An integrated approach to developing higher graduate skills in design education

This paper highlights some of the current discussions surrounding the appropriate development of design education in the UK. In particular it draws attention to the increasing calls from both industry speakers and UK Government Departments for graduates to possess a broad range of transferable skills which go beyond their traditional subject boundaries. Such discussions are further fuelling the blurring of career paths for design graduates in a market place where commercial awareness, business ‘savvy’ and flexibility are increasingly demanded from graduate employers. Aligned to these calls for developed graduate skills is the introduction of Personal Development Planning (PDP) within UK Higher Education, as a vehicle by which students can more fully engage in their own learning and better develop key employability skills. The paper describes PDP in a national context and highlights the four phases of the PDP process as; planning, recording, reviewing and evaluating. Further to this, methods of PDP’s integration within a practice based art and design curriculum are described. Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) has attempted to uniquely address many of the national issues highlighted for improving students learning experience, via the introduction of WoW (World of Work) skills across the whole university. The WoW programme aims to provide every student the opportunity to develop higher level skills while studying at LJMU. It is the intention to ensure the journey through Higher Education is as relevant, useful and aspirational as possible. Focusing on the requirement of meaningful engagement with students own learning, addressing employer engagement issues and placing value on the transferability of graduate skills sets via a holistic approach – bringing all these elements of student learning together within the WoW programme of skills development. Whilst the WoW skills agenda clearly aims to address highly relevant needs, the practical interpretation of broad strategic visions such as WoW given by University policy makers may not always readily covert into activities and processes that align with a programme’s curriculum. In this paper, methods for the implementation of WoW skills at programme level will focus on the Product Design & Digital Modelling programme at LJMU as a case study. Taking this major University initiative as a starting point, the programme has explored potential alignments between established PDP delivery mechanisms and the meaningful delivery of WoW skills within the programme’s academic schedule. A key aim of this integration was to further enhance the benefits and perceived value of WoW skills, as these increasingly emphasised transferable skills are still viewed by many students as having limited value

DEVELOPING THE DESIGN CURRICULUM

Over recent years there has been an increasing understanding by UK business of the role that design can play in enhancing competitiveness and innovation, there is also a growing recognition by government of the value that design can add to the economy. Statistics estimate design to be worth in excess of £11 billion to the UK economy each year. Aligned to this is the growing discourse surrounding the appropriate development of UK Design Education, with many Industry commentators calling for universities to be more proactive in developing curriculum content that focuses attention on topics such as the socioeconomic drivers for design, employer engagement and improved commercial awareness. Design graduates are increasingly being called upon to not only possess high level design skills, but have a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between design and the business context in which it operates. The design industry is also changing. In a context of increasingly fluid contemporary design practices, traditional roles for design are being challenged. For example, for many years designers have been taught to create artifacts. Design is now moving beyond the artifact into a realm where tangible touch-points form only a part of the practical engagement designers are required to consider [Kolko 2010]. In many ways educators are not moving with the times and changing their curricula quickly enough to be ahead of this change curve. As Sudick [2010] affirms, ‘Design was about creating artifacts and we’ve moved past that to now creating contexts in which activities happen and in which people participate collectively’. This paper considers how design curricula may be developed to better meet the challenges of rapidly changing contexts in which design and designers are operating

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO DEVELOPING HIGHER GRADUATE SKILLS IN DESIGN EDUCATION

This paper highlights some of the current discussions surrounding the appropriate development of design education in the UK. In particular it draws attention to the increasing calls from both industry speakers and UK Government Departments for graduates to possess a broad range of transferable skills which go beyond their traditional subject boundaries. Such discussions are further fuelling the blurring of career paths for design graduates in a market place where commercial awareness, business ‘savvy’ and flexibility are increasingly demanded from graduate employers. In alignment with these national debates, the paper will consider the approach taken by Liverpool John Moores University in addressing calls for higher graduate skills via the introduction of its World or Work (WoW) skills initiative and how the initiative may be meaningfully delivered at a programme level

The implementation of PDP within a practice based curriculum

This paper will identify the aims of Personal Development Planning (PDP) in a broad national context. It will consider the approach taken by The University of Salford (UoS) in structuring and implementing PDP requirements, and discuss how such policies may be delivered as an integral part of a practice based programme curriculum. There are a number of models for the implementation of PDP currently being delivered within UK Higher Education Institutions, however the broad range of academic study now available creates a dilemma when trying to assess which model proves the ‘best fit’. The interpretation of a broad strategic vision given by University policy makers may not always readily covert into activities and processes that align with a programme’s curriculum. In this paper, methods for the implementation of PDP at programme level will focus on the UoS Product Design programme as a case study. Taking University policy as a starting point, the programme developed a PDP structure that attempts to align itself coherently with a heavily practice based curriculum

THE LEGACY OF DESIGN: WHAT CONTRIBUTION DOES A DEGREE MAKE TO YOUR FUTURE DESIGN CAREER?

Much research has been conducted into the content of design curricula yet limited research has been undertaken into how early career design professionals view their undergraduate studies, and in turn if this experience adequately prepares them for entry into the design industry. This paper explores the relationship between product design curricula and the professional practice of design. The authors consult with early career design product design professionals to understand the perceived link between their undergraduate studies and the everyday practice of the design industry. Specifically, this paper reports upon the realities of working in the design industry and explores the extent to which their undergraduate training supported the transition from designer-in-training to design professional. Data was gathered via semi structured interviews with early career design product design professionals. The findings of the research indicate that although there is a gap between undergraduate studies and the design industry, and graduates do find the transition into their professional career challenging, on balance graduates feel that a university design education prepares them reasonably well to begin their career as a design professional. The research indicates that an undergraduate design education is perceived as the start of a journey in a professional design career

Knowledge Networks: Collaboration between industry and academia in design

Design education and industry can benefit greatly from collaboration. This paper discusses mechanisms of knowledge transfer through collaborative research, between academia and industry. It focuses upon the area of product and industrial design, detailing approaches to open innovation where industry and academia collaborate and form successful partnerships. Through case studies, it identifies how academia can facilitate knowledge transfer between numerous industries and across disparate market sectors. It concludes with an overview of the potential benefits to collaborators

Pedagogies of inclusion: a critical exploration of small-group teaching practice in higher education

This paper provides a critical examination of inclusion as a pedagogic principle through a practice-based interrogation of contemporary ‘good practice’ strategies for encouraging inclusion in small-group teaching. It reflects on our experiences of delivering four classroom exercises that are frequently proposed as strategies for increasing inclusion, and borrows insight from critical intersectional feminist pedagogy to interrogate normative discourses of inclusion in HE. We argue that both the terms of inclusion, and the assumption that (verbal) participation is itself a measure of improving inclusion in classroom spaces, require interrogation. This article thus responds to the proliferation of inclusion discourses in contemporary UK HE, by identifying some of the potential pitfalls of measuring inclusion through the limited scope of participatio

Life after the party: Student experiences and graduate expectations

This paper considers students’ experience of product design education, and explores their expectations of working in the design industry. It provides a contextualisation of recent initiatives that call for increased emphasis upon the commercial awareness of design within the curriculum. Evidence of the ‘disconnect’ between students’ perceptions of design practice and the increasing demands from the industry are detailed

HAVE WE REACHED PEAK DESIGN THINKING? Are we entering a new paradigm for how it is used within practice and business?

Design Thinking has gained recognition as an acclaimed process for generating innovative, human centred solutions at a social and business level. It has also gained notoriety amongst many designers, who claim that its success as an exported element of the design process has resulted in its commodification, and led to it becoming a diluted series of processes that lack criticality. As design disciplines and the role of designers continue to evolve, we should reflect on design thinking’s original context and understand its progression into a non-design world. Our hypothesis is that design thinking has reached a ‘peak’ in contemporary practice, and as the term 'design' is further adapted and conformed to suit a business function, this conversational will elicit a constructive debate on the future of design thinking and its positioning within design and non-design industries. Has Design Thinking’s commodification and consumption as a step by step road map to innovation reduced it to a mainstream approach? Can we use the undoubted successes of design thinking as a catalyst for future design research? It is anticipated that through analysis and discussion, this conversation will inform the conceptualisation of enhanced methodological frameworks that aim to support innovation across divergent industry practices

Monitoring 2009 Forest Disturbance Across the Conterminous United States, Based on Near-Real Time and Historical MODIS 250 Meter NDVI Products

This case study shows the promise of computing current season forest disturbance detection products at regional to CONUS scales. Use of the eMODIS expedited product enabled a NRT CONUS forest disturbance detection product, a requirement for an eventual, operational forest threat EWS. The 2009 classification product from this study can be used to quantify the areal extent of forest disturbance across CONUS, although a quantitative accuracy assessment still needs to be completed. However, the results would not include disturbances that occurred after July 27, such as the Station Fire. While not shown here, the project also produced maximum NDVI products for the June 10-July 27 period of each year of the 2000-2009 time frame. These products could be applied to compute forest change products on an annual basis. GIS could then be used to assess disturbance persistence. Such follow-on work could lead to attribution of year in which a disturbance occurred. These products (e.g., Figures 6 and 7) may also be useful for assessing forest change associated with climate change, such as carbon losses from bark beetle-induced forest mortality in the Western United States. Other MODIS phenological products are being assessed for aiding forest monitoring needs of the EWS, including cumulative NDVI products (Figure 10)