UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

ENGINEERING CLINICS PROGRAM

THE CLINIC PROJECT:

An industrial sponsor, in consultation with the Director of the Clinics Program develops an idea for a mutually agreeable project. The description of the project is developed and made specific in consultation with a faculty advisor and with an undergraduate student team. The faculty advisor meets regularly with the undergraduate students to pursue the agreed upon objective. The project may involve hardware and/or software. The undergraduate students in the program receive five semester credit hours (spread over two semesters) for their work on the project. In addition, they receive a monetary award for their participation. The Director of the Clinics Program meets with industrial sponsors, organizes the student teams, assigns them faculty advisors, and provides the intellectual environment for the students to perform as if they were a team of engineers in a commercial organization.

Clinic teams normally begin working on the project during the summer prior to the academic year, but must start no later than the beginning of the fall semester. Work is normally completed by the end of the spring semester, with the submission of the final report. The faculty advisor may extend the deadline by up to three months if he/she feels that the students need additional time to complete a satisfactory effort. However, clinics must be completed by August 15 after the academic year of work. The faculty advisor is responsible for approving the final report, and gives grades to students according to their performance on the project.

THE OUTCOMES:

The major output of the clinic project is the educational experience gained by the students in functioning as if they were on their first job in an industrial environment. The students prepare a written report and make an oral presentation at the Technical Open House in front of sponsors, visitors, faculty, and interested junior students who want to participate in the program in the following year. The industrial sponsors are encouraged to contact the faculty advisor and/or the students throughout the course of the project to receive updates on their progress and to provide further guidance. Students in the clinics are not employees of the University and cannot be expected to work specific hours. However, they are expected to spend approximately 300 hours on the project during the year, and grades are assigned according to their level of performance.

DELIVERABLE ITEMS:

The faculty advisor sends a copy of the final report to the sponsor at the conclusion of the spring semester, or at the end of summer if an extension was given to the students. The sponsor agrees that the University provides no warranties, either implied or specific, regarding the contents of the progress report or any delivered items. Further, the sponsor agrees to use the sponsor’s own resources to validate, confirm or otherwise prove the results of the students’ project.

FEES:

The fee for sponsoring a clinic project in 2008-2009 is $25,000 for student teams of five students. In special cases, smaller teams may be formed for a lesser fee. The fees are used to support the clinic activities and the educational mission of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. A graduate student may be hired to assist a student team for a fee of $15,000 per year (assuming 15 hours of work per week during the academic year). The graduate assistant works as a teaching assistant, independently of other research that he/she may be performing towards a thesis.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION:

Sponsors may wish to provide confidential information during the course of a clinic. Clinic students and advisors may be asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. However, students are not employees of the University and are not obliged to sign the agreement. Therefore, the Director of the Clinics Program and the faculty advisor should be informed of the need for confidentiality agreements prior to the formation of a clinic team.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

The primary purpose of the clinics is to provide an industrially-relevant educational experience to the students. Clinics are not a mechanism to perform research, and should be kept separate from consulting and research activities. In particular, a faculty member must disclose to the Department Chair and Director, Engineering Clinics if:

1) The advisor has no financial or equity relationship with the sponsor.

2) The advisor has no employment or consultant relationship with the sponsor in the same or in a similar technical area.

3) The advisor has no current research project in the same or similar technical area.

4) Any background intellectual property of the faculty member related to the project has been disclosed prior to release to the students (and remains the intellectual property of the University of Utah).

The Department Chair and Clinic Director will determine if the conflict is manageable.