Overcoming the challenges of global collaboration through design education

Abstract

The challenges of integrating technology in global design classes have been published in the literature, but it is unclear if this knowledge makes its way back to the classroom. This paper investigates knowledge transfer by documenting the results of four workshops across two institutions and two distributed design classes. Participants were asked to identify the challenges of distributed design, the functionality of technologies to overcome the challenges and guidance on how best to perform distributed design to best help future students. 17 challenges, 10 functionalities and 8 guidelines were developed. The identification of challenges, functionalities and subsequent guidance created can be utilised to assist future students and educators of distributed design. Analysis of gaps in the knowledge identify where theories have not been transferred from literature to the classroom and will help to identify how best to fill the gaps in knowledge. The workshops also present a novel way to engage students in analysing their own collaborative work practices.