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Embedding Enterprise in Computing at the University of Cumbria

Objective:

Students are required to be professional, reliable (work is undertaken as a full day, every week across 2 semesters and all group members are expected to treat it like employment), engage with clients and resolve issues (technical and managerially).

Introduction:

Students of computing and IT, at the University of Cumbria run group projects that require continual involvement between students and clients to develop solutions to specific business problems.

Activity:

Charles Dobson, Senior Lecturer in Computing, University of Cumbria;

“The projects begin the academic year (week 1, semester 1) with presentations of the problem from the clients, followed by pitching by the student groups to work on particular projects.

“Once projects are matched (clients to groups) then the projects are scoped with the client and then work is planned to enable the requirements to be met.

“The groups report progress at several stages via formal presentations to the client (and other groups) with a final presentation of the hopefully complete system towards the end of semester 2.

“Through these projects, students are exposed to many enterprising opportunities, some clients go on to recruit graduates from their group (or even from other groups they have observed in the process), some projects come back for further work and some ideas could be taken forward as businesses in their own right (yet to happen but not short on opportunities).

Impact:

“The scheme has proven to be very effective and we are rolling out across the wider business school, encouraging cross-discipline teams to be formed to tackle larger, more complex business issues.”

Learner outcome:

The examples of curriculum development for enterprise related outcomes were originally outlined by Neil Coles at the International Enterprise Educators Conference under the heading 'From Archaeology to Zoology; an A-Z of enterprise in the curriculum'. For his work in contextualising enterprise for any subject, Neil won the 2013 National Enterprise Educator Award.

Resources:

  • Further case examples of students engaging with clients on real-world projects include ‘Psychology – Venture Matrix’, ‘Welsh – Professional Translation’, ‘Art and Design – HOME: The Charity Shop Project’ and more.

References:

Author / Attribution

This guide was produced by Charles Dobson (with thanks to Neil Coles) (Senior Lecturer in Computing, University of Cumbria). If you would like to contact the author, please use this email address:- charles.dobson@cumbria.ac.uk.