Dear Friends,

The interest that emerged with respect to the post on research skills is truly gratifying. In addition to on-list notes, I’ve had several off-list notes asking whether I am available for workshops.

The answer is, “Yes.” If you are interested, please write to me off-list at:

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First, I’d like to let you know about useful workshops in the UK and Europe that you or your school can use to improve the quality of research development and doctoral education.

For those in the UK, the Design Advanced Research Training (DART) is one of the best workshops going. David Durling established it several years ago with funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. Working with a consortium of universities, DART organizes an intensive seminar for research students and staff from participating universities. Each student develops aresearch paper with coaching and training from expert reviewers. These include experienced professors, journal editors, and senior academics. Following the first intensive seminar, students return to their home university to polish and “resubmit” their paper. At the end of the process, students attend a model conference at which they present the paper. This is a trial run for the real experience.

Unlike model conferences where students meet for a single round of presentations without detailed and focused feedback, the DART program givesstudents the full experience. They get valuable coaching and mentoring in every step of the process.

While the DART program may be taking a new shape, the DART web site remains live and active – with a rich trove of useful resources and materials. To learn more about DART, go to URL:

http://dartevents.org/hello.html

Tim Smithers has a different approach. Tim offers workshops for individual departments or faculties to help staff and research students develop four crucial skill sets. The skills are designing and building a critical state of the art review to identify gaps in the knowledge of the field; designing and documenting a research program; identifying and acquiring key research skills, techniques, and methods; writing up the research for solid research publications. Depending on the needs and the situation, Tim can focus on a single component in the series. He also blends live workshops with follow-up Skype coaching. Tim lives in Spain, so he is ideally located for workshops in Europe.

If you’d like to contact Tim, you can reach him at:

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While I visit Europe once or twice a year, I mostly work in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. My approach starts with a research writing workshop. I focus on the writing and editorial process with feedback and coaching. It’s half-way between the DART approach and Tim’s approach. I find that working with people to develop and clarify a paper or an article builds the skills and experience that enable authors to move from idea to finished manuscript. Along the way, participants develop key forms of understanding and background knowledge that lead to better research and better publications.

For workshops to improve doctoral supervision, I work with Deirdre Barron, our Associate Dean for Research. Deirdre has a twin background with a PhD in education and senior research experience as the graduate research director of our university. She helps supervisors work with structured learning and pedagogical planning to move PhD students forward.

In recent years, I’ve added distance methods to my repertoire. Last year, I had an excellent experience using Skype to teach at University of New Mexico with Jack Ox, and this offers opportunities for special seminars and for post-workshop interaction.

For those who will attend IASDR 2013 in Tokyo, there are workshops and doctoral programs planned. IASDR 2011 in Delft included a fine doctoral colloquium, and this experience was the beginning of a good international cooperative venture.

Our field represents many research traditions and opportunities. These draw on different methods and approaches. Design research takes place in many settings: lab, field, showroom, and studio; meeting room, factory floor, simulator, think-and-do-tank; workshop, seminar, and library. As different and divergent as our multiple traditions may be, they all incorporate some form of clinical, applied, or basic research. Many involve some form of practice, as comparable traditions in medicine, nursing, or engineering do. What these different approaches share in common is that research is a mental act. We must think as well as do. We must write up our research and we must publish it for others in our field to understand and use it. Unless someone is lucky enough to work with us in our lab or studio, people must read our research publications to adapt and apply our methods and findings to their own work.

Building knowledge across the field therefore requires a core set of common research skills. These skills support many methods and approaches. We share many skills and habits of mind with the social and behavioral sciences, with the humanities, and with some natural sciences, as well as with philosophy.

Whatever specific interests anyone may have in doing design research, crucial skills include designing and building a critical state of the art review; designing and documenting a research program; identifying and acquiring key research skills, techniques, and methods; and writing for publication. Developing these skills and helping researchers to develop these skills is the core of research training.

This kind of training is not yet as common as it should be. That’s why the books I posted to the list are so valuable. This approach is at the core of serious research training programs. If our field had more solid, uncompromising programs modeled on DART, our research would develop far more rapidly and at a higher level.

Best regards,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China




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