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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
“That Means Nothing To Me As A Normal Person Who Doesn't Know About Patents”: Usability Testing Of Google Patents And Patent Public Search With Undergraduate Engineering Students, Graham Sherriff, Molly Rogers
“That Means Nothing To Me As A Normal Person Who Doesn't Know About Patents”: Usability Testing Of Google Patents And Patent Public Search With Undergraduate Engineering Students, Graham Sherriff, Molly Rogers
University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications
Patent searching is an important research tool for undergraduate engineering students, yet it requires special topic knowledge to conduct successfully. Patent database websites have the ability to alleviate or add to the complexity of patent searching, depending on their usability. Prompted by the launch of the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Public Search (PPS) website in early 2022, the authors investigated the usability of PPS and Google Patents. The study's objective was to gain insights into the ways in which the websites of commonly-used patent databases support undergraduate students’ patent searching activities. The study examined students’ performance of typical …
Prior Art Research In The Capstone Design Experience: A Case Study Of Redesigned Online And In-Person Instruction, Graham Sherriff, Dustin Rand
Prior Art Research In The Capstone Design Experience: A Case Study Of Redesigned Online And In-Person Instruction, Graham Sherriff, Dustin Rand
University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications
Exploration of “prior art”—the state of a technology’s development, as manifested in literature, documentation, and artifacts—has many benefits for engineering students. It expands their understanding of the design problem, reveals a range of possible solutions, and develops research skills important to professional practice. While prior art often includes patents and research literature, it can include any type of publication or document. This paper presents an innovative approach to a prior art review assignment in the capstone course for mechanical, electrical, and biomedical engineering students at the University of Vermont (UVM). The assignment and accompanying instruction were redesigned in 2018–2019 to …