreneurship". This had an excellent summary, with images and references. The material was so well presented that it took me some time to realize that this is a “Wikipedia Book”, that is a collection of Wikipedia entries, which have been rendered to book format. So them I produced my own modified book, with more Wikipedia entries. Unfortunately there appears to be no easy way to render this in HTML format for incorporation in a Moodle book.

The re-purposing of Wikipedia content in this format may go some way to reducing concerns from teachers over its use. The selection of the Wikipedia content for the e-book can be curated by a course designer and once rendered to a PDF book the content is fixed and not subject to change. Also, rather than tell students not to use the Wikipedia, this shows an acceptable academic use.

Table of Contents

Definitions 1
1.1 Entrepreneur	1
1.1.1 Definition	1
1.1.2 Extended definition of entrepreneurship	2
1.1.3 Entrepreneurial Cognition 2
1.1.4 Psychology of entrepreneurship	4
1.1.5 Predictors of entrepreneurial success	4
1.1.6 Entrepreneurship as a science of artificial	5
1.1.7 Entrepreneurial Finance	5
1.1.8 Other elements of entrepreneurship	6
1.1.9 History	6
1.1.10 See also	7
1.1.11 References	7
1.1.12 Further reading	9
Entrepreneur	10
1.2.1 Definition	10
1.2.2 Extended definition of entrepreneurship	11
1.2.3 Entrepreneurial Cognition 11
1.2.4 Psychology of entrepreneurship	12
1.2.5 Predictors of entrepreneurial success	13
1.2.6 Entrepreneurship as a science of artificial	14
1.2.7 Entrepreneurial Finance	14
1.2.8 Other elements of entrepreneurship	15
1.2.9 History	15
1.2.10 See also	16
1.2.11 References	16
1.2.12 Further reading	18
Startup company	18
1.3.1 Definition	18
1.3.2 Evolution	19
1.3.3 Startup business partnering	19
1.3.4 Startup culture	20
Co-founders	20
1.3.6 Startup investing	20
1.3.7 Internal startups	21
1.3.8 Trends and obstacles	21
1.3.9 See also	22
1.3.10 References	22
Entrepreneurial economics	23
1.4.1 Theories of the Economic Functions of the Entrepreneur	24
1.4.2 See also	24
1.4.3 References	24
Innovation 26
2.1 Innovation	26
2.1.1 Inter-disciplinary views	26
2.1.2 Measures	29
2.1.3 Rate of innovation	29
2.1.4 Government policies	30
2.1.5 See also	31
2.1.6 References	31
Product innovation	33
2.2.1 Introduction	33
2.2.2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Product Innovation	33
2.2.3 New product development	34
2.2.4 Stages of New Product Development	34
2.2.5 Existing Product Development	34
2.2.6 References	34
Disruptive innovation	35
2.3.1 History and usage of the term	35
2.3.2 The theory	36
2.3.3 Disruptive technology	37
2.3.4 High-technology effects	38
2.3.5 Practical example of disruption	38
2.3.6 Examples of disruptive innovations	38
2.3.7 See also	38
2.3.8 Notes	39
2.3.9 References	40
2.3.10 Further reading	40
2.3.11 External links	40
The Cambridge Phenomenon 41
3.1 Silicon Fen	41
3.1.1 41
Business growth
3.1.2 Area characteristics	42
3.1.3 See also	42
3.1.4 References	43
3.1.5 External links	43
ARM Holdings	43
3.2.1 History	44
3.2.2 Operations	45
3.2.3 Technology	45
3.2.4 Licensees	45
3.2.5 Sales and market share	46
3.2.6 Partnerships	46
3.2.7 Senior management	47
3.2.8 See also	47
3.2.9 References	47
3.2.10 External links	50
Raspberry Pi Foundation	50
3.3.1 Foundation	50
3.3.2 Raspberry Pi	51
3.3.3 References	52
3.3.4 External links	52
Investing 53
4.1 Angel investor	53
4.1.1 Etymology and origin	53
4.1.2 Source and extent of funding	53
4.1.3 Investment profile	54
4.1.4 Geographical differences	54
4.1.5 See also	54
4.1.6 References	55
Business case	55
4.2.1 Reasons for creating a business case	56
4.2.2 Development and approval process	56
4.2.3 Not Public sector projects	56
4.2.4 See also	57
4.2.5 Notes	57
4.2.6 References	57
Content of a business plan	57
4.3.1 Audience	57
4.3.2 Content	57
4.3.3 Presentation	58
4.3.4 Revising the business plan	58
4.3.5 Legal and liability issues	58
4.3.6 Open business plans	59
4.3.7 Uses	59
4.3.8 Not for profit businesses	59
4.3.9 Satires	59
4.3.10 See also	60
4.3.11 References	60
Business model	60
4.4.1 History	61
4.4.2 Theoretical and empirical insights to business models	61
4.4.3 Categorization of business models	61
4.4.4 Applications	62
4.4.5 Business model design	62
4.4.6 Definitions of business model design or development	63
4.4.7 Examples of business models	63
4.4.8 Business model frameworks	65
4.4.9 Related concepts	65
4.4.10 See also	66
4.4.11 References	66
4.4.12 Further reading	68
4.4.13 External links	68
Content of a business plan	68
4.5.1 Audience	68
4.5.2 Content	69
4.5.3 Presentation	69
4.5.4 Revising the business plan	70
4.5.5 Legal and liability issues	70
4.5.6 Open business plans	70
4.5.7 Uses	70
4.5.8 Not for profit businesses	71
4.5.9 Satires	71
4.5.10 See also	71
4.5.11 References	71
Venture capital	72
4.6.1 History	72
4.6.2 Funding	75
4.6.3 Firms and funds	76
4.6.4 Geographical differences	78
4.6.5 Confidential information	80
4.6.6 Governmental Regulations	80
4.6.7 In popular culture	80
4.6.8 See also	81
References	81
Venture capital financing	82
4.7.1 Overview	83
4.7.2 Venture capital financing process	83
4.7.3 At Last	86
4.7.4 See also	86
4.7.5 References	86
4.7.6 Further reading	86
Seed money	87
4.8.1 Usage	87
4.8.2 Types of early stage funding	87
4.8.3 Other sources of seed funding	87
4.8.4 Government funds	87
4.8.5 References	87
Rate of return	88
4.9.1 Calculation	88
4.9.2 Comparisons between various rates of return	89
4.9.3 Uses	91
4.9.4 Time value of money	92
4.9.5 Compounding or reinvesting	92
4.9.6 Returns when capital is at risk	92
4.9.7 See also	94
4.9.8 Notes	94
4.9.9 References	94
4.9.10 Further reading	95
4.9.11 External links	95
4.10 Initial public offering	95
4.10.1 History	95
4.10.2 Reasons for listing	95
4.10.3 Procedure	96
4.10.4 Largest IPOs (unadjusted)	99
4.10.5 Largest IPO markets	99
4.10.6 See also	99
4.10.7 References	99
4.10.8 Further reading	100
4.10.9 External links	101
4.11 Exit strategy	101
4.11.1 In warfare	101
4.11.2 In business	101
4.11.3 See also	102
4.11.4 References	102
4.11.5 External links	102
5 Incubators and Plans
Business incubator	103
5.1.1 The incubation process	103
5.1.2 Types	104
5.1.3 Goals and Sponsors	104
5.1.4 History	104
5.1.5 Incubator networks	105
5.1.6 See also	105
5.1.7 References	105
5.1.8 External links	105
Virtual business incubator	105
References	106
Strategic planning	106
5.3.1 Process	106
5.3.2 Tools and approaches	107
5.3.3 Strategic planning vs	financial planning	108
5.3.4 Criticism	108
5.3.5 See also	108
5.3.6 References	109
5.3.7 Strategic plan examples	109
5.3.8 Further reading	109
New business development	109
5.4.1 Technology	110
5.4.2 Business networks
5.4.3 References	111

Designing an Innovation Course: Part 4: An Introduction to Entrepreneurship in Technology

In Part 3 I looked at an "Introduction to Innovation" for a course in "Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship in Technology". After more open access searching I identified the Open University (UK) module on "Entrepreneurial behavior" to be most useful.

The OU UK course notes were 6,925 words (equivalent to 15 pages). This is far in excess of the amount of material needed for a one to two hour learning module. The OUUK document contained some copyright material which I have deleted. Reducing some of the verbose language, reduced the notes to about half the size (3,200 words, six pages). The images in the OU module were also too low resolution to be usable and have been omitted and new images added from OER sources. The OU notes used images to show tables, contrary to web accessibility guidelines, so some of these had to be transcribed (others omitted). The notes also contained more student exercises than could be undertaken in 90 minutes and two thirds of these have been omitted. I added some new video (as the OU video was of too low resolution), activities and adapted questions.

The OU course materials included interactive quizzes for the student. However, these where simply free-form text questions. Without anyone to provide feedback to the student, these are of little value. As a result the quiz questions have been adapted to forum topics for students to answer and then discuss in a Moodle forum with other students. Students can then rate the responses from each other. Where the OU quizzes were, a new multiple choice quiz, using some of the course content has been added.

An Introduction to Entrepreneurship in Technology

Introduction

Entrepreneurs may be broadly defined as people who manage a business with the intention of expanding that business by applying some form of innovation and with the leadership and managerial capacity for achieving their goals, generally in the face of strong competition from other firms, large and small. The overall aim of this unit, therefore, is to provide you with opportunities to consider and reflect on the personal aspects involved in transforming an innovative idea into an entrepreneurial product.

Learning outcomes

After studying this unit you should:

• understand the nature of entrepreneurship;
• understand the function of the entrepreneur in the successful, commercial application of innovations;
• confirm your entrepreneurial business idea;
• identify personal attributes that enable best use of entrepreneurial opportunities;
• explore entrepreneurial leadership and management style;
• identify the requirements for building an appropriate entrepreneurial team.

Economic function of the entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs have two roles in the economy: to introduce new ideas, and to energise business processes.The term entrepreneur, derives from the French words entre (between) and prendre (to take), referred to someone who acted as an intermediary. The term was originally used to describe the activities of what today call an impresario, a promoter or a deal maker. The role of the entrepreneur now is to conceive a business idea in terms of an innovation to be brought successfully to the market and to find the wherewithal to make this happen. The entrepreneur does not necessarily need to have the design, production or delivery skills, nor do they shoulder all of the risk, but the successful management of risk is an important entrepreneurial attribute.

Hub Global Network, Practice Gathering l, Milan, (CC BY-SA 2.0) 2011

Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1934), who has had a seminal influence on entrepreneurship, as well as innovation, placed the entrepreneur at the centre of his theory of economic development. Schumpeter defined the entrepreneur simply as someone who acts as an agent of change by bringing into existence a ‘new combination of the means of production’. New combinations include process, product and organisational innovations. The means of production includes capital, equipment, premises, raw materials, labour and, in recent times, information. Currently, knowledge has been added to the list as the indispensable ingredient for business success in the new millennium.

The essence of Schumpeter's approach is that entrepreneurs are competitive and always strive to gain an edge over their competitors. When they begin to consolidate and slow down, they revert to being ordinary managers and, in Schumpeter's terms, are no longer entrepreneurial. Thus attitudes to growth and the actual attainment of growth are essential elements of the concept of entrepreneurship. The attainment part of the concept, of course, implies a high level of managerial competence in all these five stages:

Idea > attracts > Entrepreneur > seeks > Capital > enables > Team/Firm >compete > Market

Table 1: Business Completion Chain

Also a high competence in social and commercial interactions outside the firm with other firms, regulators and, above all, customers and consumers is required. This implies that entrepreneurial firms that innovate successfully and encourage new innovations are likely to be different from most other firms. They appear to be more open and supportive of different opinions and ideas. If you are developing your own idea as part of an organisation (or if you feel that your idea will need the combined efforts of a firm for its implementation), Activity 1 will help you identify where you need to develop and negotiate support both inside and outside the firm. The art of negotiation is a key entrepreneurial skill.

Activity 1

Referring to the characteristics of successful innovation, complete the Characteristics of the entrepreneurial firm checklist.

Consider the ideal firm for bringing your idea to market (or if your ideas have not yet crystallised, an enterprising group or firm of at least two other people you know). Make a note about the purpose of the firm or team before you answer the questions.
Try to answer the following questions (pausing for reflection if you need to.) If the answer is ‘Yes’ write a brief example. If the answer is ‘No’, write the main reason.

Characteristics of the entrepreneurial firm checklist

Try and record detailed answers to the following questions in your learning journal. Select the question mark if you need advice:

1. Does the first have strong confidence in its technical capabilities and knowledge?
2. Is there a strongly shared culture and values?
3. Is there a strong customer focus?
4. Is development and project work carried out in cross-functional teams?

The characteristics of entrepreneurial firms that are successful at launching innovations have been widely studied and are reflected in the questions asked in Activity 1. However, at this stage you may be a long way off starting, or helping to start, your own firm. The checklist should serve as a useful tool for gauging the innovative support from your current situation and as a guideline for the sort of atmosphere that needs to develop in a firm in order to maximise its entrepreneurial potential. When faced with very real resource constraints, maintaining motivation to set up and run such a firm can be very tough. The main motivation for entrepreneurs to overcome the barriers of economic pressure and uncertainty, according to Schumpeter (who was writing in the 1930s), were the prospects of upward social mobility into the capitalist class. At the start of the 21^st century, with the almost universal dominance of market-based economic systems and a hugely increased middle class, the need to cope with the direct and indirect threats of ‘globalisation’ is now often cited as the spur to innovation. For others, economic survival or the chance to create something of value are the driving motivators. Whatever the personal ambitions of entrepreneurial small firm owners, their role in introducing innovations and in improving overall economic development and efficiency is important.


Basically, the concept of development from an economic viewpoint means the growth of goods and services in an economy usually measured in total or per capita rates of growth in all goods and services, known as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or the Gross National Product (GNP) when nationally owned overseas goods and services are included. In advanced industrial economies such as Britain, France, Germany and so on, policy objectives tend to be targeted on improving economic performance rather than development per se. As an alternative to an economic approach, one of the best known psychologically based economic development models that is still very influential, David McClelland's achievement motivation model, pays less attention to structural factors while the psychological determinants of economic behaviour are more strongly emphasised:

Some wealth or leisure may be essential to development in other fields the arts, politics, science, or war but we need not insist on it. However, the question why some countries develop rapidly in the economic sphere at certain times and not at others is in itself of great interest, whatever its relation to other types of cultural growth. Usually, rapid economic growth has been explained in terms of ‘external’ factors favourable opportunities for trade, unusual natural resources, or conquests that have opened up new markets or produced internal political stability. But I am interested in the internal factors in the values and motives men have that lead them to exploit opportunities, to take advantage of favourable trade conditions; in short, to shape their own destiny. (McClelland 1968, p. 74)

McClelland's preferred entrepreneurial motivator, the need for achievement or nAch as it is usually abbreviate – ‘a desire to do well, not so much for the sake of social recognition or prestige, but to attain an inner feeling of personal accomplishment’ – is a more psychologically-based theory. McClelland himself summarised an alternative economic development theory as ‘a society with a generally high level of nAch will produce more energetic entrepreneurs who, in turn, produce more rapid economic development’. However, McClelland was quite disparaging about the profit motive as the mainspring of entrepreneurial activity:

Since businessmen had obviously shifted their concern from intrinsic worth to money worth, Marx and other economists endowed man with a psychological characteristic known as the ‘profit motive’. The capitalist, at any rate, was pictured as being driven by greed, by the necessity of making money or keeping up his rate of profit.

That such an assumption is a typical oversimplification of rational or armchair psychology has recently begun to be realised by historians in particular who have studied the lives of actual business entrepreneurs in the nineteenth century. Oddly enough, many of these men did not seem to be motivated by a desire for money as such or by what it would buy. (McClelland 1961, p. 233)

Clearly, the ‘oversimplification’ of the profit motive determining economic development has survived longer than McClelland believed it would and remains a central pillar to current business and economic analysis. Other motives include the need for autonomy, to ‘be my own boss’, to support a preferred lifestyle, to provide security for the family, to achieve social status and so on. Nevertheless, earning profits and making money also feature as important motives and the potential profitability of a new product is still usually the acid test of its likely viability. And well know entrepreneurs to the press and public are usually very successful and very rich business owners.

Entrepreneurial qualities

It is now widely accepted that, apart from the start up phase, most small firms in Europe are more concerned about survival rather than growth and relatively few are especially entrepreneurial (Gray 1998). Consequently, a lot of research in this field has focused on finding the characteristics that set entrepreneurs and their firms apart from others. Elizabeth Chell (1985, 1999), a social psychologist, has examined numerous psychological trait-based approaches and concluded that, whilst psychological aspects such as ‘entrepreneurial intention’ and the ‘ability to recognise opportunities’ are strongly linked to entrepreneurial behaviour, the context in which the entrepreneur operates is also very important. Entrepreneurship reflects complex interactions between the individual and the situation, which has to be dynamic because business situations are always changing.


Perceptions and judgement are, therefore, key elements in this process. Indeed, more than 20 years ago, Mark Casson (1982) identified ‘judgement’ as one of the qualities that distinguishes the successful entrepreneur from the much larger group of non-entrepreneurial SME owners. As mentioned before, business judgement can reflect an innate ability but most frequently it directly derives from experience (or, more accurately, learning from experience). However, past experience can also filter out our ability to spot new opportunities or threats. Cultural effects related to family, locality and friends can help us interpret the world but they can also colour what we see. The same may be true of the influences from various networks that business owners often belong to (ranging from business associations such as Chambers of Commerce, business clubs and so on, to more social links related to, say, sport or leisure activities). And, of course, our own expectations and motivations of what we hope for in life, at work and in terms of a career will affect both judgement and business behaviour. The Open University Business Schools (OUBS) has conducted research in this area over the years. The findings from many different entrepreneurial firms, which reveal various influences and feedback loops on the owner-manager's decision-making. Apart from the effects of the various influences that can affect business judgements, the main points to note are:

1. Business situations consist of real challenges, constraints and opportunities that directly impact on the business performance of a firm.
2. However, it is how entrepreneurs perceive these that guide their judgments and actions (which is why accurate market information, the ability to learn and experience are so important).
3. Business perceptions are also influenced by personal and business motivations, peer pressures and cultural influences (it could be argued that entrepreneur's perceptions are more closely aligned with reality).
4. Entrepreneurial behaviour is guided by the entrepreneur's expectations rather than a rigid set of strategic objectives (again, it may be that the entrepreneur's expectations are more realistic and, maybe, more ambitious than those of other business managers).
5. The process is not static but very dynamic with feedback and signals from the market consciously and indirectly affecting later decisions and actions.

As each context and set of market signals reflect industry, regional and life-cycle influences, it is difficult to believe that each entrepreneur needs the same set of skills in order to achieve success. To date, researchers have not been able to identify a core and necessary bundle of attributes, characteristics or qualities that mark out successful entrepreneurs unerringly from the large crowd of business owners. However, a commonly quoted empirical and desk research study of new venture start-ups, that has stood the test of time over the past quarter-century, was conducted through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Jeffrey Timmons and colleagues (Timmons et al. 1977). They identified 14 important entrepreneurial characteristics of successful enterprise owners (see Table 2) which still frequently crop up in entrepreneurship research.

Table 2: Behavioural charcteristics of entrepreneurs

1. drive and energy
2. self-confidence
3. high initiative and personal responsibility
4. internal locus of control
5. tolerance of ambiguity
6. low fear of failure
7. moderate risk taking
8. long-term involvement
9. money as a measure not merely an end
10. use of feedback
11. continuous pragmatic problem solving
12. use of resources
13. self-imposed standards
14. clear goal setting.

Timmons admitted that few entrepreneurs would possess all traits but felt that strengths in one might compensate for weaknesses in others. Many of these characteristics are self-explanatory (such as high personal drive and energy, self-confidence and setting clear goals) and some appear to be linked. Others may be less obvious or well-known, such as money and profits being used as a measure of success compared with others but less as an end in itself. Helping you to develop the last quality in the list, the ability to set clear goals, is the ultimate objective of this unit.

Activity 2

• How many of the entrepreneurial qualities listed in Table 2 do you feel already, in the main part, apply to you?
• Which ones do you feel a need to find out more about?
• Which ones have you already identified as needing more development?

These characteristics appear consistently in other entrepreneurial research studies. For example, more than 20 years ago in a study of Irish entrepreneurs, Cromie and Johns (1983) identified achievement, persistence and self-confidence as general successful business characteristics as well as internal locus of control and commitment to the business, as the characteristics peculiar to entrepreneurs. Some of the qualities that people often find a bit obscure include tolerance of ambiguity (which basically refers to the ability to accept contradictory or unexpected evidence of something while keeping an open mind) and fear of failure (which can lead to pushy, goal-dominated behaviour but, in fact, is the opposite of need for achievement. The anxiety caused by the fear can sometimes be strong enough to cause the individual to deliberately bring about the failure that is feared). Low fear of failure means that the entrepreneur is prepared to risk things going wrong and can handle setbacks without being deterred. High achievement motivation is a great driving force but low fear of failure may be very useful in times of business chaos and uncertainty.

Entrepreneurial work style

The need for supportive, open and communicative policies, structures and cultures in effective entrepreneurial firms as the optimal crucible for successful innovations comes through very strongly from studies of innovation and successful entrepreneurship. However, the strong internal locus of control of successful entrepreneurs suggests there may be a difficulty in accepting the influence of others, powerful or not. And, the strong need for autonomy does not suggest a personality open to sharing of ideas or knowledge. Indeed, the popular image of a successful entrepreneur can sometimes be that of a determined autocrat who lets nothing stand in the way of success. How can these two conflicting pictures of successful entrepreneurship be reconciled? The answer is that, just as there is no one ‘entrepreneurial personality’ and people have different styles of learning, so too are there different management and leadership styles that vary between particular entrepreneurs, in their particular firms facing their own particular set of circumstances.


In looking ahead to the launch of a successful entrepreneurial idea, we have already highlighted the importance of social process in innovation so it is important to avoid getting too fixated only on the role and capabilities of the entrepreneur. It is the overall capacityof firms, real and perceived, rather than just the individual abilities of their owners, managers or employees that determine the scope of their activities. Perceptions of their own and their staff's capabilities plus their perceptions of competitors’ capabilities has an important part to play in determining small firm owners’ expectations of success. However, there are also likely to be cultural factors of a more general nature which influence perceptions of desired abilities, resources and skills. Entrepreneurs may well be able to identify crucial skills and tasks more accurately than other small business managers. Entrepreneurs can also be defined in terms of their ability to perceive and to respond to these changes more quickly than other business managers. With reasonable feedback, it is relatively straightforward to discuss opportunities and to identify the gaps between reality and perception. However, customer and consumer needs are often ill defined, hidden from view and difficult to quantify Certainly, the perception of many lower level needs (either the needs of entrepreneurs or of customers) are even more strongly determined socially through broad cultural or more immediate occupational influences.

It seems reasonable to hold that effective business judgement reflects the correspondence of an individual's perceived capacities, opportunities and threats to their objective possibilities and the individual's ability competence) to act upon that information. It is not too difficult to then interpret the list of common entrepreneurial behavioural characteristics in Table 2, in terms of business competence. The successful entrepreneurial firm needs the right balance of competences in the team as a whole rather than seeking them in a single individual. Modern management theory is certainly moving in this direction and away from older hierarchical, scientific management or management-by-objectives models. In reality, your leadership and management styles will be determined by what you feel most comfortable with and what you feel is the norm in the circumstances (but remember that the people you are dealing with also have their feelings about what is a ‘normal’ management or communications style for the circumstances). By now we shall assume that you have worked out many of these issues to your own satisfaction but, if you need more help, the following activity on teamwork issues may help you consider them more systematically.

Key points

The important points this unit has covered include:

• Defining the entrepreneur in terms of economic function and role.
• Identifying the key characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial firms.
• Considering the role of entrepreneurial motivation in decision making and business behaviour.
• Identifying leadership and management styles appropriate to an entrepreneurial firm
• Considering the entrepreneurial team needed to support your idea.

Now Read

1. Entrepreneurship innovation, (video and transcript), by Diane Amanti, MIT.
2. Definitions, Chapter 1 of Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship: Technology, Business and People

Forum Discussion Questions

1. Characteristics of successful innovation:  Report the answers you gave in Activity 1 on the cand discuss with other students: Referring to the characteristics of successful innovation, complete the Characteristics of the entrepreneurial firm checklist.

Consider the ideal firm for bringing your idea to market (or if your ideas have not yet crystallised, an enterprising group or firm of at least two other people you know). Make a note about the purpose of the firm or team before you answer the questions.
Try to answer the following questions (pausing for reflection if you need to.) If the answer is ‘Yes’ write a brief example. If the answer is ‘No’, write the main reason.

Entrepreneurial qualities: Report the answers you gave in Activity 2 on entrepreneurial qualities and discuss with the other students:

• How many of the entrepreneurial qualities listed in Table 2 do you feel already, in the main part, apply to you?
• Which ones do you feel a need to find out more about?
• Which ones have you already identified as needing more development?

Acknowledgements

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. It is a derivative of "Entrepreneurial behaviour", The Open University (2013).

Open, Mobile Online Education

I will be speaking on "Open, Mobile Online Education", at the Sydney Linux User Group (SLUG) meeting, at Google Sydney,  7pm, 31 July 2015:

"Tom will give impressions of his travels in July to Hong Kong and Cambridge University. He is attending the Second International Conference on Open and Flexible Education (ICOFE 2015) at Hong Kong Open University and a speaking at the 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education at Cambridge University."

Open as in Education

The word "open" is used in several different contexts in education.  An Open University, is open in the sense of allowing entry to education to a wider range of people than usual for higher education. This can be by having lower fees, by allowing those without formal prerequisites, awarding course credit for prior experience, having classes outside business hours and having distance education.

Open Access is used to describe educational materials which are available free, or at low cost, for use, reuse, modification, directly by students, or by teachers. This is usually with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence (CC BY-SA 3.0).

More Talk Than Action on Mobile and Open Education

My impression from attending a conference on mobile education is that while academics talk about it, there does not appear to be much done in practice. Also there sill does not appear to be a sustainable way to support open education: this is something done as an initiative, sometimes with a one off grant, but which then ends when the money runs out. At the same time universities continue with conventional courses which have on-line components added in an ad-hoc way. Meanwhile the universities nervously look over their shoulders to see if MOOCs from large US universities are going to take away their students. The reality is that MOOCs are mostly used as a form of university extension program, providing introductory courses to promote the real university programs which are not massive, open, on-line or low cost.

Dominance of Moodle for University E-learning

Institutions ranging from Hong Kong Open University to Cambridge University (UK) use Moodle for their Learning Management System. Australia could make more use of this to sell add-on products and services.

Hong Kong

ICOFE 2015

Second International Conference on Open and Flexible Education (ICOFE 2015) at Hong Kong Open University. HKOU uses Moodle.

Went from Guangzhou to Hong Kong by Train. Just about everyone on the train had a large screen smart phone and a second battery to keep it running on the journey. Seats with mains power are at a premium and USB charing sockets sought after at airports.

Open University of Hong Kong (OUUK) consists of two multistory buildings in Kowloon. There is no "campus" as such. The meeting room where the conference was held doubles as a basketball court (the hoops swing down from the very high ceiling).

Professor Rory McGreal, Centre for Distance Education Athabasca University, on "Why OER are essential in mobile and ubiquitous learning". Dr K S Yuen, the Director of Educational Technology and Publishing at OUKH on "Implementing effective e-Learning in Hong Kong schools through the adoption of Open Textbooks".

Cambridge

ICCSE 2015

10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education at Cambridge University:

1. Quickly developing online versions of learning materials for graduate students, Tom Worthington's talk for the Office of Scholarly Communication, University of Cambridge (UK). Also presented at ICCSE 2015. Notes by Danny Kingsley
2. Time-shifted Learning: Merging Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques for E-Learning, Tom Worthington, for ICCSE 2015,
3. Denix Dai, Ataturk University is demonstrating a database of computer engineering education in Turkey.  
4. Ben M. Chen, National University of Singapore on "Unmanned Systems Research and Education".
5. Professor Clarence W. de Silva, British Columbia University, on "Sensing Issues in the Automated Monitoring of the Quality of Drinking Water"

Talk for Cambridge University Librarians

Cambridge University uses Moodle. Discussed "Quickly developing online versions of learning materials for graduate students" for library staff at Cambridge University (also Notes by Dr Danny Kingsley, Head of the University of Cambridge Office of Scholarly Communication).

Visit to Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning

Talked to  Joanna Mills, Deputy Director,  Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge about emulating the The Cambridge Phenomenon (Silicon Fen) in Canberra.

ps: It is worth attending a free SLUG meeting, to get to see the Google offices.

OER for Mobile Ubiquitous Learning

Greetings from the Second International Conference on Open and Flexible Education (ICOFE 2015), at the Open University of Hong Kong, where Professor Rory McGreal, Centre for Distance Education Athabasca University, is speaking on "Why OER are essential in mobile and ubiquitous learning". He argues that open is essential to mobile education, not optional and mobile is essential to education, due to the rapid adoption: "Educators need to get with it".

Professor McGreal argues we should design educational materials first for mobile devices, not for print on paper, as "That is the way the world is". He pointed out that until the invention of the printing press books were scarce and this was the reason for classes and "lecturers" (readers).


Professor McGreal suggested that MOOCs were of benefit, even where there is a much higher non-completion rate than conventional courses, because many more students can complete. I don't agree with this: even if the MOOC costs little or nothing, being a student is a very time consuming activity. Students who invest their time in study need to complete to get the maximum benefit. Obviously students will learn something even if they do not complete a course, but for maximum personal and economic benefit, need courses which most students can complete.

One point I did agree with is that Professor McGreal noted that universities are already on-line, to a larger extent than many other modern organizations. I get asked regularly about when lectures will be replaced with on-line education, but the reality in Australian universities is that it already has. Typically only a minority of students turn up to lectures.

Designing an Innovation Course: Part 1 - Needs Assessment and Proposal Development

My students in the Australian Computer Society's "New Technology Alignment" (NTA) on-line postgraduate course are now up to week 3 (and doing well). At the same time I have been looking at designing a more general course, provisionally called "Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology", to be offered on-line, initially for students in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Canberra. I am doing the design as as assessment for a course Instructional Design. This series of postings are excerpts of some of that material (which is therefore a little more verbose and academic than otherwise required for a workplace design exercise). Previously I looked at existing Canberra courses in "Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology Course Proposal".

Steps in Instructional Design

First a needs assessment will be carried out, followed by a proposal for what is to be developed. These first two phases will be followed by creation of one of the learning objects for the course.
An "Innovation ACT" competition was established at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra in 2008 (Blackhall, n.d.). The competition, now supported by the University of Canberra and the local Canberra government (the “ACT Government”), has the aim of providing):

• “Entrepreneurial education via seminar sessions ran parallel to a university semester
  
• Entrepreneurial experiences within a competition environment that allows students to test their ideas.” From Innovation ACT (2014a), emphasis added.
  

The Innovation ACT competition provides students with handbooks and templates, students attend presentations, prepare their proposals with the help of a mentor and then pitch their ideas to a panel of judges (InnovationACT, 2014b). Prasad (2014) discusses the history and educational role of such enterprise competitions and categorizes it as an “action learning” pedagogy.
While popular with students and having an educational role, the Innovation ACT competition is not part of a formal educational program and so is not evaluated as to its educational effectiveness and students do not receive credit for participation towards their studies. This document discusses how to design an on-line course which students could take in conjunction with Innovation ACT and similar competitions, as part of a university degree program. The course would be designed to fit with postgraduate certificate and degree programs in the computing discipline, as that is to author's discipline area.
Kakouris (2009, p. 231) argues for an ADDIE model (Anallise, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate) is suitable for providing on-line entrepreneurial education, emphasizing guidance, communication and peer support. They argue that the DE teaching material can be used to implement Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction: Gain Attention, Inform Learners of Objectives, Stimulate Recall of Prior Learning, Present the Content, Provide Learning Guidance, Elicit Performance (Practice), Provide Feedback, Assess Performance, Enhance Retention and Transfer to job” (Gagné (1965) cited in Kakouris (2009, p. 233)).

1. Is a Human Tutor Needed?

Kakouris (2009, p. 233) assert that the DE system can act as a “virtual educator” without a human tutor. More recently replacing the tutor with an automated system has been attempted with a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on entrepreneurship. Al-Atabi and DeBoer (2014) report on an entrepreneurship MOOC conducted with 1600 online student in 115 countries, plus 60 on-campus students. The online students formed teams and under took group projects. In addition to videos, the students received points from peers and badges to provide them with feedback on progress. Al-Atabi and DeBoer (2014) noted that the completion rate for online students was 25%, which is higher than a typical MOOC, but was far lower than the 90% completion rate for the students undertaking the same course on-campus.
Neck, Greene and Brush (2014) point out the role for the instructor to “facilitate engagement in creative processes” for higher level skills. As the course under development here is intended to be part of a conventional university degree program, a completion rate of 25% is unacceptably low. It is therefore proposed to take a middle path, having on-line materials, but facilitated by a human tutor, to achieve a completion rate comparable to face-to-face courses.

Part 1: Needs Assessment

2. Needs assessment approach

Smith and Ragan, (2005, pp. 43) suggest that an ID needs assessment should first establish if there is a need at all. They outline a cycle of needs assessment, design, production, implementation and evaluation (Smith and Ragan, 2005, pp. 44), while advocating the evaluation plans actually be constructed during the needs assessment phase. This may be unrealistic where the need for a course has not yet been established and so work on evaluation would be wasted if the course is never run.
Smith and Ragan, (2005, pp. 44) divided needs assessments into three model types:

1. Problem Model: As Smith and Ragan note, it is necessary to determine if there really is a “problem” and if a cause it the best way to solve it. In the case of an unsolicited new course on innovation, the problem model is not as applicable, as there is no current group of employees to canvas. As the aim is to have students go out and create new companies, there are also not employers to consult. The Innovation ACT competition is part funded by the local government, which has in an economic development strategy to foster new industries, a “culture of entrepreneurship” and encourage startup firms to provide employment (ACT Government 2013). The ACT Government might therefore be consulted about the problem of educating innovators.
   

2. Innovation Model: This approach looks for changes in the students, the education system or the environment. The innovation model would seem apt for a course in innovation: students are less likely to want to simply get a job in a corporation and instead want to set up their own company. The approach of involving students in an innovation competition working on a real world project is not new in the Australian education system (along with e-learning and e-portfolio systems which make it easier to offer such education), but not widely used. However, the reduction in the available of jobs for life has required graduates to be more entrepreneurial, being able to take on new roles and even invent a job for themselves. Thompson and Kwong (2013) found that “enterprise education”, designed to develop entrepreneurial skills, in UK schools had a “direct positive relationship with entrepreneurial activities and intentions”. This indicates that students will respond positively to such education and an introductory course on innovation with lead to the student doing more such work.
   
3. Discrepancy Model: The discrepancy model, as described by Smith and Ragan, (2005, pp. 45) , does not start with a new need, but as a check to see if an existing course is meeting the already established requirements. This applies to an innovation course, as some such courses already exist, along with externally set skills requirements. The analysis to be carried out therefore incorporates some elements of the discrepancy model, at least to say what is wrong with existing courses and so why a new course is required. With this the requirements will be listed and how well these are met with courses, to determine the gap.
   

3. Scope and extent of the need

a. Who to query. As there is a question over the popularity of the existing course, the first group to survey are potential students. It would be simpler to have access to students currently enrolled in a program of study (as they are easy to access). But it may be worthwhile contacting those who have not been attracted to programs, perhaps via a professional body, such as the Australian Computer Society and Engineers Australia. These bodies could also asked as to the need. Innovation organizations, such as the various “co-working” offices and “hacker” competition providers may be of use. In addition experts in the field can be consulted, as Dr. Lachlan Blackhall, founder of Innovation ACT (Blackhall, n.d.), who has worked on engaging students with real world problems (Smith, Brown, Blackhall, Loden & O’Shea, 2010).
 
b. How to Query. An on-line survey instrument could be used to collect information from potential students. This could use multiple choice and rating questions. Interviews could be used with organizational representatives. However, they are unlikely to agree to a formal social science style of interview and a more informal approach may need to be used.
 
c. Type of questions. Reimers-Hild and King, (2009) proposed six questions for entrepreneurial leadership and innovation in the context of distance education. These could be applied more generally for questioning potential students and employers about innovation courses:

1. “How entrepreneurial is your organization?  On a scale of 1-5, would you classify your organization as a 1 (not at all entrepreneurial) or a 5 (extremely entrepreneurial)?

2. How are administrators, instructors and learners in your organization learning to be more entrepreneurial? 

3. Developing a global mindset throughout an organization characterized by risk taking, innovation and change should be encouraged, not discouraged. …

4. Is innovation a priority?  On a scale of 1-5, would you classify your organization as a 1 (not at all innovative) or a 5 (extremely innovative)?...

5. In what ways can your leaders share the vision ... Can they use both face-to-face and online methods?  Can they use both individual and large group settings?...

6. How can you institutions connect employees and learners with their passions and their personal vision of the future?...

7. What is your organization doing to develop and leverage the human and social capital of its administrators, instructors and students?  …”

From Reimers-Hild and King , 2009 (emphasis added) .

d. Other data sources. While the sources discussed above may be of some use, the primary source of information will be preexisting skills definitions and syllabuses. In particular Australian computer science degrees are accredited by the Australian Computer Society (ACS, 2014). The Society promotes the use of an internationally standardized skills framework and courses are required to be “aligned” with the framework (IP3, 2015). It would therefore be appropriate to based the course on the most appropriate skills definitions in that framework. McEwan (2013) discusses the use of SFIA skills definitions (SFIA Foundation Ltd, 2015) for university courses and note it is particularly useful for fast developing new job categories (SFIA is also part of the ACS/IP3 framework). McEwan proposed the use of SFIA level 5/6 for Masters-level courses and 4/5 for Honors-level. They also found that one SFIA skill was insufficient for a typical university course and used two. In this case McEwan (2013) aligned a course with skills “Emerging Technology Monitoring” (EMRG) and “Innovation” (INOV).

Alongside the university system, Australia has a system of Vocational Education and Training (VET), which as Mazzarol (2014) points out, has been active in offering courses in entrepreneurship for small business. Some universities have associated VET Registered Training Organizations (RTOs) to deliver such courses, at a lower qualification level than their degree programs.
The VET system has a national database of standardized skills sets, make up of units of competency (Australian Department of Industry, 2013) and a database of preprepared learning objects (National VET E-learning Strategy, 2013). A search of the training database for “innovation” found a “Managing Innovation Skill Set” BSBSS00014, “Innovation Leadership Skill Set” (BSBSS00008) with units of competency “Establish systems that support innovation” (BSBINN501A), “Foster leadership and innovation” (PSPGOV604A). However, of the ten courses listed in the training database with the word “entrepreneurship” in the title, only two are currently offered, a Graduate Certificate and a Diploma of “Entrepreneurship for Food and Wine”. This indicates that perhaps the demand for such courses at the VET level is not a strong as Mazzarol (2014) suggests. A search of the database of learning objects found three relevant entries: “Communicate information and ideas”, “Plan for change” and “Manage emerging challenges and opportunities”. These may be of some limited value in the innovation course for low level skills, as may the units of competency.
The intention is that students can optionally undertake an innovation competition, in particular “Innovation ACT” alongside the course. Therefore the content of “Innovation ACT” will provide more detail as to the need.

4. Need and Causes

The Australian Computer Society already offers an on-line innovation course: "New Technology Alignment" NTA, (ACS, 2013). However, NTA is intended for employees of corporations to identify innovations within the organization. The need is to address the aspirations of students to set up their own enterprises working on their own products, rather than working for a corporation. This is in part by an innate wish to innovate and partly due to the difficulty in finding worthwhile (or any) employment in a corporation. Segal Quince & Partners (1985) argue that the growth of start-up high technology businesses around Cambridge from the 1980s was in part due to students who wanted to maintain the Cambridge lifestyle and, with the lack of alternative employment, were forced to setup their own business. The ACT Government (responsible for Canberra), is implementing a similar strategy by funding Innovation ACT, to encourage students to stay in Canberra and set up a business, rather than move away after graduation. The proposed course would teach the students skills needed to set up a business in Canberra.
What is Available: The University of Canberra (UoC) and ANU both offer innovation courses in Canberra. UoC have courses as part of the Bachelor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (University of Canberra, 2012b). A typical unit is “Managing Change and Innovation” (University of Canberra, 2012a), offered in blended mode (on-line content with on campus attendance of up to thirty nine hours). ANU has "innovation" courses in business and engineering programs: “Entrepreneurship and Innovation” MGMT3027 (ANU.n.d. b), “Innovation and Commercialisation” MGMT7165 (ANU.n.d. c), “Engineering Innovation” ENGN3230 (ANU.n.d. a), “Technology and Innovation Management and Strategy” MGMT7106 (ANU.n.d. d). However, these are courses have largely the format of a conventional lecture and examination based university program, are not integrated with an innovation competition and not aligned with external skills standards.
What is desired: A course which is delivered on-line, can be used alongside an innovation competition to provide the student with more hands on-experience and aligned with external skills standards to provide an industry relevant and preferably global qualification.
Cause of the Needs Gap: The Canberra university courses are designed to fit within conventional classroom teaching techniques and program structures. The student is assumed to undertake their academic study at the university, receive a university qualification and then move to employment, most likely at a corporation or institutional setting.

5. Potential solutions

One solution to the problem of including innovation in a university technology program is the “New Venture Design” course for engineering and business students at UBC (Kruchten, Lawrence, Dahl & Cubbon, 2011). Since 2003 UBC's final year engineering and business students have had the option to work in mixed teams on an entrepreneurial venture. Teams of six UBC students produce a prototype and business plan. The students are provided with conventional lectures and lab work activities. Teams can optionally enter external innovation completions in Vancouver, or elsewhere. This approach solves the problem of providing students with academic credit for innovation competition, but duplicates the activities of the competition, increasing resource requirements and student effort. Also the use of conventional lectures and labs limits the course to on-campus students.
a. Instructional solutions: On-line course materials and forums for students to help form their teams can be provided. Quizzes and large assessment items, which follow the sequence and content of Innovation ACT (and similar competitions) can be provided. One issue concerns scheduling. Ideally students would be able to commence the course at any time, to suit the competition they were intending to enter. However, as such competitions depend on the students forming a team and this could be difficult to schedule within the course. An alternative strategy would be for the students to undertake the course self paced, with or without, their team. Another alternative is to have the course in a set program term and not closely align it with the competition. This would cause difficulties where the student submits competition materials as part of their assessment, but the competition and assessment deadlines do not align.
 
b. Non-instructional solutions: An alternative to a full course would be to rely on the competition materials and process to provide the entire learning experience and have the student submit evidence for assessment, as a form of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). This would require the student and/or the assessor to check the competition covered the syllabus (and used the same terminology) and the materials produced were suitable for assessment. Also there would be the difficulty that innovation competitions are almost always entered by teams of competitors, and are assessed exclusively on the team product. It is therefore not possible to know what contribution an individual team member made. This might be overcome by having the student keep a diary with their contributions during the competition (submitted via an e-portfolio system) and with some form of test (such as on-line quiz).

Part 2: Proposal Development

6. Components of the course

Course description: "Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology" is a new course to for students to develop the capability to identify and develop new technology based business ideas. Students will learn to identity strategic uses for information technology, applying systematic investigation, analysis, review and documentation to take an idea through the stages of development and proposal. Students are encouraged to take part in Innovation ACT, or a similar innovation competition, and submit their competition materials for assessment.
 
Learning Outcomes
After successful completion of this subject students will be able to :

1. Investigate a strategic application of IT.

Propose new ways of conducting business using IT.

Skills Alignment:

1. SFIA Version 5, Level 6: Business analysis BUAN, (SFIA Foundation Ltd, 2015)
   
2. SFIA Version 5, Level 6: Innovation INOV, (SFIA Foundation Ltd, 2015)

Course components: The major topics (based on Innovation ACT, 2014) are:

1. Business Model Thinking
   
2. Stakeholder Engagement
   
3. Concept Generation
   
4. Value Capture
   

Activities are:

1. Contributions to on-line forums/exercises for ten weeks (assessed at 2% per week for 12 weeks, with the best 10 counted),

Mid semester assignment: “Investigation of a strategic application of IT”. Individual work of 2,000 words, plus references 40%

End of course deliverables: A business proposal. Students are encouraged to undertake the work as part of Innovation ACT, or another innovation competition. However, the activity must take during the semester. May be performed in a group of up to six with all receiving the same mark. Up to 2,000 words, plus references, 40%.

The Innovation ACT Business proposal consists of:

1. Business Model Canvas: One page diagram of the business model, using the IACT Business Model Canvas template, or similar (about 5% to 6%).

Executive Summary: One page text summary of the business model (300 words, about 5% to 6%).

Canvas Report: Five to eight page report on development of plan (this is equivalent to 1,500 to 2,400 words of assessment, about 30% to 50% of the assessment)

Continuation report: Detailed plan outlining funding requirements and proposed expenditure (Assuming 5 pages, that is 25% to 30% of the assessment).

Pitch: Notes and visual materials for a five minute presentation. A video of the presentation can also be provided, but for academic purposes, the assessment will be based on the notes for the presentation, not the presentation itself (assessment 5% to 10%).

7. The learner population

The learner population for this course would have a degree in computer science, information technology, software engineering or other technology discipline. The students would typically be enrolled in a postgraduate certificate or degree program (usually a Masters by coursework) at an Australian higher education institution. Students would be in a city where they have access to an innovation competition (such as Innovation ACT in Canberra). Students would be expected to have experience at using a computer and the Internet to be able to undertake an on-line program. They would require sufficient communication skills in the language of instruction (English) and to work in teams. As Blair and Hoy (2006) point out “... an online community doesn’t happen by sheer virtue of creating discussion forums and requiring weekly postings ...”. Also the innovation course will be a form of group Problem Based Learning (PBL), which can be subject to dysfunctional group interaction and high cogitative load (Hung, 2011). However, it is not clear if any additional skills can be asked of the students, beyond written and computer literacy.

8. How the course will be delivered

The course will be delivered as in online DE format as a 12 weekly units using non-real-time (asynchronous) delivery. Course notes will be provided an an e-book, with additional readings (and videos) and weekly exercises to complete. Forums will be provided for student interaction with each other in groups and with an instructor, via a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Moodle. An e-portfolio system (such as Mahara) will be provided for students to collate their project material. No real-time (synchronous) activities will be provided, due to the difficulty of supporting these and of students in different time zones participating.
Students will be expected to undertake team activities, and optional participation in an innovation competition, without further support from the course (organizing their own meetings and any telecommunications required). Materials and exercises will be designed in accessible web formats suitable for mobile devices. Suwantarathip and Orawiwatnakul (2015) report success delivering small exercises to students using mobile devices.
Feedback for low level tasks will be provided by small automated weekly quizzes, to assist students with terminology. Van der Kleij, Feskens and Eggen (2015) note the importance of feedback in a computer based course. Students will also receive weekly feedback and a mark from the instructor, but this will be of necessity a brief few sentences. The mark will be based on an average of peer assessment collected by the LMS and then vetted by the instructor.

9. Example Content

What is Innovation?: Unit 1 (What is Innovation?) provides some terminology and concepts, before the students start to think about what project they would like to work on. The primary reading is Moore (2012). Students are also introduced to the on-line discussion forums at this point and do an icebreaker exercise to become antiquated so they can then form teams in the next unit to work on a project. This fits in the course's aim of bridging theory and practice, individual student study and group project work.

Conclusion

This document provides the first two steps in instructional design (ID) for a new course "Innovation, Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship in Technology" to be offered on-line, initially for students in Canberra, Australia. The aim is to provide a formal masters level course to complement competitions, such as "Innovation ACT", catering for students who have ambitions of becoming entrepreneurs. A needs assessment, after Smith and Ragan, (2005, pp. 44) was provided and the limitations of existing courses discussed. An on-line course is discussed (noting the limitations in the fixed term based course format). A brief description of one unit is provided. This will be fowled in a separate document with creation of one learning objects for the course.

References

ACS. (2013). New Technology Alignment. Retrieved from https://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/8889/Subject-outline_New-Technology-Alignment.pdf
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