Normal creativity : What 1,038 t‐shirts can tell you about design education

The study of creativity in design has tended to emphasise its value, scarcity, and location in the individual designer rather than in choices made by a consuming public in the context of a wider culture. This paper, in presenting and developing a view of creativity in design as a normal concept, will present initial results from a study of 1038 student design assignments obtained from a distance-learning course in Design Thinking from The Open University in the UK. We show how ‘normal’ distributions of design outputs can be contived from a structured design process and argue that the creativity that is displayed is a natural result of the ‘grammar’ of that process, in a similar way to the syntax of a sentence allowing new combinations of words and meanings to be easily formed. Seen like this creativity is less of an individual ‘gift’, as some theories imply, but a common everyday response to open- ended problems

Which way is up? Space and place in virtual learning environments for design

The role of ‘place’ in design education is essential in providing a structured learning experience that can be trusted and which allows dynamic social connections to emerge in the development of reflective practice. With increasing demand for distance and online learning resources, this paper considers how such a sense of place can be arrived at using ‘virtual architecture’. Analogies with physical architectural space – for example ‘homes’, ‘forums’, ‘studios’, ‘libraries’ can be useful, but in many ways the opportunities for design learning in virtual architecture go far beyond what is possible with physical architecture. We describe how the virtual architecture of an Open University course in Design Thinking has consciously tried to create place rather than space, in crafting an environment with intrinsic learning opportunities, and the benefits this has brought to students studying the course

School Effectiveness Framework pilots: an evaluation (research document)

"This report looks at the pilot to introduce the School Effectiveness Framework in schools in Wales. The School Effectiveness Framework (SEF) is an ambitious Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) programme that aims to raise attainment, to close the gap in attainment and improve children and young people’s well-being (WAG, 2008a). It has been developed through three phases and this external evaluation focuses upon the second phase, in which school pilot programmes were established in each of the four regional consortia (Central South Wales, North Wales, South East Wales and swamwac)..." - introduction

"It isn't just consultants that need a BSc": student experiences of an Intercalated BSc

More medical schools are moving towards a compulsory intercalated BSc. These courses have not traditionally been aimed at those students interested in general practice and have tended to have limited clinical relevance. This paper explores the perceptions of students who undertook a BSc in primary health care using qualitative methodology comprising semi-structured interviews with students just before completion of their course. Interviews were undertaken with 24 of the 26 students who started the course over a 4-year period. All the students have finished the course and have graduated with good honours degrees. Students refine existing skills and develop new, relevant skills for medicine. The students discussed the prestige (or lack) of a BSc in this field and how the course has impacted on their career decisions. A Primary Health Care BSc such as this appears to give students an in depth and to some, a positive view of general practice and primary care. The course allowed students to develop a more critical approach to medicine and enabled them to develop skills in addition to those acquired from their undergraduate medicine course. They perceived that these skills will serve them throughout their career in whatever branch of medicine they choose

Semi-conductor three-phase inverters for operating induction motors at variable speed

Imperial Users onl

ACSB: A minimum performance assessment

Amplitude companded sideband (ACSB) is a new modulation technique which uses a much smaller channel width than does conventional frequency modulation (FM). Among the requirements of a mobile communications system is adequate speech intelligibility. This paper explores this aspect of minimum required performance. First, the basic principles of ACSB are described, with emphasis on those features that affect speech quality. Second, the appropriate performance measures for ACSB are reviewed. Third, a subjective voice quality scoring method is used to determine the values of the performance measures that equate to the minimum level of intelligibility. It is assumed that the intelligibility of an FM system operating at 12 dB SINAD represents that minimum. It was determined that ACSB operating at 12 dB SINAD with an audio-to-pilot ratio of 10 dB provides approximately the same intelligibility as FM operating at 12 dB SINAD