Case Study 4 - Use of LauLima to Support an Engineering Design Team in Conceptual Design
Note that all of the LauLima Case Studies have been written based on the HEFCE 'Effective Practice with e-Learning' Template. (© HEFCE 2004).
Institution Name
The University of Strathclyde
Background
A group of 3rd year Product Design Engineering students were asked to work in teams of four to rapidly design a fruit squeezer. The project was organised and run over six weeks using LauLima, a web-based piece of collaborative software, in addition to a weekly session in the design studio. The design studio is a large open-plan space where teams can work in groups and be informally coached by the staff.
Intended Outcomes
The aim of using LauLima in the classroom was to use the system as collaborative software, or 'groupware', to help student teams gather, structure and use information as part of a design project. This involved allowing time at the start of the design process to construct several digital information resources based around related design topics, which would then be used as part of teams' concept generation. This meant students selected and organised information knowing they would have to reuse it.
The Challenge
For student design engineers, the concept generation stage of the design process is usually one of the most creative, but poses problems in handling large amounts of information when developing new ideas. Storing such information digitally potentially makes its retrieval and utilisation quicker and easier. By making LauLima an integral part of the design project, it improved the access, storage and communication of design information.
Established Practice
To create well-substantiated concepts, students are required to quickly grasp the pertinent subject matter, and research has shown that creating and sharing relevant documents can help this process. Students find many current resources unresponsive when trying to inform their concept design work.
The e-learning Advantage
Each team was provided with a private file gallery where they could upload images and files, and create Wiki pages (similar to web pages but quickly and easily updatable) where they could create hierarchies and links for this information. The emphasis of the project was on constructing Wiki pages, which acted as a set of structured links to guide the user through the information rather than just storing it in file galleries. This encouraged students to interact with the resources and made them consider the relationships between the resources they had created. Information in the file galleries and Wiki pages and, importantly, how it is structured and linked, captures the tacit knowledge created during the design process.
Each team was provided with a Wiki page template in LauLima and asked to develop three diverse concepts, and to provide images, a summary and links to the relevant information they utilised in each. Although digital photography and scanning facilities were provided, the process of recording the process digitally was found to be onerous, especially the scanning of hand-drawn sketches, and this raises the issue of inhibiting the free-flowing nature of concept generation. The template was intended to minimise the work required in transferring information into the digital domain. The benefit for the students was that they could then create a document where all information relating to their design was stored, and could link directly to relevant information.
Key Points for Effective Practice
After a few initial problems when the students were familiarising themselves with the system, LauLima was generally regarded as a useful tool. Peaks in activity in the LauLima environment were recorded as the weekly deadlines approached, but the greatest was during the 3rd week - the concept generation stage. There were two ways of searching for resources but students preferred to browse rather than search using keywords. It seemed they were more familiar with this method of searching on-line due to browsing the Internet, and there was the additional suggestion that browsing suited the spontaneous and open-ended nature of idea generation. In future projects, more support and better preparation is needed in terms of keyword and description use as this is a skill students are generally unfamiliar with.
It was observed that the best concepts were those produced by teams that had interacted more with the stored resources. These teams also had a greater number of references to the information sources utilised in their concept templates. This suggests that reflection improves learning through accessing and interacting with information. Additionally, to organise and structure the information it was necessary to think about relationship (hierarchy and priority) and the Wiki page format allowed the students to do this. It could also be argued, however, that the more successful teams had, in fact, spent more time creating an information resource and the high number of hits from information seekers was simply a result of this.
Conclusions and Recommendations
A digital repository has been shown to have a positive effect on concept generation, despite the logistical problems with moving information into the digital domain. By integrating the information search and organisation element into the design project, students were able to better interact with the information they would be using. This was evidenced by the improved concept generation work of teams which had: created hierarchical and well constructed topic information resources; a high number of 'hits' on their Wiki pages; clear references to information used in concept design templates; and instances of 'topic-led' designs where the research carried out by a group clearly influenced design direction.
The system would be applicable in any situation where students are required to find, share, organise and use information. This is particularly useful when they are working in teams, as the collaborative software provides a platform to allow asynchronous as well as synchronous working. Consideration must be given, however, to the time involved in learning how to use the system and the implications of uploading paper-based material to a digital repository.
Additional Information
The LauLima system was developed as part of the DIDET Project. LauLima is now available for download alongside further project information, including additional case studies demonstrating different types of uses of the system.
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