Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
Company NDA
In some cases, stakeholders from outside the university, companies, experts or scientific staff involved in the project will request you to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). The agreement is intended to protect their intellectual property.
It is important to remember that ultimately it is your own choice to sign the document. In any case you need to discuss the content of the agreement with the Internship Coordinator or with the Managing Director of the Department of Industrial Design before you sign the agreement. The agreement should not interfere with the policies from the Department or TU/e. Be sure to only sign if you agree to its terms and conditions. As a student it is also your responsibility to keep your project coach and teacher coach (or other teaching staff involved in the project, e.g. squad leader), the Coordinator of the Bachelor program and the Internship Coordinator informed about your NDA. Also inform your examiners, as soon as the examiner allocation is communicated to you. This to make sure that all people involved are aware of the terms and the Coordinators can prepare Canvas for your NDA deliverables.
Assessment
- Examiner panel: In case the NDA interferes with work of either one of the examiners, a new examiner panel can be requested (by the project coach) to CSA-ID. It is your responsibility as a student to inform your examiners about your NDA as soon as the examiner allocation is communicated, preferably in the first quarter of your (one semester) project. This to prevent conflicts of interests in the examiner panel and the possibility and time to shift in examiners.
- Deliverables:
- In case the project has an NDA, you should deliver your report/work to Canvas in a special NDA assignment/environment (this is mentioned in the title of the assignment). It is your responsibility to inform the Bachelor Coordinator as soon as possible, preferably around week 5 of your project, to make sure the assignment can be prepared on Canvas. It is your own responsibility to deliver your work to the correct assignment. OURIGINAL is not activated and therefore will not publish your work in the cloud for future reference. In this case your report will only be archived but not published. In case of an embargo your work will not be published for a specified number of years. Please also indicate that the project is under NDA (or embargo) in the Delivery Form.
- In case the project has an NDA, you should deliver your report/work to Canvas in a special NDA assignment/environment (this is mentioned in the title of the assignment). It is your responsibility to inform the Bachelor Coordinator as soon as possible, preferably around week 5 of your project, to make sure the assignment can be prepared on Canvas. It is your own responsibility to deliver your work to the correct assignment. OURIGINAL is not activated and therefore will not publish your work in the cloud for future reference. In this case your report will only be archived but not published. In case of an embargo your work will not be published for a specified number of years. Please also indicate that the project is under NDA (or embargo) in the Delivery Form.
- Demo Day: Students with NDA can present their demonstrator in a closed room to their examiners. As a department we can facilitate with booking a room; you can contact the Educational Secretariat for this. The ‘demonstration’ may also be at another location (location of the company) or at another moment (before the demo day, on the Wednesday or Thursday), but this can only be arranged with agreement of the examiners.
Student NDA
If you want to protect your ideas when presenting your work to a stakeholder from outside the university, you can also use a non-disclosure agreement. If you are not sure if this applies to you, you can contact the Internship Coordinator or Managing Director of the Department of Industrial Design.