Dear All,
Following up my early comments on the Research Training Initiative website,
and Chris Rust's supportive reply, I thought it might be useful to clarify
the focus of the site. The principal audience for RTI is research students
in art, design and media. The fact that this is both narrower (level of
study) and broader (subject fields) than might be implied by an online
resource center for design research raises some important issues.
I actually think there is a value in the simplicity of the original proposal
(from Paul Gutherson I think) of a folder to put things in. This has three
important potential benefits: a) it is organic, that is it does not set out
resource creation but builds on the activities in the field, simply
collating them for the benefit of a wider audience. If it becomes necessary
to subdivide material in some way this might be as a result of what is
submitted; b) it is non-prescriptive, I'm not in favour of drawing too many
boundaries. This issue is raised by the examples Ken offered from other
fields. Most of these seem to me to have a very clear subject focus.
Research in design, let alone in art, design and media seems to me to
represent a greater diversity; and c) it is does not imply the overheads
associated with a more elaborate model. Its users should also be its
contributors. I am well aware from my work on RTI of the difficulty of
maintaining such this kind of resource and keeping it up to date. In
thinking of the topic that set this thread running, low-cost solutions with
available materials should at least be considered!
My offer was intended in that light, and as a way of making the material
available to a wide body of research students. The RTI is on the internet
and openly accessible to any one. The problems Ken referred to are
technical and the result of unfortunate timing [btw. apologies for those who
have had problems accessing the site, I hope to have these problems resolved
quickly].
Regards
Darren
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