Design Competencies Futures: How do we REDO Design Education?

Abstract: The REDO biannual Cumulus 2017 conference in Kolding describes “how designers struggle on many levels to gain influence on the decision-making processes” and that we need to “rethink design-doing.” In our professional and didactic experience, designers not always have the language or terminology to convey the depth, value or validity of ‘design-doing’ contributions to these decision-making processes. This raises the question whether design education can do a better job in providing language that can help design students articulate what makes ‘design doing’ so special and relevant. In order to better articulate the value, depth and validity of ‘design doing’ we have developed a framework of design competencies that maybe helpful to other design educators to define, organize and measure the value of ‘design doing’, and help future design practitioners to better understand and communicate the value of what they have learned. After a brief description of the pedagogical context from which the work originated, this paper presents a conference workshop proposal that aims to introduce participants to a framework of ‘design doing’ competencies that allows for diversity and scalability in usage, while appreciating the different cultural, national and regional backgrounds and variations for different design disciplines. In the workshop, we will guide participants through a series of hands-on exercises and ‘visual thinking’ experiences that enable design educators and practitioners to define and detail dynamic, open design competencies in a playful, energizing way. The overarching aim of the workshop is to collaboratively develop a shared language and terminology that helps educators, practitioners and design students to understand, define and communicate the value of ‘design doing’

Digital tools that support students to reflect on their design competency growth paths

This paper reports on the design and testing of two digital learning systems. The first, STUDIO, supports individual and collective reflection on the design process. It allows design students who have completed a work placement in industry to capture the skills they have acquired and to share their progress. The tool is intended to be used post facto, that is retrospectively, to aid development and inform future design work. The second system, Trajectories, supports student journeys through a course of study. It is intended to be used live. As students proceed through their studies, acquire new skills, and deepen their existing knowledge they assess their own level of mastery of a specific competency on a continuous basis by connecting it to specific design outcomes

Low temperature water vapor pressure swing for the regeneration of adsorbents for CO₂ enrichment in greenhouses via direct air capture

CO2 enrichment in greenhouses can be achieved by extracting CO2 from the outside air. For this purpose, adsorbents based on Na2CO3 or K2CO3 are promising for trapping and releasing atmospheric CO2. Even though the CO2 capture by these adsorbents has been studied before, there is not much information about their regeneration at low temperatures and using air as flushing gas. In this work an experimental design study has been performed to understand the effect of temperature, water vapor pressure and air flow rate on CO2 desorption. The results show that K-based adsorbents are a more attractive option given their higher CO2 capture capacity and lower energy consumption compared to the Na-based ones. The estimated amount of K-based adsorbent with a capture capacity of 0.1 mmol CO2/gads and regenerated at 50 °C with 90 mbar H2O would occupy only 2% of the total volume contained in a closed greenhouse, fulfilling its daily CO2 demand

Using Design Competencies to Define Curricula and Support Learners

This paper presents findings from design research related to a Design Competency Framework (DCF). The DCF is a visually-oriented system for developing curricula in design and is an example of the application of design research to design education. The DCF is divided into a set of sixteen categories including core skills, such as visualisation, and meta competencies such as synthesis. These are presented in the form of a matrix. We see three distinct advantages of using such a system. Firstly the DCF is personalisable at various scales such as individuals, units, courses, and programs. Secondly it is student centred - while we do not assume that design students are passive consumers of their own curricula in non-competency based design education we make the case here for student access to curriculum design processes. The DCF allows students to participate in the design of their own education. Finally, the DCF is resistant to imposition from above and as such questions the modes and institutional dynamics through which design courses come into being

Precision Medicine for More Oxygen (P4O2)—Study Design and First Results of the Long COVID-19 Extension

Introduction: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the death of almost 7 million people, however, with a cumulative incidence of 0.76 billion, most people survive COVID-19. Several studies indicate that the acute phase of COVID-19 may be followed by persistent symptoms including fatigue, dyspnea, headache, musculoskeletal symptoms, and pulmonary functional-and radiological abnormalities. However, the impact of COVID-19 on long-term health outcomes remains to be elucidated. Aims: The Precision Medicine for more Oxygen (P4O2) consortium COVID-19 extension aims to identify long COVID patients that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease and furthermore, to identify treatable traits and innovative personalized therapeutic strategies for prevention and treatment. This study aims to describe the study design and first results of the P4O2 COVID-19 cohort. Methods: The P4O2 COVID-19 study is a prospective multicenter cohort study that includes nested personalized counseling intervention trial. Patients, aged 40–65 years, were recruited from outpatient post-COVID clinics from five hospitals in The Netherlands. During study visits at 3–6 and 12–18 months post-COVID-19, data from medical records, pulmonary function tests, chest computed tomography scans and biological samples were collected and questionnaires were administered. Furthermore, exposome data was collected at the patient’s home and state-of-the-art imaging techniques as well as multi-omics analyses will be performed on collected data. Results: 95 long COVID patients were enrolled between May 2021 and September 2022. The current study showed persistence of clinical symptoms and signs of pulmonary function test/radiological abnormalities in post-COVID patients at 3–6 months post-COVID. The most commonly reported symptoms included respiratory symptoms (78.9%), neurological symptoms (68.4%) and fatigue (67.4%). Female sex and infection with the Delta, compared with the Beta, SARS-CoV-2 variant were significantly associated with more persisting symptom categories. Conclusions: The P4O2 COVID-19 study contributes to our understanding of the long-term health impacts of COVID-19. Furthermore, P4O2 COVID-19 can lead to the identification of different phenotypes of long COVID patients, for example those that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease. Understanding the mechanisms behind the different phenotypes and identifying these patients at an early stage can help to develop and optimize prevention and treatment strategies.</p

Precision medicine for more oxygen (P4O2)-study design and first results of the long COVID-19 extension

Introduction: the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led to the death of almost 7 million people, however, with a cumulative incidence of 0.76 billion, most people survive COVID-19. Several studies indicate that the acute phase of COVID-19 may be followed by persistent symptoms including fatigue, dyspnea, headache, musculoskeletal symptoms, and pulmonary functional-and radiological abnormalities. However, the impact of COVID-19 on long-term health outcomes remains to be elucidated. Aims: the Precision Medicine for more Oxygen (P4O2) consortium COVID-19 extension aims to identify long COVID patients that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease and furthermore, to identify treatable traits and innovative personalized therapeutic strategies for prevention and treatment. This study aims to describe the study design and first results of the P4O2 COVID-19 cohort. Methods: the P4O2 COVID-19 study is a prospective multicenter cohort study that includes nested personalized counseling intervention trial. Patients, aged 40-65 years, were recruited from outpatient post-COVID clinics from five hospitals in The Netherlands. During study visits at 3-6 and 12-18 months post-COVID-19, data from medical records, pulmonary function tests, chest computed tomography scans and biological samples were collected and questionnaires were administered. Furthermore, exposome data was collected at the patient's home and state-of-the-art imaging techniques as well as multi-omics analyses will be performed on collected data. Results: 95 long COVID patients were enrolled between May 2021 and September 2022. The current study showed persistence of clinical symptoms and signs of pulmonary function test/radiological abnormalities in post-COVID patients at 3-6 months post-COVID. The most commonly reported symptoms included respiratory symptoms (78.9%), neurological symptoms (68.4%) and fatigue (67.4%). Female sex and infection with the Delta, compared with the Beta, SARS-CoV-2 variant were significantly associated with more persisting symptom categories. Conclusions: the P4O2 COVID-19 study contributes to our understanding of the long-term health impacts of COVID-19. Furthermore, P4O2 COVID-19 can lead to the identification of different phenotypes of long COVID patients, for example those that are at risk for developing chronic lung disease. Understanding the mechanisms behind the different phenotypes and identifying these patients at an early stage can help to develop and optimize prevention and treatment strategies.</p