Andrew Wodehouse

Embedding an integrated learning environment and digital repository in design engineering education: lessons learned for sustainability

This paper describes how a system comprising a learning environment and digital repository is being embedded into the teaching and learning of Design Engineering at the University of Strathclyde. It then maps out the issues that have been encountered, how these have been overcome and how other departments or institutions would be affected if they were to roll out and scale up the use of such tools. These issues are categorised as technological, pedagogical and cultural, and include the adequate provision of support, creating a critical mass of resources, ensuring quality and integration with other technologies. Successful embedding and sustainability requires that senior managers reflect on these key issues at a departmental and/or institutional level before implementation.

Educating the global designer

Distributed design teams place a far heavier reliance on communication and collaboration than conventional collocated teams and as a consequence require design team members to acquire and develop an enhanced collaborative skill set. Given that distributed design teams are likely to remain as a dominant feature of product development for the foreseeable future there is a need to ensure that engineering graduates are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills. This paper describes work carried out and the University of Strathclyde and elsewhere in the development of a curriculum for distributed design.

Gaming techniques and the product development process: commonalities and cross-applications

The use of computer-based tools is now firmly embedded within the product development process, providing a wide range of uses from visualisation to analysis. However, the specialisation required to make effective use of these tools has led to the compartmentalisation of expertise in design teams, resulting in communication problems between individual members. This paper therefore considers how computer gaming techniques and strategies could be used to enhance communication and group design activities throughout the product design process.

An evaluation study of a digital library of ideas: Workflow Model and classroom use

The Department of Design Manufacturing and Engineering Management at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, has been developing a digital library to support design engineering student learning through the Digital Libraries for Global Distributed Innovative Design Education and Teamwork project (http://www.didet.ac.uk, December, 2007). Previous related studies have observed and analysed how students search for, store, structure and share design engineering information (Grierson et al. in paper presented at the Network Learning Conference, pp. 572–579, 2004; Nicol et al. in Open Learning 20(1):31–49, 2005) and these studies have identified the need for the design and development of a digital library with two system components, which best suit the design process: (i) an informal shared workspace; the ‘LauLima’ Learning Environment and (ii) a repository of more formal searchable and browsable design information; the ‘LauLima’ Digital Library (McGill et al. in Br. J. Educ. Technol. 36(4):629–642, 2005). This paper focuses on the Workflow Model developed to populate the digital library and presents findings from early use of the digital library by students and staff.

Using Digital Libraries to Enhance Distributed Design Team Performance

This paper describes the purpose and initial results of a 5-year project to develop, implement and use a testbed to improve the teaching and learning of students partaking in global team based design projects. It is expected that the project will, when complete, fundamentally change the way design engineering is taught by combining the use of digital libraries with virtual design studios. The paper describes the first stage of the project to inculcate basic digital library skills in undergraduate students. Lessons learnt in this first stage are detailed. The project team will be using these lessons to design the next stage of the project.

The impact of head movements on user involvement in mediated interaction

Communication takes place not only through speech, but also through gestures such as facial expressions, gaze, head movements, hand movements and body posture. Although developing rapidly, current communication platforms do not facilitate the types of behaviour we believe are needed to fully support non-verbal communication and make interactions more engaging and efficient. In this paper, we decided to focus our research specifically on the head rather than any other body part as it is a rich source of information for speech-related movement. Thus we aim in this study to investigate the value of incorporating head movements into the use of telepresence robots as communication platforms; by means of investigating a system that manually reproduces head movement as closely as possible. The essential quantitative results revealed no significant differences on any of the measures we used. However, the qualitative information from the experiment indicates of further research will be useful in this area. These findings suggest that an enclose body language are required for a real-time communication beside the head nodding. We examine engagement within conversational behaviours of the subject when interacting with a socially expressive system.We found real-time communication requires more than verbal communication, and head nodding.Head nodding effects depend on precise on-screen movement by synchronize the on-screen movement with the head movement.

A framework for design engineering education in a global context

Abstract This paper presents a framework for teaching design engineering in a global context using innovative technologies to enable distributed teams to work together effectively across international and cultural boundaries. The Digital Libraries for Global Distributed Innovative Design, Education, and Teamwork (DIDET) Framework represents the findings of a 5-year project conducted by the University of Strathclyde, Stanford University, and Olin College that enhanced student learning opportunities by enabling them to partake in global, team-based design engineering projects, directly experiencing different cultural contexts and accessing a variety of digital information sources via a range of innovative technology. The use of innovative technology enabled the formalization of design knowledge within international student teams as did the methods that were developed for students to store, share, and reuse information. Coaching methods were used by teaching staff to support distributed teams and evaluation work on relevant classes was carried out regularly to allow ongoing improvement of learning and teaching and show improvements in student learning. Major findings of the 5-year project include the requirement to overcome technological, pedagogical, and cultural issues for successful eLearning implementations. The DIDET Framework encapsulates all the conclusions relating to design engineering in a global context. Each of the principles for effective distributed design learning is shown along with relevant findings and suggested metrics. The findings detailed in the paper were reached through a series of interventions in design engineering education at the collaborating institutions. Evaluation was carried out on an ongoing basis and fed back into project development, both on the pedagogical and the technological approaches.

Influence of sketch types on distributed design team work

Product development is a collaborative activity more often than ever carried out by distributed design teams. It is critical to determine how sketches are used in such environments in order to improve the design process. Sketches produced by students participating in a collaborative design project of three European Universities are classified according to the intention of the designer when producing a sketch, the level of detail shown in the sketch and the phase when the sketch was produced. The adapted classification system used in this paper helps to analyse type of sketches with most variety of ideas. Furthermore, this paper reviews which type of sketches offers the most potential to be further developed. Results show that persuasive sketches offer the broadest range of ideas since they are produced as a combination of ideas from brainstorming sessions. Shared sketches help to achieve consensus in decision-making since the sketches are most likely to be produced by the entire group rather than individually.

The best form of medicine? Using humour to enhance design creativity

In addition to playing an important role in social bonds and group dynamics, humor has a long association with creativity and creative thinking. This study attempts to utilize this relationship in the context of design by enhancing brainstorming with the use of humor. The theories of Incongruity, Superiority, and Relief are central in the creation of humor. This research hypothesizes that these can be applied to enhance creative performance in brainstorming by (1) inducing a humorous atmosphere through stimuli and (2) applying jocular structure to the brainstorming process itself. A study of three brainstorming methods (classical, silent structured, and video-enhanced) was undertaken, the results analyzed using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, and possible influences of humor on levels of creativity evaluated. The results in this indicated that using a humorous stimulus did not have a positive effect, although there remains a strong case in the literature for further investigation. Structuring the brainstorming session did increase fluency and originality, and a number of insights for creative team formation and working are outlined.

An exploratory model for understanding culture in student design team idea generation

ABSTRACT This paper explores the relationship between measures within Hofstedes cultural framework and performance in concept design by setting out a methodology for evaluating the conceptual design output of student design teams from a cultural perspective. Economic globalization has meant that the management of global teams has become of strategic importance in product development. Cultural diversity is a key factor in such teams, and this work seeks to better understand the effect this can have on two key aspects of the concept design process: concept generation and concept selection. Three different measures were utilized in the analysis of a design study: aggregate cultural values, calculated individual cultural values and personality traits. The effectiveness of these is reviewed, and a methodology presented that provides a basis for more tangible consideration of how culture impacts upon active concept design teams.