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Dear Martin, You wrote, ' Previous exchanges between us have not encouraged me to believe that your understanding of Art & Design is any deeper than mine is of Engineering.' What I wrote was with the background of working for over 10 years in University Art and Design departments undertaking research and teaching and being Postgraduate Research Coordinator in Art and Design and member of sundry Humanities Research Committees, while supervising 13 PhDs in Art, Art History, Product Design, Fashion, Service Design and System Design along with many Masters and Honours research projects and assessing even more PhDs, Masters, Honours projects as well as writing dozens of refereed papers, and reviewing many times that for design journals. So, I'm assuming your knowledge of Engineering is good. Best wishes, Terry -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Salisbury, Martin Sent: Friday, 26 January 2018 4:34 PM To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask] Subject: RE: What is a PhD...curriculum? Dear Terry, Thank you for your suggestions. Previous exchanges between us have not encouraged me to believe that your understanding of Art & Design is any deeper than mine is of Engineering. I shall therefore resist the temptation to engage in another territorial ding-dong and follow the Don Norman rule and 'sit back and smile'. Best regards, Martin Professor Martin Salisbury Course Leader, MA Children's Book Illustration Director, The Centre for Children's Book Studies Cambridge School of Art 0845 196 2351 [log in to unmask] http://www.cambridgemashow.com http://www.anglia.ac.uk/ruskin/en/home/microsites/ccbs.html ________________________________________ From: Terence Love [[log in to unmask]] Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2018 1:20 PM To: Salisbury, Martin; [log in to unmask] Subject: RE: What is a PhD...curriculum? Dear Martin, There is already a good precedent that resolves this situation of the PhD in Art and Design. Engineering used to be regarded as an art. Some time ago when it had just been brought into universities - it was regarded by engineers as practice-based art and even after a few years in universities research was in its very earliest stages. The development of Art and Design fields in universities now pretty well exactly maps onto that precedent of how engineering developed when it started to become included in universities. I suggest that EXACTLY the same key factors apply in the inclusion of Art and Design in universities now as applied in the inclusion of Engineering in universities then. The successful solution that emerged for Engineering is straightforward and simple and has three parts: The first part is awareness and clarity of the difference between research and professional practices. On the 'research;' side, the focus is on skills in the use of evidence and tough tight logical reasoning and deep philosophical logical analysis to be able to identify unambiguous theory findings that can be critically replicated. On the 'professional practices' side the focus is on skills in the use of creative methods to identify beneficial solutions and skills of explaining and justifying why these are good solutions in terms of the context. The second part is the use of the PhD primarily as an assessment of those skills in 'the use of evidence and tough tight logical reasoning and deep philosophical logical analysis to be able to identify unambiguous theory findings that can be critically replicated'. The third part is the use of the Engineering Doctorate, Deng, (DDes in Design) as the top level assessment of the skills in ' the use of creative methods to identify beneficial solutions and skills of explaining and justifying why these are good solutions in terms of the context.' The engineering precedent seems to be an exact fit for the situation (and an excellent solution) for Art and Design at the moment in universities. When Engineering arrived in universities, many engineering academics complained that the real need in the teaching was for practice-based skills. They argued that the PhD should be changed to also be awarded for practice-based skills. What happened, instead, however, was far more wonderful. Driven by the insistence of universities that the PhD focused focused on research, the Engineering disciplines massively improved in almost all aspects. The improvements occurred across the board as a result of highly increased amounts of research and theory-making being undertaken in line with the classic PhD format. The outcomes in turn improved engineering practice much faster than the traditional practice-based evolution. At the end of the day, through conventional research, Engineering became transformed and engineering outputs massively improved in quality and creativity. The traditional practice-based views of engineering still exist but the locus of university study has moved much more in the direction of research-based theory. Doctoral assessment is available for practice (the DEng) and amongst professional engineers it is often more highly valued than the PhD. Amongst academic engineers, the PhD remains more highly valued because it represents assessment of skills of research and logical reasoning that are more use in academia. So important and effective has been the transformation of engineering art into research and evidence-based theory development to support practice that memory of those early arguments claiming engineering was a practice-based art has almost disappeared. It is now widely accepted and easily demonstrated that a conventional research approach drives engineering creativity forward much more effectively. The same, I suggest, applies and is true of the Art and Design disciplines, and that the current discussions about the PhD in Art and Design exactly follow the precedent of Engineering - and the best solution is the same. I suggest that the current claims that the PhD in Art and Design should be changed to be practice-based assessment are part of the turmoil in the transition as it was in Engineering. The precedent of the Engineering Art indicates, however, that the outcomes will be better if the PhD is not changed. Of course, the above analysis may not be correct. I find it difficult, however, to see how the Art and Design case is significantly different form that of Engineering. I welcome your thoughts. Warm regards, Terry == Dr Terence Love Director Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre Perth, Western Australia [log in to unmask] www.designoutcrime.org +61 (0)4 3497 5848 == ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566 -- Please click here to view our e-mail disclaimer http://www.anglia.ac.uk/email-disclaimer ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------