Gavin Melles

Product design engineering – a global education trend in multidisciplinary training for creative product design

Product design is the convergence point for engineering and design thinking and practices. Until recently, product design has been taught either as a component of mechanical engineering or as a subject within design schools but increasingly there is global recognition of the need for greater synergies between industrial design and engineering training. Product design engineering (PDE) is a new interdisciplinary programme combining the strengths of the industrial design and engineering. This paper examines the emergence of PDE in an environment of critique of conventional engineering education and exemplifies the current spread of programmes endorsing a hybrid programme of design and engineering skills. The paper exemplifies PDE with the analysis of the programme offered at Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), showing how the teaching of ‘designerly’ thinking to engineers produces a new graduate particularly suited to the current and future environment of produce design practice. The paper concludes with reflections on the significance of this innovative curriculum model for the field of product design and for engineering design in general.

Socially responsible design: thinking beyond the triple bottom line to socially responsive and sustainable product design

As the focus of product design has shifted from exclusively commercial to sustainability and social concerns, design education in this area has endeavoured to keep pace. Victor Papaneks book Design for the real world, crystallised many of the systemic social, economic and environmental concerns into an argument for change through eco-design, inclusive design and, in business and corporate contexts, a triple bottom line of social, environmental and economic factors. Simultaneously, design has developed and evolved participatory and co-design approaches, with high-profile consultancies such as IDEO proving that early involvement of designers with ‘wicked’ social and environmental problems is possible. This position paper revisits Papaneks agenda for industrial design, and examines the link with participatory approaches, and existing socially responsible design agendas and examples. Identifying eight critical features of socially sustainable product design, this paper suggests that Papaneks original agenda for socially responsible and sustainable design has been partly fulfilled and must be developed further through the changed role of the designer as facilitator of flexible design solutions that meet local needs and resources.

Credit-Based Discipline Specific English for Academic Purposes Programmes in Higher Education Revitalizing the profession

In the UK, North America and Australia, credit-bearing discipline specific English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are seen as a challenge to remedial views of English as a Second Language and a key element in revitalizing a profession on the periphery of the institution. However, the EAP field has to confront not only institutional challenges to its acceptability as a discipline but also tensions within the field. In this article we examine the tensions which underpin current and future directions in the field, review the development of credit-based EAP courses in the US, UK and Australia, and illustrate our discussion with a case study from the University of Melbourne. We conclude by arguing that discipline specific credit-based EAP offers promising hope for the future of the EAP discipline in higher education, but that to achieve this end the field and practitioners need to find a position between critique of and accommodation to discipline specific content.

New Pragmatism and the Vocabulary and Metaphors of Scholarly Design Research

The pragmatism of Dewey, James, and Pierce is familiar vocabu lary to the philosophical, educational, social, and political landscape of North America. In its treatment of truth, action, values, and the theory-practice divide, it is particularly relevant to a range of fields including design. This pragmatist legacy is developed in Donald Sch?ns work, and Rittels and Webers metaphor of the wicked problems of planning and design?to suggest a distinctive disciplin ary vocabulary of design research and practice. Existing treatments of the relations between pragmatism and design disciplines such as urban and environmental planning, architecture, and interaction design highlight this expanded version. However, such treatments have not addressed how the neo-pragmatist account developed by Richard Rorty might enlarge design research. Combining particular readings of Dewey, James, and others with Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Derrida; Rorty offers an account which reinforces conventional pragmatist theses, but then looks beyond them in an environment where science and the humanities have equal claims to truth, mean ing, and representation. Reviewing existing treatments of these themes, including those in this journal, I trace connections between pragmatism and Horsts and Rittels formulation of wicked prob lems and Sch?ns reflective practitioner. I examine the current use of Deweyan and new pragmatism in design fields, and suggest how Rortys claims about redescription and vocabularies have some unex plored consequences for design research and scholarship. I close with some thoughts on how the expanded pragmatist approach might support the kind of epistemological and methodological perspective to benefit design scholarship.

Teaching and Evaluation of Critical Appraisal Skills to Postgraduate ESL Engineering Students.

Enrolments in postgraduate engineering in Australia include a significant proportion of Asian ESL (English as a Second Language) students, and there is some debate in the literature about whether they are capable of critical appraisal. Content‐based discipline‐specific EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses provide an environment for addressing the language, writing, and critical appraisal needs of such students. In particular, there is evidence that a ‘sustained’ approach to critical appraisal through engaging with engineering content is the best environment for this significant cohort. Despite this, such programmes are relatively rare in higher education partly as a result of the peripheral status of language and academic skills in relation to engineering knowledge and practice. This case study outlines the curriculum framework and rationale for a content‐based EAP response to teaching critical appraisal skills and examines evaluative feedback from an open‐ended survey of three semester cohorts of students (n=64, 85% response rate) regarding their encounter with critical thinking and practice. The paper argues both that discipline‐specific EAP courses are an appropriate place to teach critical appraisal skills and contributes to the debate on the capacity of ESL students to develop this skill.

Curriculum Documents and Practice in the NZ Polytechnic Sector: Consensus and Dissensus.

In New Zealand the polytechnic sector embraces a range of post‐compulsory education fields. Fields as diverse as nursing, business, social work and English as a Second Language (ESL) may co‐exist on polytechnic campuses and are subject to similar curriculum documentation processes. The common competency‐based framework and discourse of such documents make them boundary objects for these diverse communities of practice, which translate them into practice. While national and institutional curriculum bodies claim that curriculum documents provide a neutral and flexible representation of curriculum practice, practitioners find them to be more ideologically invested and influential on practice. This in‐depth qualitative study examines common readings of curriculum from 10 practitioners in a Social Services and ESL unit in a department of community and continuing education. Analyses of the findings identify common concerns about the effect of competency‐based curriculum on practice and challenge the assumption of the benign effect of documents. While acknowledging field‐specific concerns, inductive analysis of in‐depth interview data identify common themes that map the complex relationships between individuals, institution, and practices embodied in curriculum and exemplify an approach to curriculum research in post‐compulsory education that should be further addressed.

Writing Purposefully in Art and Design: Responding to Converging and Diverging New Academic Literacies.

In disciplines with long histories in higher education, academic literacies, including writing practices, are less contested than in newer academic fields such as art and design. The relatively recent incorporation of such fields and schools into the university sector has required these fields to create academic writing practices consistent with existing academic models or to justify their distinctive disciplinary practices. Recently, for example, much has been written about the distinctiveness of practice-based, reflective and creative written genres, such as the exegesis and the studio or practice based thesis, as the distinctive voice of art and design. However, such models have yet to gain broad acceptance in the higher education sector, where scientific (e.g. empirical research report) and humanities (e.g. essayist tradition) practices are far more familiar and of overarching significance. Similarly to the sciences and humanities, the field of art and design in fact names a broad grouping of communities of practice, e.g. graphic design, fine arts, fashion design, with a range of expectations regarding practice and writing. Whatever disciplinary consensus is reached regarding legitimate writing practices in art and design, it is important not to obscure these differences and make the same mistake that has hampered clarity in writing instruction for mainstream academic fields, a problem that is at the core of the academic literacies program for change and enlightenment. The Writing Purposefully in Art and Design Network (Writing-PAD) aims to support and disseminate the range of genres associated with writing in art and design. In the second part of this article, an account of the purposes, practices and scope of the Writing-PAD network demonstrates the characteristics of and consensus on forms of academic writing in art and design. Together with our introductory review we hope to promote discussion about the necessary balance of consensus and dissensus that art and design fields require to remain vibrant.

Beyond designing: roles of the designer in complex design projects

Human computer interaction and interaction design have recognised the need for participatory methods of co-design to contribute to designing human-centred interfaces, systems and services. Design thinking has recently developed as a set of strategies for human-centred co-design in product innovation, management and organisational transformation. Both developments place the designer in a new mediator role, requiring new skills than previously evident. This paper presents preliminary findings from a PhD case study of strategy and innovation consultancy Second Road to discuss these emerging roles of design lead, facilitator, teacher and director in action.

Competing allegiances in ESL curriculum work

The ethnography reported here reports on the findings of a practitioner ethnography conducted in a feminised and casualised workforce over four years (1997–2001) in a New Zealand polytechnic. It examines the competing allegiances of teachers and students in a combined community and workplace English oriented programme, in contexts where intercultural, professional and hegemonic discourses underpin practice on the institutional margins. In all cases, English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers express a desire to retain autonomy to decide the form and nature of curriculum according to workable personal definitions and learner-centredness or needs. However, teacher discourses of learner needs do not always translate directly into the real world of student needs.

Postgraduate design education in Germany: motivations, understandings and experiences of graduates and enrolled students in master's and doctoral programmes

ABSTRACT Germany has a long tradition of excellence in design, highlighted by influential institutions such as the Bauhaus and the Ulm School, which continue to globally influence design practice and education. Design fields are principally located in three of the major institution types in Germany: the Fachhochschulen (Universities of Applied Sciences/Polytechnics), Kunsthochschulen (Universities of Art) and the traditional universities. In all schools and departments practice-based work and traditional research approaches compete for a focus in institutions adapting to the implementation of the Bologna restructuring of Higher Education in Germany. In this new context, what design as an academic discipline (Designwissenschaft) looks like is being defined and debated by academics. However, this discussion is taking place without much reference to the content and nature of existing programmes or the student experience. This lack of empirical input from students, whose experiences and understanding are a key measure, form the basis of this funded research study. Based on qualitative and quantitative data (n = 154) from a survey of enrolled and completed doctoral (n = 39) and masters students (n = 116) gathered during a German government-sponsored research exchange, this preliminary study assesses the motivations, experiences and understanding of design research. The study concludes with an assessment of design as a discipline in Germany based on this data.