IDSA publishes a selection of peer-reviewed academic education papers each year. These are collected during a community-wide open call period when design educators and practitioners submit materials for review by a group of judges serving on IDSA’s Academic Jury. The program also helps provide content for the annual Education Symposium, where some authors are invited to present their work from the stage to a live audience. To view the full Education Papers jury please visit meet the jury page.
The Design Essay Assignment
The paper advocates for a greater emphasis on critical thinking and critical writing by describing and discussing the rationale and implementation of the Design Essay assignment, an applied example of how practice and reflection combined can help students to
Author: Fernando Carvalho, Tom Hurford, Ian Campbell Cole
Company / School: San Francisco State University, Nottingham Trent University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
Case Studies of Academic Research Through and for Industrial Design Practice with Impact Beyond Journal Publication
The last 30 years have seen significant expansion of academic design research. This has been on a general level, such as ways in which designers think and the nature of design knowledge, but also in the practitioner disciplines, including
Author: Dr. Mark Evans, FIDSA
Company / School: Loughborough University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
A Track-Based Approach Within an Existing Program
The magnitude of the upcoming social, economic, and technological changes is expected to be unprecedentedly massive. As the term “the fourth Industrial Revolution” implies, the tectonic changes will thoroughly reshape today’s industry and subsequently require industrial design programs at
Author: Jeongbin Ok
Company / School: Victoria University of Wellington
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
The Hybrid Space Between Science and Culture
After multiple decades in the College of Engineering, the Industrial Design program at Brigham Young University has been transferred back to the College of Fine Arts into the recently re-formed Department of Design where it will be redefined and
Author: Richard E. Fry
Company / School: Brigham Young University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Design Letter
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
Enhancing Students’ Capabilities with Hands-On Injection Molding Production
Desktop injection molding machines and stereolithographic printed molds make hands-on injection molding production possible in design studio classrooms and labs. Direct experience designing molds and parts for injection molding and producing the molds and parts is valuable, relevant experience
Author: Kiersten Muenchinger
Company / School: University of Oregon
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
Assigning a Design Brief the Students Aren’t Ready For
Each spring, American industrial design students team up with Irish industrial design students to complete a 24-hour design sprint. This year the leading professors steered the project away from traditional product outcomes and challenged the students to forecast a
Author: Benjamin Bush
Company / School: Auburn University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
A Graduate Industrial Design Studio Case Study
Looking for an impactful project for your studio class? Design educators often look for projects that are impactful, meaningful, motivational, engaging, relatively low cost, fit within the time frame, and produce results that are testable and are publishable/patentable. There
Author: George K. Chow
Company / School: University of Houston
- 2022
- Paper Type: Case Study
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
Building Community-Based Co-Design Projects with Older Asian Communities in Philadelphia
There is a lack of studies that focus on the needs and voices of older Asian adults in design research. Anti-Asian hate crimes, especially towards senior Asians, have increased across the country after the breaking out of the Covid-19
Author: Juanjuan ‘June’ He, Khue Dao, Zhengdong ‘Michael’ Zhu, Theresa Jordan, Jouri Abdulmajeed Ghazi, Amjot Kaur
Company / School: Drexel University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Academic Research
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
A Study for Revitalization of Academia’s Capabilities After the Pandemic-Driven Shift
This paper endeavors to identify challenges faced by academia during the global pandemic along with the physical and psychological states of students which affect their design and learning processes; and to propose novel approaches for employing new methodologies and
Author: Mekin Elcioglu, PhD.
Company / School: Kansas State University
- 2022
- Paper Type: Academic Research
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect
A Case Study on Paper Prototyping of Smart Footwear
During the pandemic, we leveraged resources from academia and industry to explore new and creative ways to conduct hybrid participatory workshops emphasizing product and service prototyping during the Human-Centered Design (HCD) process. In this paper, we define a “hybrid”
Author: Sheng-Hung Lee, Ziyuan Zhu, Chaiwoo Lee, Maria C. Yang, Joseph F. Coughlin
Company / School: MIT Integrated Design & Management, MIT AgeLab, MIT School of Architecture & Planning, MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT Ideation Labratory
- 2022
- Paper Type: Academic Research
- Education Symposium Theme: (Re)Connect