DESIGN EDUCATION STRATEGY

DESIGN EDUCATION
TOPIC:
KEYWORDS: DESIGN EDUCATION, CREATIVE EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:

Seeking their way to develop products more efficiently leading companies are changing their traditional position
regarding suppliers, competitors and customers. Modern product development requires the collaboration and
communication of engineering designers in multidisciplinary teams.
It is a usual practice to involve suppliers and customers into the product development process.
It is a common opinion that current educational systems do not prepare future designers for the reality of the design
offices in the companies where design process is performed over the globe.

Being aware that individuals have been researching and publishing about designing since Roman times, it is
surprising how little we know about designing and how uneven the knowledge has been studied between various
design domains and disciplines. The same holds for the design education. In the USA and many other parts of the
world, engineering design education seems to have been more or less neglected for decades [1].
Sometimes the personal views can dominate such as:
" …much of design theory and methodology is either intellectually uninteresting or too sophisticated to be of any
use in undergraduate teaching…’ West in a 'A Criticism of an undergraduate design curriculum' on DTM 91 [2];
or
"The dominant opinion is that the possibilities which are offered by technical means are not used to advantage, and
that favourable chances are neglected." (Quoted from the position paper of the Conference on Pedagogic of Design
Education by V. Hubka & E. Eder in Pilsen).
The design education system (as well as in other sciences) requires teaching deliberated of attitudes gained through
formal and informal education. The objective of the design education system is to prepare future designers so they
can analyse as well as synthesise. This is quite different from the certain training schemes which intent to train
students to reproduce the original pattern of learning at work.

CONTRIBUTION OF THE PAPER:

Although Design Education topic was present on the ICED conferences it seems to be the most questionable topic of
the ICED conferences. However on the closing presentation of the ICED 99 conference the knowledge was referred
as " the fifth production factor" the most mobile resource, that can be "gathered and distributed without
displacement of labour".
In the article we will argue the thesis that universities do not manage the information as the essential part of
knowledge system well. They loose information, duplicate it and even they do not know what they know. Insisting
on skill the context of knowledge is overlooked.

CONCLUSION:
We will elaborate the need for educational strategy that includes research strategy, teaching and learning strategy,
information technology strategy, human resource strategy, and knowledge management strategy. The obvious
answer may be the knowledge management methods should be used in engineering design education. Hopefully the
article will try to answer on the question is there a significant overlapping in the design education and the
knowledge management research.

REFERNCES:
1. Dixon, J.,R.: (1990) The neglect of engineering design, California Management Review, winter 1990, p 9-23.
2. Roozenburg, N. (1993): Books and publications in Design Studies V 14 N o2 p 224
3. DESIGN EDUCATION workshop on 6th International Design Conference, Dubrovnik May 2000
4. ICED xx series , Pilsen ....

Engineering education – full education

Engineering – puting things together (seems, instctively we like it), playing
 MATEST 99

Global university stretegy

Capacity
Facilities
Technology
Integration
Innovation
Workforce
Procedures and planning
Management and organisation