JISCCNI Meeting

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the projecta joint project with
Strathclyde and Stanford Universities
digital libraries for global distributed
innovative design education and teamwork
JISC/CNI Meeting 6th July 2006
Neal Juster (University of Strathclyde) Larry
Leifer (Stanford University) n.p.juster_at_strath.ac.
uk leifer_at_cdr.stanford.edu
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the projecta joint
project with Strathclyde and Stanford Universities
digital libraries for global distributed
innovative design education and teamwork
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Project Programme
JISC/NSF Project 2003-2008 Digital Libraries
in the Classroom Programme

• Transform the education process using
  innovative applications of emerging technologies
  and electronic resources

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Project Team

• One of four US/UK collaborations in DLIC
  Programme
• Stanford University
• Center for Design Research
• Department of Mechanical Engineering
• Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford
• University of Strathclyde
• Department of Design, Manufacture
• and Engineering Management (DMEM)
• Centre for Academic Practice and
• Learning Enhancement (CAPLE)
• Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR)
• Learning Services

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Partner roles

• Stanford
• Laboratory based experiments
• small numbers 10-40
• Understanding impact of ICT and coaching on
  design teams and processes
• Strathclyde
• Adoption of ICT and pedagogy (including coaching)
  in classroom
• large numbers 40-180
• Evaluation of impact on student learning
• Both
• Global student design projects

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Project Vision

• To enhance student learning opportunities by
  enabling them to participate in global team-based
  design engineering projects that give them
  experience of working within multi-cultural
  contexts. Make this possible through a range of
  information and communication technologies.

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Project objectives

• Teach engineering information retrieval,
  manipulation, and archiving skills
• Measure the use of those skills in design
  projects
• Measure the learning performance affected by the
  provision of usually difficult to access
  information
• Measure how alternative sources of information
  and ICT affects performance in different cultural
  contexts
• Use the measurement results to annually redesign
  course content and digital library use

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Nature of Design Engineering

• Negotiation and resolution of open ended design
  scenarios
• Distributed/global design projects need
  collaborative working area and communication
  tools
• Need access to as wide a range of information as
  possible on demand
• Engineering skills must be complemented with
  information literacy skills
• All design is re-design

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Design knowledge framework
Eris 03
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Design knowledge framework
INFORMAL
FORMAL
Learning Loop 3
Instructor
PD History
Learning Loop 2
Tacit PD Knowledge
Formalized PD Knowledge
Learning Facilitator
Learners
PD Practice
Coach
Process
Team
Learning Loop 1
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Informal Design Knowledge

• Informal knowledge is found in casual design
  documents (notes, sketches, photos, email, blogs,
  draft documents)
• Informal knowledge is created during design
  activity and reflection.
• Authorship is often ambiguous
• Difficult to capture, share and re-use
• How do we support students to do this?

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Classroom Model

• Project-based design learning
• hands on approach, learn by doing
• open-ended scenarios demanding creativity
• no pre-defined information requirements
• no right answer
• Learner support
• blended learning
• coaching team
• Approach to Project-based learning
• find, create, and reuse information
• using the widest possible range of resources

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System

• Wiki based system LauLima
• Developed from open source wiki Tikiwiki
• Extensively customised and enhanced
• Powerful permissions system for wiki pages and
  file gallery file storage system
• Two discrete parts to LauLima system Learning
  Environment (LLE) and Digital Library (LDL)

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LauLima Digital Library (LDL) longer
term reuse by staff and students
INFORMAL DYNAMIC
FORMAL MORE PERMANENT
Storing and sharing content Group Collaboration/
Team communication Cross team activities Workfow
management (process) Manipulation of
information Capturing tacit information Knowledge
structuring
Retrieval of resources Reuse of student-generated
resources, design concepts and sharing
processes Quality assurance Metadata and
standards Granularity Browse/ search
LauLima system architecture
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INFORMAL DYNAMIC

• LLE groupware configured as a shared workspace
  and digital repository -
• hierarchical file galleries organise, store and
  share content
• wiki pages (interlinked web pages) share,
  construct, manage and present information, ideas
  and knowledge homepages, project logs, templates
• blogs
• communication tools shout facility, internal
  email, forums.

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INFORMAL DYNAMIC

• LLE supports -
• team working from any where at any time
  collaboration, communication and co-ordination
• content sharing within defined teams
  (permissions)
• progress and decision-making can be recorded,
  revisited and reflected upon
• coaches can see progress recorded in the team
  logs and adjust support appropriately

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FORMAL MORE PERMANENT

• Digital Library (LDL) -
• Digital Library with browse and search
  functionalities
• Other contextual functionality (e.g. parse search
  queries to external services like EEVL, SMETE,
  University Library, etc.)
• Links to a comprehensive and authoritative set of
  external resources (e.g. patent information,
  major design engineering gateways / portals,
  etc.)

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FORMAL MORE PERMANENT

• Digital Library (LDL) supports -
• Longer term storage of quality resources
• Including student generated
• Retrieval of resources
• Reuse by staff in support of classes
• Reuse by students in design learning and project
  work

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LauLima

• Will be made available for free down load soon
• Conflicting shareware licences
• Being adopted more widely at Strathclyde and
  Stanford
• Growing use at other Universities

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Class contexts

• LauLima has been used in several teaching and
  learning contexts
• PDP industrial projects (4th 5th years)
• 40 teams of 4
• Cross-Atlantic operations management class
  project (2nd year)
• 100 students UK, 100 US (Iowa)
• Formula student (cross-departmental, several
  years)
• 40 students
• Paper bike
• 16 students 3 Universities (Olin College)
• See Larry

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Class contexts

• 3rd year product design engineering class,
  working in teams of 4
• 100 students total
• 6-week project to design and prototype a
• Can crusher (2003/04)
• Ice crusher (2004/05)
• Fruit squeezer (2005/06)
• Can crusher (2006/07)

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Class contexts
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Typical project format
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FORMAL
INFORMAL
Lecturer
LLE (practice, tacit knowledge)
LDL (process, formalised knowledge)
information from other sources
Team
Coach
Revised Design Knowledge Framework (after Eris,
2003)
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Changes to class framework

• The class has been altered over the last 3 years
  using LauLima to facilitate Project Based
  Learning improvements in the 3 loops of the
  Design Knowledge Framework

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Supporting the design processpool laptops

• Laptops were made available to teams during class
  they were encouraged to use them as project
  hubs

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Supporting the design processinterlinked Wiki
pages

• Students had to think about hierarchy of their
  resources - analysing, organising and reflecting.

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Supporting the design processconcept maps

• Creating a concept map encouraged students to
  reflect on what information was relevant.

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Coachingmulti-disciplinary design team

• The multi-disciplinary coaching team broadened
  the scope of the project.

Lecturer gave tailored mini-topics
highlighting key issues and tasks
Coaches provided on-going process and
technical support
student experience
Learning technologist provided on-going
information literacy support
Librarian gave tailored session on
information searching and sources
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Coachingtemplates as shareable learning objects

• Templates minimised work in transferring
  information, capturing rationale and linking
  resources to concepts.

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Formalising reusing contentharvesting material

• Staff harvest the best material when marking
  student sites then stored in LDL for both to
  use.

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Workflow LLE to LDL
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Formalising reusing contentmetadata

• Applying metadata encourages reflection, but
  burden of process must be minimised for staff
  and students.

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Effects on learning

• Feedback indicates LauLima is a useful tool -
  structured exercises and Information Literacy
  tutorials necessary.

Usage statistics for 6-week project
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Student survey

• This years graduating MEng cohort have used
  LauLima for 3 years.
• Comments from exit interviews
• Some felt forced to use LauLima
• Use in appropriate classes i.e. Global design
• Supports team management and information sharing
• Liked access to previous student examples
• Benchmark of quality not re-use!
• Staff find it useful to track progress students
  find it time consuming to upload files

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Conclusions

• Support
• Pool laptops provided project hub
• Wikis encouraged sharing and reflection in design
  process
• Concept maps helped create knowledge structures
• Coaching
• Necessary to provide IL as well as design support
  
• Structured logs can assist with autonomous
  learning
• Formalising knowledge
• Diverse resources go through two-stage process
  before being stored in LDL
• Student generated material provides a rich source
  of informal information that is difficult to
  obtain elsewhere.

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But

• Students still rely on sources they are familiar
  with
• Goggle not digital libraries
• Narrow and shallow search
• Student reluctance to add metadata
• Poor file descriptions and names
• icecrusher1, icecrusher2.
• Little recognition of need for metadata tagging

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Further information

• www.didet.ac.uk
• n.p.juster_at_strath.ac.uk
• leifer_at_cdr.stanford.edu

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Further Information

• System demo