Michael E. Gorman

Types of Knowledge and Their Roles in Technology Transfer

At the dawn of a new millennium, the most valuable global commodity is knowledge, particularly new knowledge about technology that may give a culture, a company and/or a laboratory an advantage. This paper begins with examples of tacit technology transfer, including atomic weapons technology, whose development suggests that failure to preserve tacit knowledge could lead to uninvention. This discussion is followed by a taxonomy of knowledge, distinguishing between four types--information, skills, judgement and wisdom. These types are used to refine the distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge, including their role in teams.

Turning students into inventors and entrepreneurs: the continuing evolution of a course on Invention and Design

In 1994, a multi-disciplinary faculty team developed a course on Invention and Design at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. This course has been taught every year since, and has undergone significant changes in that time. In this paper, we focus on the new projects and opportunities resulting from our association with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). We also discuss the challenges we have faced in trying to maintain an interdisciplinary, team-taught project based course in an era of limited resources and often conflicting demands.