Work that students do for SWK373 Social Innovation and Design can serve as a starting point for SCO399 Design-X. SWK373 empowers students with the framework of the Stanford d.School’s 5 stages of design thinking, and puts them through the stages in coming up with a prototype of a social innovation. In addition, students have to consider and write about aspects of ethical and impact evaluation of their prototype. The groundwork that students cover in SWK373 can be fruitfully built upon in the additional time, resources and supervision that SCO399 affords. Furthermore, the flexible time arrangements of SCO399 allows the course to fit into internship schedules.
The first expectation for SCO399 includes a pre-course project proposal that is refined into the project proposal. The GBA and ECA for SWK373 are ideal as a starting point for the pre-course project proposal as they provide a comprehensive overview on the motivation, design process, ethical considerations and projected impact analysis of the social innovation prototype. The second expectation is that of co-producing with the supervisor(s) a set of milestones to meet en route to the deliverables. The third expectation is timely completion of the course deliverables: a 3,500-word report, a poster for presenting, and a 10-minute oral presentation followed by Q-and-A. In the context of an extended project from SWK373, optionally, the final product should be a workable social innovation ready for field testing.