Design students meet industry players: Feedback and creativity in communities of practice

This work investigates the social collaboration and creative outcomes of teams of learners in Higher Education (HE) Design studies, in the context of cross-organizational (university/industry) Communities of Practice (CoP). These refer to groups of people who share a common interest in a field and connect to co-create knowledge. The study focuses on the feedback delivered by the industrial members of the CoP through collaboration technologies, to complement academic feedback. Findings have shown a twofold effect on learners. On the one hand, critical feedback on the deliverables increased both the time-pressure and the complexity of the work, affecting the teams’ perception of their performances. On the other hand, feedback appeared to inspire better creative outcomes while improving the teams’ metacognitive activity and learning regulation. Furthermore, it enabled learners to pragmatically realize their status within the broader geography of professional practice and reconfigure their achievement goals accordingly. These findings confirm the contribution of cross-organizational CoPs in HE and are discussed with reference to the CoP theory and modes of belonging,as fundamental for learning and identity evolution

A model for enhancing creativity, collaboration and pre-professional identities in technology-supported cross-organizational communities of practice

This research proposes that technology-supported cross-organizational (university-industry) Communities of Practice (CoPs), which are integrated into the Design Studies curriculum in Higher Education, can foster robust university-industry collaborations. These can help bridge the reported gap between the actual versus the expected soft skills and personae of young graduates transitioning to the creative industries today. CoPs are groups of people who share a common interest in an area of ‘endeavor’ and connect to co-create competence in that area through their practice. This paper makes two overarching research contributions. First, it informs about the design, enactment, and evaluation of a student CoP in an undergraduate Design course which was expanded to include members from the industry as clients, alumni mentors, and expert evaluators. Drawing from rich empirical data, the paper explains the designed and emergent learning phenomena of CoP participation and its effects on the students’ creative and socio-epistemic outcomes, as well as their pre-professional identities. Second, it presents a governance model with three sets of actionable guidelines, namely the Set (technology), the Social (collaborative), and the Epistemic (learning) components. The entire body of work validates the critical interlocking of these components to form a robust social learning model that appropriates the complex practices of cross-organizational CoPs in Higher Education Design studies

A cross-organizational ecology for virtual communities of practice in higher education

This work investigates Communities of Practice (CoPs) that support social learning in higher education. While most CoP research has taken place in single-stream contexts (e.g. in a university), this study reports on the ecology of a cross-organizational community (university and industry stakeholders) in the context of the formal curriculum. The work examines the role of technology configurations in supporting CoPs in Design and related studies. It also reports on the type and level of technology adoption, focusing on the learner perspective. This study’s CoP is made up of 21 third-year university students and ten external stakeholders (mentors, clients and industrial experts). The study concludes with a set of guidelines for the design and evaluation of similar CoP technology configurations. Key guidelines suggest a) supporting enhanced awareness of identity, space and time, b) enabling roles and permissions on-demand according to the requirements of the activities carried out in shared spaces and c) facilitating fluid interoperability between the domain-specific and mainstream/generic productivity tools used by the community. The outcomes of this work can assist instructors, researchers and practitioners in the design of similar technology configurations for CoPs in the formal curricula of their respective Design or relevant fields

The Assessment Scale for Creative Collaboration (ASCC) Validation and Reliability Study

Creativity, a primary academic objective, is crucial in higher education, as economic, informational, societal and environmental advancements rely on people’s ability to innovate. Creativity is widely investigated in its individualistic form, yet there is a notable dearth in work that studies its collective dimension, from a learning perspective. This study focuses on validating the psychometric properties of an existing instrument (ASCC), by measuring creative collaboration in blended learning settings. Two hundred and thirty-six under and post-graduate students self-evaluated their creative collaboration experiences, using the ASCC instrument. The findings of exploratory factor analysis denote a three-factor (21-item) structure, measuring ‘Synergistic Social Collaboration’, ‘Distributed Creativity’, and ‘Time Regulation and Achievement’, with good internal consistency. An instrument with valid psychometric properties for the assessment of creative collaboration is much-needed in the growing research and practitioners’ community. This is critical in the fields of Design, HCI, and Engineering, which rely extensively on the creative collaboration (online and offline) of teams to develop innovative products that are suitable for real-world purposes

Communicating content: development and evaluation of icons for academic document triage through visualisation and perception

This work seeks to identify key features and characteristics for the design of icons that can support the tasks of information seekers in academic document triage interfaces. Such icons are meant to act as visual links to the specific elements or sections in an academic document. We suggest that icons in triage interfaces are better able to communicate information, provide feedback and enable faster user interactions than text, particularly in mobile-based interfaces. Through investigation of visualisation and perception processes, we are able to propose five primary icon categories, the two most dominant being iconic and symbolic: iconic representations mostly apply to graphically and spatially distinct document elements (i.e. Title, Abstract, Tables and Figures), externalising the elements’ surface propositions. Symbolic representations are largely associated with elements of greater semantic value (Introduction, Conclusion, Full text and Author), drawing upon the elements’ deep propositions

Cross-organizational communities of practice in design studies : enhancing creativity, collaboration and pre-professional identities in higher education

The purpose of this work is to investigate the role and impact of cross-organizational (industry-academia) Communities of Practice (CoPs) on learning in Higher Education (HE) Design studies. CoPs are groups of people who share a common interest in an area of ‘endeavor’ and connect to co-create knowledge through practice. This dissertation is motivated by the current gap between academia and industry, regarding the actual – versus the anticipated – knowledge, skills (communication, collaboration, creativity) and personae (vocational relevance) of graduates who transition into the digital creative industries today. This originates from the graduates’ lack of authentic experiences with real-life practice, as well as from the universities’ limitation to keep up with the fast-paced industry developments. This research proposes that robust academia-industry collaborations can enhance academic programs towards bridging this gap. It demonstrates the effective convergence of creativity, collaboration, and authenticity in education through cross-organizational CoPs, by bringing together academic and industrial stakeholders in a technology-supported and curriculum-integrated practice. Following a mixed-methods approach, it captures a diverse body of data to understand and explain the designed and emergent learning phenomena. Findings denote solid member participation levels, made evident in the abundant online and offline CoP exchanges. They also infer significantly higher epistemic and creative outcomes for CoP-participating - versus non-participating - students. The substantial shift in learner perspectives and perceptions of achievement signifies an identity transformation, from the academic toward the pre-professional and professional statuses, induced by the broader membership and context of the CoP. This work empirically demonstrates and validates the critical interlocking of the technological, epistemic and social designs that constitute an appropriate learning ecology for the complex practices of cross-organizational CoPs in HE Design studies. It also provides a structured set of actionable guidelines to assist researchers and practitioners in the adoption of the cross-organizational CoP model, in an aim to enhance learning in the Design disciplines.Member of the committee: Dr. Vanessa Paz Dennen, Dr. Linda CastañedaComplete

A theoretical framework for designing and evaluating semi-structured document triage interfaces

The authors of this chapter (Fernando Loizides and Aekaterini Mavri) consider several topics that will be of interest to readers. A notable feature of it is that they back up their recommendations with references to research evidence. Instead of the usual 'how to' guidelines that can be found in manuals of information architecture, this chapter explains why designers should pay attention to certain elements of information architecture, for example, and refers to the research evidence. As the authors themselves emphasise, 'user studies' is a huge area of research, and it is impossible to refer to all the underpinning evidence. Another problem is that 'user studies' means different things to different disciplines with an interest in the information user. The dialogue project (Dervin and Reinhard, 2006; Dervin, Reinhard and Shen, 2006) examined convergences and divergences in how three fields (library and information science, human-computer interaction and communication and media studies) looked at users and each other. The authors concluded that proper shared dialogue was desirable, but rare. The structures for communication across research and practice, and between the disciplines, did not make for mutual understanding, easy discussion, or - frankly - the understanding of users or audiences that the researchers (and practitioners) truly want. Power, prestige and a dependence on 'authority' get in the way. With that in mind, and without taking away from the excellent presentation of research evidence in this chapter, you should remember that you may need to approach the evidence in this chapter (and other chapters in this book) with the sense-making questions set out in the introduction. What are my reactions to this evidence? What do I agree with? What do I disagree with? What else do I need to know or experience to make further progress with this topic? There are several themes in this chapter. First, there is the idea of the semi-structured document. The authors' emphasis is on journal articles, patents and similar research study formats, and how these may be presented to readers to help them evaluate their contents quickly and successfully. There is considerable research on the difference in comprehension of reading text (usually linear text) on screen versus paper (e.g. Mangen, Walgermo and Bronnick, 2013). On-screen reading is different as it seems to be more difficult for readers to navigate some types of documents, to check whether they are moving around effectively, and whether they have a good spatial mental representation when reading on screen. Semi-structured documents such as journal articles usually have a standard format - introduction, methods, results and discussion - which can support navigation. Readers know what to expect in particular sections, and the order in which they expect to find things. Nevertheless, readers may have all sorts of different purposes when trying to find and extract information from an online semi-structured document and this chapter discusses the importance of providing a table of contents alongside the full text, and the need to deal with captions, images, tables and figures. It provides an overview of the research evidence and covers information architecture, external factors such as accessibility, and assistive tools

Collaborative game-based learning with iPads and external keyboards in a web development class

Employing the iPad’s seductive powers, to facilitate active learning through stimulating intrinsic student interest, richer interactive experiences, while enjoying easy mobility and flexibility of use in multiple teaching settings, has been a popular pedagogical practice over the past few years. Previous work investigating the use of iPads for active learning in the field of web design and development in Higher Education (HE), infers that student experience and perceived learning performance was hindered by the absence of a direct point and manipulation device (i.e. a mouse), as well as cumbersome text-input activity on the touch interface. As various peripherals - aiming to transform mobile phones and tablets into production devices - are constantly being released, this study re-examines the use of iPads in the same field, by pairing external keyboards to the devices. In doing so, it seeks to elicit results about the user experience as well as the perceived student learning process and outcomes in performing practical coding exercises. Apart from the external keyboards, two additional parameters are now present: (a) a larger class size and (b) game-played learning. Results indicate a significant perceived improvement in coding performance and clear student preference in favor of the external versus the native keyboard. Issues derived from small key sizes, non-standardized layout and unconventional key combinations intended for critical functions, were recorded. The friendly competitive-collaborative approach was found to enhance the learning process. Learners showed a strong preference towards laptops, since they support multi-tasking and direct manipulation capabilities, over the iPad’s notable qualities such as portability and convenience

Value creation and identity in cross-organizational communities of practice: A learner's perspective

The goal of this work is to evaluate the worth of learning, that resulted from student participation in a cross-organizational (industry-academia) Community of Practice (CoP). CoPs are groups of people who share common interest in a field and connect to co-create knowledge and competence within that. In this study, the CoP was integrated in a Higher Education Design course that was following a blended-learning approach. Internal and external collaboration was primarily facilitated through online technologies. The study employs the Value Creation framework to analyze the types and value of co-created learning and explores these results to draw inferences as to the effects of CoP participation on the learners' identities, which were continuously being reformulated. The resulting CoP interactions indicated a strong immediate learning value. These also generated new insights (potential value) and familiarized learners with the characteristics of the real-world practice. The effective transfer of knowledge into the academic practice was confirmed by the significant improvements in student performances (applied & realized value). Finally, CoP participation steered a shift in learner perspectives, by pragmatically transforming their perception of achievement and orientating them towards transitioning and evolving in the professional sphere (reframed value)