Developing Expertise and Connoisseurship Through Handling Objects of Good Design: Example of the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection

This article takes an existing collection of design objects, the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection, to discuss issues of expertise, connoisseurship, and taste-formation. The article examines how the discipline of design history provides appropriate methodologies which explain expertise and connoisseurship in design with reference to the taste agenda informing the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection. The investigation focuses on disentangling and appraising the collection’s dual identity: as the repository of a historically contained notion of taste and as an active educational agent, being currently utilized in the University of the Arts London as a learning resource. The article proposes “handling” as a relevant research perspective. Handling’s particular advantages in investigating material culture are presented with reference to the increased importance of object-based learning and the need to extend the dominance of vision and language as the main learning modalities. The conclusion argues that while taste-formation on the principles of “good design” proved a flawed project, the practice of handling objects is of unique pedagogical value and fosters the development of expertise and connoisseurship in design

The digital student experience at UAL

This report presents an investigation into the student experience in digital contexts at UAL. It provides insights into areas of practice and communication that are high in students’ minds, and explores how we can make better use of technology to manage and meet students’ expectations. The research is based on a University-wide survey, which received 433 responses across all colleges and a wide range of disciplines. The survey design was informed by the opinions expressed in a series of small-scale focus groups. Conducting the survey at this later stage enabled us to elicit more detailed data about the themes that emerged during the focus groups. Moodle was a focal point of the work as it is the most frequently used and well-known element of the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) services provided by UAL. However findings were also made about Myblog.arts and Workflow, UAL’s blogging and e-portfolio platforms

Escaping the Slippery Slope: Freedom of Expression and Cyberspace Regulation after the Delfi Case

In June 2015, the European Court of Human Rights delivered the final judgment in the Delfi case, where it upheld the decision of an Estonian court to fine a news portal for hosting anonymous defamatory comments. This controversial judgment has a chilling effect on freedom of expression in cyberspace and paves the way for a slippery slope leading to online censorship. The key policy issue is striking a balance between freedom of expression and other protected interests, including privacy, reputation and national security. This paper argues that holding Internet Service Providers (ISPs) liable for third-party content places a disproportionate burden on them and destabilises the architecture of Web 2.0 to the detriment of human rights. To this end, we argue that a new regulatory approach is necessary to address the rights of ISPs in the attempt to balance freedom of expression with new developments in the need for protection of personal data

Pedagogies of ‘Good Design’ and Handling in Relation to the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection

The present thesis investigates educational aspects of material culture, examining the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection as a case study for the teaching of ‘good design’ in post-war Britain from 1951 to 1977. The methodological approaches used are drawn from the disciplines of design history, material culture studies, educational theory,museology and sociology. The main objectives of the thesis aim to examine ‘good design’ as an educational project, to establish the socio-cultural contexts that produced the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection, to relate these contexts to the premise of ‘good design’, and to assess the Collection’s educational affordances, both historical and contemporary. In order to illuminate how the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection represented the didacticism of ‘good design’, the investigation locates the historical and educational roots of ‘good design’ in relation to specific time-frames and practices, especially with regards to initiatives driven by government. The thesis examines good design’s alignment to the terms ‘modern’/‘modernism’/ ‘modernity’ as these have been used within design history, and it demonstrates how signifieds pertaining to ‘good design’ change over time. I have used Bourdieu’s theory of taste-formation to investigate the extent to which the formation of taste, as identified in the project of ‘good design’, had been implemented with regards to the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection in order to influence social positioning and consumer choices. However, the thesis argues that the modalities of language and vision,which Bourdieusian analysis relies on, need to be extended. I have therefore considered the contribution of ‘handling’ and I have argued its importance as an educational method. The thesis shows that as education in Britain evolved from didactic models to learner-centred, coconstructiveones, the Collection’s educational pertinence shifted from the aesthetic exemplar to the handling resource. The investigation demonstrates the significance of the I.L.E.A./Camberwell Collection as a resource in itself and as paradigmatic of object-based-learning. In addition, the thesis presents a methodological example of how a poorly-documented collection may be examined, thus adding new approaches to the repository of design historical research

Mass transfer modelling of H2S in odour treatment technologies

The development of more efficient methods of membrane-based gas absorption has recently received considerable interest in two areas: the biological treatment of contaminated gas streams and the abiotic gas absorption of waste gases. The present work refers to a hollow fibre membrane gas absorber operating in non-wetted mode applied for the scrubbing of hydrogen sulphide from air, with pure water as the contact solvent. Two case studies were investigated: (1) H2S absorption within single passage through the membrane and (2) absorption of H2S using recycle. In both cases, countercurrent flow configuration was studied. In all cases under investigation, the test contaminant was passing through the shell side of the membrane module while the liquid absorbent was flowing inside the fibre lumens. The systems studied were pure H2S absorption in water and absorption of H2S from its mixtures in air by water. Measurements were conducted at liquid pH values in the range between 7 and 13. A numerical model describing the absorption process for each case either as physical transport or reactive absorption of species was developed. The chemistry and the kinetics of H2S in alkaline environment have been studied and the experimentally determined kinetic data were used to determine the values of rate parameters. Laminar parabolic velocity profile was assumed to describe the flow in the tube side while Happel’s free surface model was applied to characterise the shell side flow. The model predictions were in good agreement with the experimental observations. The absorption characteristics of the hollow fibre membrane were compared with those of the conventional processes. The system’s performance, based on data available from both pilot plant and full scale applications, was reviewed and the dependence of the overall mass transfer coefficient on the system’s process parameters was investigated. Overall, the performance of the unit was strongly dependent on the gas phase velocity and the initial water pH. Correlation of the mass transfer data in terms of classical dimensionless numbers revealed the hydrodynamic parameter (Gz) to increase as a function of pH indicating a greater importance on the gas phase velocity as the pH increases.Ph

The Effectiveness of Visual Feedback Singing Vocal Technology in Greek Elementary School

(Abstract to follow