This paper investigates how the organization or structure of information and resources in shared workspaces influences team sharing and design learning. Two groupware products, BSCW and TikiWiki, were configured so that teams could structure and share resources. In BSCW the resources were structured hierarchically using folders and subfolders whereas in TikiWiki resources were structured using interlinked wiki pages (like web pages). The results showed that the groupware technology used, the collaborative task set and opportunities to reflect all influenced the way teams structured resources and that well-structured resources facilitated team collaboration and design learning. The discussion focuses on the need to help students develop information literacy skills and on why asking students to structure resources might help develop their design expertise
The use of technology with engineering design students is well established, with shared workspaces being particularly supportive of the collaborative design process. This paper reports on a study where a design knowledge framework involving three learning loops was used to analyse the effectiveness of shared workspaces and digital repositories in supporting design education. The issues discussed include the relationship between knowledge and information structures, the importance of integrating information literacy support, and the need for different systems within the learning environment to support formal and informal storage of resources. These issues are explored within the context of experiences of working in a multidisciplinary team with different approaches, research methodologies, and discourses
The challenges of integrating technology in global design classes have been published in the literature, but it is unclear if this knowledge makes its way back to the classroom. This paper investigates knowledge transfer by documenting the results of four workshops across two institutions and two distributed design classes. Participants were asked to identify the challenges of distributed design, the functionality of technologies to overcome the challenges and guidance on how best to perform distributed design to best help future students. 17 challenges, 10 functionalities and 8 guidelines were developed. The identification of challenges, functionalities and subsequent guidance created can be utilised to assist future students and educators of distributed design. Analysis of gaps in the knowledge identify where theories have not been transferred from literature to the classroom and will help to identify how best to fill the gaps in knowledge. The workshops also present a novel way to engage students in analysing their own collaborative work practices.
Selection of suitable computer-supported collaborative design (CSCD) technologies is crucial to facilitate successful projects. This paper presents the first systematic method for engineering design teams to evaluate and select the most suitable CSCD technologies comparing technology functionality and project requirements established in peer-reviewed literature. The paper first presents 220 factors that influence successful CSCD. These factors were then systematically mapped and categorised to create CSCD requirement statements. The novel evaluation and selection method incorporates these requirement statements within a matrix and develops a discourse analysis text processing algorithm with data from collaborative projects to automate the population of how technologies impact the success of CSCD in engineering design teams. This method was validated using data collected across 3 years of a student global design project. The impact of this method is the potential to change the way engineering design teams consider the technology they use and how the selection of appropriate tools impacts the success of their CSCD projects. The development of the CSCD evaluation matrix is the first of its kind enabling a systematic and justifiable comparison and technology selection, with the aim of best supporting the engineering designers collaborative design activity.
Industry as a whole has become increasingly global and digitized in recent years, resulting in a huge increase in data generated by companies, projects and even individuals. This has led to great challenges in visualizing and searching for information. The speed and accuracy at which these large datasets can be effectively mined for information that is relevant and valuable can have a significant effect on company performance. Therefore, this research investigates the feasibility of using visual representations for the searching and browsing of large, complex, multimedia data sets. This paper introduces the SIZL (Searching for Information in a Zoom Landscape) system, which was developed to enable the authors to effectively test whether 2.5D environments can benefit effective data management. The usability of this visualization system was analyzed using experiments and a combination of quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The paper presents these results and discusses potential industrial applications as well as future work that will improve the SIZL data visualization method
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.