DATA3740 IT-Innovation and entrepreneurship project Course description

The entrepreneurship project: The student will carry out an IT project in collaboration with a relevant start-up company, individually or in groups of maximum five students. Completion of the course requires a placement in an IT start-up company corresponding to two days a week over a 12-week period. If the project is carried out during the summer, the work must correspond to four days a week over a six-week period.

OsloMet will help individual or groups of students to get in touch with a start-up company that has a suitable project. The company must provide an approved IT entrepreneurship project and a competent supervisor. Furthermore, OsloMet will provide an internal supervisor at OsloMet. The students will develop a prototype for a product that is relevant for the start-up company, or develop and implement new functionality in the technology of the start-up company.

In addition to the projects on offer, students can find their own projects within a relevant company, public organization or nonprofit. In this case, it is the student's responsibility to find a supervisor for the project within the external organization. All student-initiated projects must be approved by the course coordinator before the start of the project. 

The course will only run if there is a sufficient number of students registered.

The course builds on computer science courses from the first year of the programme. 

No requirements over and above the admission requirements.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student:

• has become familiar with key issues relating to innovation and entrepreneurship
• understands business processes and organisational structures in a start-up company
• has acquired a basic overview of financing and support possibilities for start-up companies
• has acquired insight into innovation processes and technological development from idea to prototype
• understand the role and importance of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals in the development of new technological solutions.

Skills

The student is capable of:

• developing a product or service from the idea, design and development stages through to implementation and evaluation of a prototype
• independently completing an IT project within the framework of a start-up company and mastering basic issues that characterise entrepreneurship processes
• communicating, in written and oral form, the technical and business-related issues of relevance to the theme of the project, including the project plan, project activities and results, to an audience that may or may not be technologically proficient
• develop new solutions that explicitly address one or several of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals

General competence

The student is capable of:

• using technical principles to solve one or more problems of relevance to the business sector
• defining a problem and proposing possible innovative solutions
• evaluating the importance of organisational dynamics and work relations in start-up companies

Supervision sessions with an external and/or internal supervisor. The students will work alone or in groups of two to five students on an IT project in a start-up company.

Projects are selected/distributed at the start of the semester. 

The following coursework is compulsory and must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• The course starts with a compulsory Orientation Meeting.
• A project outline that describes how the group will organise their work on the project.
• A standard learning agreement must be entered into between the start-up company and the student(s), and this must be approved by the internal supervisor before the project can begin.
• Three meeting minutes from supervisory meetings during the project period.
• An oral mid-term presentation, individual or in groups (max 5 students), 10 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A.

The deadlines for submitting the project outline and minutes of the meetings will be presented in the teaching plan, which is made available at the beginning of the semester.

Written project report (100% of the final grade).

A written project report delivered at the of the semester, individual or in groups (max 5 students), 3000 words +/-10 %.

For group projects, all members of the group receive the same grade. Under exceptional circumstances, individual grades can be assigned at the discretion of the project supervisor(s) and Head of Studies.

The exam result can be appealed.

All aids are permitted, as long as the rules for source referencing are complied with.

Grade scale A-F.

Two internal examiners. External examiners are used regularly.