Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
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Social Issues: Making them relevant and appropriate to undergraduate student designers
Get PDFSustainable design education is now considered a core
issue for industrial/product design courses, however
research has shown that the predominant focus tends to
be on environmental issues, as social issues are much
harder to tackle. Similarly, social issues are rarely
considered in industrial practice. If student designers are to
become responsible practitioners, they need to be made
aware of social issues that they are in the position to
effect. In order to do this it is critical that students are
encouraged to consider issues which are relevant to their
skill sets and within their sphere of influence. A review of
the literature did not reveal a definitive list of social issues
for designers to consider. In addition to this the majority of
well-known tools used to support sustainable design
teaching in UK/Europe, tend to have an ecodesign rather
than a sustainable design focus. The few which do exist
have their limitations.
The paper reports on the findings of an ADM-HEA1
sponsored project. It presents the latest thinking with
regards to social issues student designers should be
considering. Drawing on a tools analysis and theory review,
a set of Social Issues cards are developed and tested to
determine their suitability for disseminating social issues to
design students. The paper concludes that the tool offers a
design oriented perspective of social issues (which has
not been provided before) and is a valuable resource for
raising awareness about social sustainability in
undergraduate design students
Book Review of Andretta, S. 2012. Ways of experiencing information literacy: making the case for a relational approach. Oxford: Chandos.
Get PDFCurriculum Planning for the Development of Graphicacy
Get PDFThe paper describes the importance of graphicacy as a key
communication tool in our everyday lives. The need to
better understand the development of graphicacy and its
use in the school curriculum is emphasised. The need for
a new research tool is explained and the development of
a new taxonomy of graphicacy is described. The use of
this tool within a methodology researching the significance
of graphicacy in the curriculum is introduced. An overview
of prior research concerning how children deal with
graphicacy is also provided. The paper then discusses the
results reported in the context of this prior research. The
paper illustrates how graphicacy can affect children’s
learning; identifies cross-curricular links involving different
areas of graphicacy and consequential transfer
opportunities; illustrates how the implementation of a
curriculum policy for graphicacy could influence students’
learning; demonstrates the magnitude of the research
opportunities in relation to graphicacy within general
education curricula and suggests the need for
collaboration in order to effectively pursue these
substantial research agendas
Managing Increasing Complexity in Undergraduate Digital Media Design Education: The impact and benefits of multidisciplinary collaboration
Get PDFIncreasing complexity is one of the most pertinent issues
when discussing the role and future of design, designers
and their education. The evolving nature of digital media
technology has resulted in a profession in a state of flux
with increasingly complex communication and design
problems. The ability to collaborate and interact with other
disciplines has recently been strongly articulated as an
imperative skill for the future designer. How the education
of such a designer is facilitated in practice is less well
defined. The implementation of authentic problem-solving
processes that introduce design students to workplace
realities is often missing in design education. In order to
manage the increasing complexities of design problems
and technology a learning and teaching approach that
facilitates the interaction of multiple disciplines was
implemented and trialed over a period of two years in an
undergraduate digital media design programme. This
approach, known as the POOL model framework, is based
on a ‘pool’ of resources and people to be applied as
needed when responding to complex design problems.
This paper focuses on the extent to which complex
interactive design projects can be managed through
multidisciplinary collaboration. Feedback from students
and educators is presented and which reveals that the
framework does provide an opportunity for students to
resolve complex design and technological problems and
contribute to project outcomes that could not be achieved
when working individually
21st Century…19th Century…6th Century BC Skills
Get PDFDuring July I spent some time in Ireland; in the beautiful,
south-west corner that is Kerry. Whilst there, I was reading
a bit of the local history and came across some quite
mind-boggling technology. In a gently shelving sandy cove
by Waterville lies the remains of an astonishing leap of
faith by a group of Victorian entrepreneurs. Sticking out of
the cliff is the tattered end of a telegraph cable that ran
across 2000 miles of ocean to Newfoundland and
thereafter overland to New York. The south-west tip of
Kerry (Valentia island) was chosen (in the 1850s) as the
take-off point and ‘Hearts Content’ bay in Newfoundland
the receiving point. But in between lay 2000 miles of wild
ocean that is variously 2-3 miles deep
Book Review of Huvila, I. 2012. Information services and digital literacy: in search of the boundaries of knowing. Oxford: Chandos.
Get PDFRethinking library instruction: using learning-outcome based design to teach online search strategies
Get PDFGiven the growing pressure on academic institutions and, by extension, academic libraries to establish student learning outcomes and demonstrate their impact on student learning, researchers at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) explored how outcome-based instructional design can be used to 1) collect student data, 2) assess student learning, and 3) improve instruction. Two surveys were distributed to 59 undergraduate students who were enrolled in an introductory composition course at IUPUI. Because previous studies (e.g. Ford, Miller and Moss 2005) have linked human individual differences with web search strategy, the first survey collected information about the students’ demographic features. The second survey, a search log, collected information about the sources that students chose, the search terms they used and the strategies they employed in order to complete their research. The students submitted their first survey after the instructional session and the second survey after they completed their research project. Using this data, the researchers examined whether students’ achievement could be associated with their personal characteristics and/or the librarian’s instruction. In contrast to Ford, Miller and Moss’s study (2005), no significant relationships were found between students’ personal characteristics and their search behaviour. However, after receiving instruction, all students were able to create keywords and structure them into search queries using Boolean operators. These results suggest that outcome-based instructional design is an effective pedagogical method for gathering assessment data and that the survey instrument was a useful tool for assessing this outcome - by providing both a measurement of student learning and a means of evaluating the librarian’s instruction
Creating, sharing and reusing learning objects to enhance information literacy
Get PDFFrom June 2010 until the present, a suite of online reusable learning objects (RLOs) has been created by staff at the Institute of Technology Tallaght (ITT Dublin) library covering a range of information literacy (IL) competencies. These RLOs have helped to facilitate student transition from second to third level, advance IL and enrich the student learning experience.The purpose of this paper is to outline the development of these RLOs and how the resources have been shared, reused and repurposed to enhance IL progression. A review of recent literature explores some of the key issues around the creation of digital learning resources and best practice, as well as the pedagogical foundations on which the learning objects are built. The design, development and implementation of the RLOs and the collaborative working arrangements that the digital resources have helped to foster are also outlined and the authors examine the issues and challenges experienced by the project team during the course of the RLO development. The significant usage and substantial impact that the learning objects have had on student-centred education and the various evaluative mechanisms used to measure the effectiveness of the RLOs is discussed, as well as future development plans. These learning tools have promoted best practice in innovative delivery methods and added value to the wider higher education (HE) community in the Republic of Ireland through their sharing, dissemination and reuse as open educational resources (OERs) via the National Digital Learning Resources (NDLR) service. The paper is likely to be of particular relevance to academic library practitioners and teaching staff in Irish HE as it provides an overview and links to a suite of digital learning tools that can be used or adapted in other academic settings. In terms of originality, there is no evidence of any published literature within the context of Irish HE sector covering the development of RLOs to support IL initiatives and will inform future research on how learning objects can be used to support learning and teaching practice both in the Republic of Ireland and further afield.This article is based on a poster presentation at LILAC 2012.