Janne Beate Reitan

Inuit vernacular design as a community of practice for learning

The concept of vernacular design allows for the understanding and the appreciation of designs created without recourse to institutional qualifications in the field of design. A study was undertaken of how North Alaska Inuit (Eskimo) women learn design—based on observations, interviews with seamstresses, and authorial participation in designing and sewing in conformity with North Alaska Inuit tradition, everything filmed on digital video. This has been the empirical basis for an interpretation inspired by the social learning theory of Wenger in his ‘Communities of Practice’, an approach that promises to be of particular relevance to future research into the learning of design because it stresses the social aspect of learning, important in investigations of the social process of designing. A main conclusion of this research is the importance of learning-by-watching, which will be of great importance in further research of the learning process of professional or academic design.

Open access to scientific publishing

Interest in open access (OA) to scientific publications is steadily increasing, both in Norway and internationally. From the outset, FORMakademisk has been published as a digital journal, and it was one of the first to offer OA in Norway. We have since the beginning used Open Journal Systems (OJS) as publishing software. OJS is part of the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), which was created by Canadian John Willinsky and colleagues at the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia in 1998. The first version of OJS came as an open source software in 2001. The programme is free for everyone to use and is part of a larger collective movement wherein knowledge is shared. When FORMakademisk started in 2008, we received much help from the journal Acta Didactic (n.d.) at the University of Oslo, which had started the year before us. They had also translated the programme to Norwegian. From the start, we were able to publish in both Norwegian and English. Other journals have used FORMakademisk as a model and source of inspiration when starting or when converting from subscription-based print journals to electronic OA, including the Journal of Norwegian Media Researchers [Norsk medietidsskrift]. It is in this way that the movement around PKP works and continues to grow to provide free access to research. As the articles are OA, they are also easily accessible to non-scientists. We also emphasise that the language should be readily available, although it should maintain a high scientific quality. Often there may be two sides of the same coin. We on the editorial team are now looking forward to adopting the newly developed OJS 3 this spring, with many new features and an improved design for users, including authors, peer reviewers, editors and readers.

Leder. FORMakademisk – både akademisk ledende og aktivt rekrutterende

Some published articles in FORMakademisk are frequently accessed and cited. PhD candidates are publishing increasing numbers of articles in journals for their article-based theses. We believe that FORMakademisk has helped to make article-based dissertations in design and design education possible and see this as a recognition of FORM akademisk. We wish to maintain and further strengthen our position as the premier publication channel for students and researchers in the design and design education field. We invite the most established scientists to contribute to FORM akademisk, but we also want to help younger researchers publish in the journal. This year, we have invited masters’ students to publish based on their theses, together with their supervisors. We see this as essential to ensure quality through building ‘critical mass’. The first article that is a result of this invitation is published in this Issue.

Editorial. Yes, Please - Both Crafts and Digital Tools in Basic Education

The Ludvigsen Committee (Ludvigsen-utvalget), which aims to assess primary and secondary educational subjects in terms of the competence Norwegian society and its working life will need in the future, has published an interim report entitled Pupils’ Learning in the School of the Future – A Knowledge Foundation (Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, 2014). The committee wrote the following about arts and crafts: “That subject will contribute to personal development and simultaneously strengthen opportunities to participate in a democratic society, which can be seen as a desire to protect both individual-oriented and community-oriented training. The breadth of the subject can restrict the ability to delve into individual topics” (NOU 2014: 7, 2014, p. 89, our translation from Norwegian). This will be an important challenge for the team in the near future. The committee shall submit their principal report by June 2015.Practical work with materials must not be removed from primary school. It should be required that qualified teachers are employed on the lower grades. Practical/hands-on work can give the trades a boost, encourage students to choose vocations and prevent dropouts in vocational education programmes. We need skilled craftsmen in the future, and good teaching in Arts & Crafts in compulsory education could provide an important basis for both future craftsmen and customers of good craftsmen.

FORMakademisk med støtte fra Norges forskningsråd

Det var med stor glede redaksjonen mottok meldingen fra Norges forskningsrad om at FORMakademisk var innvilget produksjonsstotte for Open-Access-tidsskrift for 2011. Det er forste gang forskningsradet gir publiseringsstotte til nettbaserte tidsskrift, og vi ser pa dette som en stor anerkjennelse for FORMakademisk.

Design og designdidaktikk i fokus

Forste utgave av FORMakademisk, det nye forskningstidsskriftet for design og designdidaktikk, er na en realitet. Dette er en viktig begivenhet for fagmiljoet, ikke bare i Norge, men for hele Norden. Et akkreditert vitenskapelig tidsskrift med fagfellevurdering er et viktig bidrag i byggingen av design som et eget forskningsfelt, og na er det her!