Dear Anand,
Depending on how much effort you can expend on it, a good way to make
research studies available is to require an extended abstract or executive
summary with every thesis or dissertation and publish those (with trace
information) on a website that perhaps DRS could mount through JISC to serve
the field. But, generally speaking, unless they are very good and well
vetted even selected undergraduate theses are not usually competitive with
those from graduate/PhD programs.
By way of background, I once produced "A Directory to Industrial Design in
the United States (1992, Van Nostrand Reinhold) that contained profiles of
all "archives, museums,libraries and exhibition centers that collect,
interpret, support, research or exhibit industrial design", all
organizations (professional societies, research centers, etc) and "resources
of reference value to the field" (books, directories,etc) that included
descriptions of all the published theses that I could locate. Most of these
were in the Paul Garvin library at IIT and could be purchased for $5.00 +
.30 cents per page - which made them pretty expensive. UMI (University
Microfilms International) is a source for PhD dissertations that typically
range between 200 and 300 pages and are reproduced at a more reasonable
price. There one can find, for example, a PhD dissertation from New York
University "Consultant Industrial Designer in American Industry 1927-1960"
which J.Miekle described as "The first historical study which traces
institutionalization of the profession and discusses contemporary design
methods." as well as "Design Management Education: An alternative Approach
to Industrial Design Education in Developing Countries" a 1982 dissertation
for the ED. D degree from Columbia University Teachers College. I would bet
that there are many such studies unknown to design researchers or educators,
much less practitioners.
Best regards,
Chuck
--
Dr. Charles Burnette
234 South Third Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
215 629 1387
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On 1/4/07 6:56 AM, "Anand Ramakrishnan" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear List Members,
>
> In order to make design research done at the Undergraduate level more
> accessible and easily availble to other institutes, universities,
> faculties and students, if the insitute/university intends to
> selectively put into print some of the research, what would be the
> most appropriate format?
>
>
> What are the various formats in which such research is published world over?
>
>
> What are the copy-right issues raised by such formats wrt borrowed
> concent (viz. visuals, illustrations, quotes, etc) considering that
> the intent of publishing is purely academic?
>
>
> To further clarify, the general length of such theses is approximatey
> around 40000-60000 words. As per existing rules, a bound copy of the
> thesis is permanently kept in the university library however only for
> reference. No electronic version of the same is available in the
> library as yet. The university itself would be the publisher of the
> research.
>
> Would be grateful towards any advice in this regard,
>
> Best Wishes
>
> Anand Ramakrishnan.
> Chennai, India.
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