Dear Alec, Beryl, Mike,

Thanks for three good posts.

(1)

Alec, I appreciate your courteous note.

Saw in appended note to Conall that you are concerned about hostility
toward you on my part. If there seems to have been any, please forgive me.
There was none intended.

Yesterday only, as I wrote, I was angry. Your note cleared things up. Thank
you.

(2)

Beryl's challenge is worth while. I've been working on an answer as I wrote
off-list to her. I hope others are doing the same.

Beryl notes that she has received a lot of good off-list comment from
people who have not posted. This is unfortunate. Rich dialogue builds a
field.

I've received over the month of the debate some 30 or 40 posts from people
with views for and against my own. I've urged most of them to post. Only a
few have done so. Can't say why. While some people have been concerned that
I'd challenge them vigorously on opposing views, this wouldn't explain the
failure of those who agree with me to post supporting but somewhat
divergent views.

One issue Beryl raised is truly significant.

Beryl has noticed the difficulty of finding proper site-based information
on doctoral programs in design.

To have this information available would be important.

At different times over the past year, I've gone surfing to different
European university design programs and design schools that I know offer
doctoral programs. The information is difficult to find. Sometimes it
doesn't exist at all. This often extends to the offerings at master's level
and one sometimes finds little concrete information on programs or faculty
at all.

It's hard to find anything comparable to the rich data available on good US
university sites.

The kinds of data I have sought include: general department information,
faculty bibliographies and biographies, PhD program requirements, PhD
admission requirements, PhD thesis requirements, lists of completed thesis
projects, overview of graduated students, roster of current research
projects, list of activities. Sometimes it is even hard to find such basics
as tuition costs or who to contact.

In some cases, I have discovered this information isn't even available on
paper!

I recognize that it takes time to get this up on the Web. Six years ago, I
took part in the group that persuaded my school to launch its Web site.
Four years ago, I proposed posting certain kinds of faculty project and
research information on our Web site. At different times, groups of our
faculty have worked to develop information standards, site facilities and
other resources, and some of them are up and running. It's an ongoing
process. Over the past four years, we have had two Web redesigns, a
relatively unsuccessful department level web project to get departments on
the web, and several other initiatives. Some initiatives and web services
have worked well. Others haven't.

Now we have a new vice president of communications and a new web editor. We
are just finally beginning to move toward a comprehensive site with all
data available for all faculty members, all departments, all programs and
more.

We know we need to do it and we're working at it. There are recognized
standards of information that university-level schools and schools with
research mater's degrees and doctoral programs should meet. Implicit in
Beryl's suggestion is the notion that design schools with doctoral programs
must do the same.

During this debate, I have had occasion to visit h web sites of some
American universities with doctoral programs in design. Two that stand out
are Harvard University School of Design and Illinois Institute of
Technology. For other reasons, I've looked at the School of Information at
University of California at Berkeley, and at some of the master's and
undergraduate programs at Carnegie Mellon, at Curtin University in
Australia, and at BC Tech.

In working on the programs of my own school, I am noting the difference in
levels of information and quality of information at all levels and making
notes. If I were in a design school with a doctoral program, I'd be doing
the same.

One important difference that the design schools face is the difference in
university level information. In the US and Canada, much of this
information is found at the university level. In Europe, it seems often to
be left to departments. When the departments don't provide it, it doesn't
exist.

This is an issue for consideration.

(3)

Mike's post made good sense to me.

I was not offering a criticism of all British programs. Mike knows my
appreciation for his work and for the work of many of our colleagues.

Nevertheless, I do see the forces within the British university system that
can lead to doctoral programs and graduate studies working as a cash cow.
Beyond this, some of my British colleagues complain that they are under
explicit pressure by some of their own faculty members to reduce doctoral
standards. One reason specifically involves meeting the market demand
rather than lose students to other schools.

I'm not going to document the specific cases. First, much of what I have
learned, I have learned in confidence. Second, that way lies libel action.
Although truth is complete defense against libel, I do not need the trouble.

The way to remove any suspicion that a school is running a cash cow
involves good public information, well structured sites and good catalogues
giving program criteria, admission standards, faculty information, and the
like.

This is just the kind of thing Beryl couldn't find. I've had the same
problem. So have several British doctoral supervisors trying to assemble
information for benchmarking their own programs.

One more issue would genuinely clear the air. That is publication of
theses. In the United States, this has not involved publishing a book and
trying to circulate it. It has involved the University Microfilms
International system of publishing on demand via microform and
microform-to-xerox reprints.

These publishing facilities are backed up and made even more useful by DAI,
Dissertation Abstracts International. DAI in print and now on the web makes
it possible to search he database of all doctoral dissertations by title,
subject, and keyword, and it enhances the flow of scholarly information.

This serves many important purposes. It makes possible the exchange of
information and the growth of knowledge within and across fields. It also
makes it possible for anyone to learn about the work, research, and
graduates of any other school.

If we are to develop as a field, it's time that we began taking seriously
the challenge of scholarly communication, of sharing resources and results.
This particularly involves taking seriously the standard of an original
contribution to the field of knowledge. A project must be available to the
field to contribute to the field.

Having been a publisher in a past life, I have been looking into finding
some way to publish and distribute these kinds of projects, and finding a
way to record and abstract the information. I haven't succeeded yet. It's a
matter of bringing together the resources of a major publisher and a market
of active and interested users.

One of the most intriguing business objections to such a program is the
fact that European publishers see no evidence at this time that designers,
design research scholars and design schools would be willing to do the kind
of work required to take part in such a scheme. American publishers aren't
interested for another reason. The American schools already do it under
standard university-wide regulations, and this means the market need is
met.

I did something not unlike this once before in another field, so I will
keep at it a while. A strong commitment from the schools themselves to
organize and make available their own research in some form would go a long
way. (University level design schools in nations with a lively doctoral
monograph tradition already do this, but they aren't yet good about sharing
information or knowledge on the monographs they publish.)

I'll close with two brief notes. For my part, all comments are welcomed,
brief, or long. I've never argued against the brief. I've openly stated the
importance of a robust, well-developed argument in what was called as a
formal debate.

Some of the best questions and comments here have been short.

I'll disagree on one issue. If those two students found the debate "all a
bit blokey and points scoring really," they haven't read the archive
carefully.

This debate started on April 7. It involves far more people than most DRS
threads with nearly 50 participants in contrast with the average of five or
six. There has been something like 130 contributions. Printed in Times 12
on A4 paper, the thread runs over 300 pages of deep and often reflective
material.

These archives will reveal many topics:

articulating a philosophy of design,
analyzing the epistemological dimensions of design theory,
explaining the development of the PhD from the 9th century to the 21st,
examining the difference between guild education and research training,
comparing research methods in anthropology and design,
distinguishing between kinds of doctorate,
comparing engineering or physics training with design research training . . .

and more.

I'd accept the students' opinion if they had simply said, "This subject
doesn't interest us." Saying they weren't interested because it was all
"blokey . . . point scoring" suggests they grazed, but they didn't browse.
They didn't hunt by topics nor read the topics through.

A content analysis by topic, author, content structure, and amount of
material devoted to each theme will reveal a robust debate. This thread was
convened as a formal debate. A debate organizes and presents evidence in
the light of theory or principle. Debaters attend to challenges and
queries, responding to challenges, incorporating valid new ideas, and
modifying views.

In this sense, every learned debate involves scoring some kind of point.
Putting ideas forward and subjecting them to challenge is part of the
research process.

Debate isn't always the best way to move forward. This time I decided to
try a formal debate and I felt obliged to live up to my public offer to
meet all challenges.

I am about to end my debate. I owe Jean Schneider the second half of my
response to his deep questions, and I owe a note to Luis Pereira. Then I'll
summarize and be done.

The sea welcomes all fish:

And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures,
And let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky."
So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves,
of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every bird of every kind.

-- Genesis 1:20-21

Best regards,

Ken




Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management

+47 22.98.51.07 Direct line
+47 22.98.51.11 Telefax

Home office:

+46 (46) 53.245 Telephone
+46 (46) 53.345 Telefax

email: [log in to unmask]




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