Stevens Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Letters

NIST Standards Services Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program Awardee (2013)

Design for Standardization: Standards Education from the Classroom to Everyday Practice

To create an upper-level undergraduate course, “Standards and Society”, that will be offered through Stevens’ Program in Science and Technology Studies, and to develop content modules to be incorporated into the Institute’s “Design Spine” in the Schafer School of Engineering and Science.  The Design Spine is a sequence of eight courses for engineering majors, through which students develop a set of competencies in creative thinking, problem solving, teamwork, economics of engineering, project management, communication skills, ethics, environmental awareness, and system thinking and is a unique and innovative way to motivate students to think more seriously about standards in their technical work at Stevens and throughout their careers. 

• Final Report, March 18, 2016
• Course Syllabus
• Presentation: Standards, the Humanities, and Design: Strategies for Student Engagement 

A paper was published about this award in the SES Journal and is available here: Standardization, the Humanities, and Design: Strategies for Student Engagement, Andrew L. Russell and Lee Jared Vinsel, Stevens Institute of Technology (May/Jun 2015). 

Additional related resources: 

• NYT OpEd: The Joy of Standards, Andrew L. Russell and Lee Jared Vinsel, February 16, 2019
• Video: Standards and the Internet: Exploring Open Standards, Part 1, Andrew Russell, December 5, 2016 From a 6-part video series that explores key themes from the book Open Standards & the Digital Age by Andrew L. Russell, this video focuses on the role that standards have played in shaping the Internet, and the role that these standards continue to play today.
• Article: Lessons and Cautionary Tales from the History of Standardization By Andrew L. Russell, IEEE Standards Education e-Magazine (Volume 4, No. 2, December 2014). 
• Book: The Innovation Delusion: How Our Obsession with the New Has Disrupted the Work that Matters Most, Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell, September 8, 2020
• Website: The Maintainers The Maintainers is a global research network interested in the concepts of maintenance, infrastructure, repair, and the myriad forms of labor and expertise that sustain our human-built world. Members come from a variety of backgrounds, including engineers, business leaders, academic historians, social scientists, government, non-profit agencies, artists, activists, coders, and more.

The contacts for this award are Andrew Russell, arussell [at] arussell.org (arussell[at]arussell[dot]org) and Lee Vinsel, lee.vinsel [at] gmail.com (lee[dot]vinsel[at]gmail[dot]com). 

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This work (not including the additional related resources) was performed under the sponsorship of the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institute of Standards and Technology or the U.S. Department of Commerce.