An investigation into the use and content of the engineer's logbook

The role of logbooks as mediators of engineering design work

“…This was based on a pilot study where it was found that participants under-reported the number of sources of information used when un-prompted. Consequentially, the maps were pre-populated with various types of informal and formal information, derived from previous works (Court, Ullman, & Culley, 1998;Lowe, McMahon, & Culley, 2004;McAlpine et al, 2006). Participants were able to add additional concepts in accordance with the defined method (Johnson & O'Connor, 2008).…”

“…First, the analysis included the 13 information classes (written notes, meeting notes, calculations, sketches etc.) previously identified from logbooks by McAlpine et al (2006). It was contended that being able to compare the type and proportion of classes of information in the logbooks and formal reports allowed greater insight to be drawn about how logbooks support the varied perspectives described in Section 1.2.…”

“…One type of informal information that forms the basis for the majority of the research in this area and is almost ubiquitous in the engineering domain is the engineering logbook, or notebook -usually consisting of notes, sketches and calculations, and other information gathered in support of the engineer's day-to-day work (see, for example, McAlpine et al (2006) and Sobek (2002)). In addition to the physical affordances of logbooks (paper robustness, ease-of-use, co-creation etc.)…”

“…It is also a requirement at many universities that engineering students keep a logbook for certain parts of their course, to both encourage "good practice" and to allow the instructor to better assess the students' progress. Many organisations also mandate the use of logbooks to ensure a record of the development of ideas for intellectual property claims (Hyman, 2003), with Oehlberg et al (2009) With respect to the second factor, logbooks contain information that can be considered to provide evidence of design intent, alternatives, and rationale, such as sketches, calculations, and meeting notes (McAlpine et al, 2006;Sobek, 2002). The importance of this content is illustrated by Subrahmanian et al (1997) who show that "design history and rationale are continually being lost and that this loss can result in the need to recreate the rationale of a design.…”

The Design of Visual Information Objects in Three-Dimensional Virtual Environments for Engineering Information Navigation

“…Engineering Information Management (EIM) then aids the efficient capture and dissemination of information in support of business processes, whether they be software application or business processes/practices themselves (Rangan and Chadha, 2001). Engineering information usage can range from supplier information to records of previous designs (Allen et al, 2000) recorded in the forms of written notes, sketches and printed CAD drawings with annotations to name a few examples (McAlpine et al, 2006). A whole life-cycle approach to engineering and engineering information can improve the engineering process, for example, a product's end of life condition data being fed back into the design and manufacture to produce a more robust evolution of the design (Pnueli and Zussman, 1997).…”