This advanced OpenLearn study unit from the Open University (OU) is for designers, engineers, technologists and anyone interested in designing and inventing. It is also for managers and consumers interested in innovation and technical change. The unit will show you how design and innovation can create a more sustainable future. It will also help you understand how innovation comes about and will encourage thinking about environmental and social challenges for the future.
The unit contains text, images and videos and aims to provide an understanding of invention, design, innovation and diffusion as ongoing processes with a range of factors affecting success at each stage. You will gain an understanding of the factors that motivate individuals and organisations to invent, and the creative process by which individuals come up with ideas for new inventions and designs, and you will gain an understanding of the obstacles that have to be overcome to bring an invention to market and the factors that influence the successful diffusion of an innovation into widespread use. A bibliography is also provided.
The unit is divided into three parts. (1) looks at the technological products in your home or at work and considers their development history and their impact on the lives of the users, then the key concepts associated with the process of invention, design, innovation and diffusion are defined. (2) considers what motivates individuals and organisations to invent in the first place and how individuals come up with ideas for new designs and inventions. (3) examines how technical, financial and organisational obstacles have to be overcome in order to bring an invention to the market. Once on the market a number of factors influence how well an innovation will sell.
The unit takes on average 55 hours to complete.
Link: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=397861&direct=1Source: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
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