Collaborative Design Development Research Articles

The impact of sharing platforms on collaborative design development during emergencies: the case of COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in an emergency of projects developed, shared and produced by makers, fablabs and open source enthusiasts. These projects are often released in design sharing platforms, e.g. Thingiverse, Github and Instructables, under open source licenses. It is often argued that the release of such projects holds potential for enhancing collaboration, continuous development and design dissemination. These arguments have been subject of recent studies on the structure of maker/Open Design communities and sharing platforms. This study aims to contribute to the on-going debate on the potentialities of such communities. We adopt an explorative approach to (i) identify the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on the activity volume of Thingiverse, the object of our study, (ii) analyze the designs metadata and its network patterns, and (iii) identify interaction patterns based on real-world localities. Based on our findings we comment on the importance of the maker/Open Design communities to tackle critical situations and highlight the current limitations for a wider dissemination of open source designs. Our findings may contribute to build better tools for designers and enthusiasts of the maker/open culture as well as to studies on collaborative development.

The impact of sharing platforms on collaborative design development during emergencies: the case of COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak resulted in an emergency of projects developed, shared and produced by makers, fablabs and open source enthusiasts. These projects are often released in design sharing platforms, e.g. Thingiverse, Github and Instructables, under open source licenses. It is often argued that the release of such projects holds potential for enhancing collaboration, continuous development and design dissemination. These arguments have been subject of recent studies on the structure of maker/Open Design communities and sharing platforms. This study aims to contribute to the on-going debate on the potentialities of such communities. We adopt an explorative approach to (i) identify the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak on the activity volume of Thingiverse , the object of our study, (ii) analyze the designs metadata and its network patterns, and (iii) identify interaction patterns based on real-world localities. Based on our findings we comment on the importance of the maker/Open Design communities to tackle critical situations and highlight the current limitations for a wider dissemination of open source designs. Our findings may contribute to build better tools for designers and enthusiasts of the maker/open culture as well as to studies on collaborative development.

Enhancing collaborative learning in Web 2.0-based e-learning systems: A design framework for building collaborative e-learning contents

Today, the implication of Web 2.0 technologies in e-learning allows envisaging new teaching and learning forms, advocating an important place to the collaboration and social interaction. However, in e-learning systems, learn in a collaborative way is not always so easy because one of the difficulties when arranging e-learning courses can be that these courses are not adapted to this type of learning based on collaboration. In most of time, these courses are constructed individually, a way that does not stimulate collaborative and social learning. This work is at the heart of this issue. It seeks to find conceptual solutions for computer design and development of pedagogical knowledge, which should be in adequacy with current e-learning practices based on Web 2.0 features: collaborative e-learning. Thus, this paper presents a process of online and collaborative design-development of e-learning contents as concept maps, process which takes place in an online environment. The novel aspect of this approach is that the content generated following the proposed process is becoming less the product of a single author, but this is the result of a team work, and is adapted to collaborative e-learning practices. The paper describes the proposed process, presents the architecture of the implemented environment and exposes the adopted technical choices. The paper presents also the results of the experimentation of the framework in a realistic situation, which is based on the analysis of collected traces of a group of teachers (n = 30). The results found validate the interest of teachers involved toward the proposed approach.

Development of CDPM matrix for the measurement of collaborative design performance in construction

Abstract The widely realized importance of collaborative design and work has led to the development of frameworks/tools to support collaboration in the construction industry. However, there is a lack of widely accepted indicators and criteria to assess the performance of collaborative designs. This paper aims to develop a matrix which could be used to measure the performance of a collaborative design. The criteria involved will, in turn, provide a guideline for the improvement of the final design output. The research involved a literature review and in-depth focus group workshops. The outcome of the study is a collaborative design performance measurement (CDPM) matrix that addresses 6 indicators and 42 detailed criteria. The matrix can be applied to support design teams in measuring and improving their performance, by reviewing and modifying collaborative design development, identifying the design team strengths and weaknesses, improving communication and suggesting suitable responsive actions.

The Contrast Study on the Method of STEP/XML Data Transformation

Heterogeneous data sharing is always a bottleneck problem for the development of collaborative design. The method of STEP/XML element mapping achieves the data transformation between STEP and XML by establishing the mapping relationship of the two data. It’s hard to ensure all element mapping one to one and easy to cause the partial data loss. Based on the research, this paper put forward a new method with data encapsulation. It encapsulates the whole STEP data into the XML data by using of the XML character data, and then the data are uploaded to the collaborative design platform. Another designer can download it and get the original STEP data by using the XML parser. This method is not only easy to be realized, but also can ensure the integrity of the product model data conversion. It is more conducive to achieve collaborative design.

Development of a design performance measurement matrix for improving collaborative design during a design process

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how to measure collaborative design performance and, in turn, improve the final design output during a design process, with a clear objective to develop a design performance measurement (DPM) matrix to measure design project team members' design collaboration performances.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology adopted in this research uses critical literature reviews, in‐depth focus group interviews and a questionnaire survey.FindingsThe main finding of this study is a DPM matrix that addresses five DPM indicators: efficiency, effectiveness, collaboration, management skill, and innovation, and 25 detailed DPM criteria. It was found that decision‐making efficiency is the most important DPM criterion for collaborative design efficiency; plus delivering to the brief for effectiveness; clear team goal/objectives for collaboration; decision‐making ability for management skill; and competitive advantage for innovation.Research limitations/implicationsAs the present study was focused on exploring DPM during a design process, some key DPM criteria which are not measurable during a design development process were not included in this study. The proposed multi‐feedback approach for DPM matrix implementation needs to be validated in future research.Practical implicationsThe DPM matrix can be applied to support a design manager in measuring and improving collaborative design performance during a design process, by reviewing and modifying collaborative design development, identifying the design team strengths and weaknesses, improving team communication, and suggesting suitable responsive actions.Originality/valueThe major contribution of this study is the investigation and development of a DPM matrix to measure collaborative design performance during a design process.

Genetic Algorithm-Based Multiobjective Optimization for Building Design

Large-scale building design is a constantly evolving process where design managers are always trying to identify means of producing a ‘better’ product in a ‘shorter’ period of time. Hence there is a need for design tools that can help designers better manage collaborative design development. It is becoming difficult to improve the performance of building design based only on improvements in individual disciplines. For this reason, better, system-orientated, holistic, multidisciplinary approaches to building design are needed. This article investigates the applicability of a multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) methodology in building design. MDO methods divide a single system into a group of smaller subsystems to effectively manage interactions between them. In the context of building design, the system refers to building design as a whole, whereas subsystems represent the various design disciplines or parts of the building, for example spatial zones. Such an approach could reduce the time and cost associated with the multidisciplinary design cycle. As an outcome of this research, a Pareto genetic algorithm-based collaborative optimization (PGACO) framework is developed to support interactions between multiple disciplinary tasks and to coordinate conflicting design objectives. The article demonstrates how the PGACO framework can be applied to a multiobjective multidisciplinary optimization problem. The framework is also tested on a simple mathematical example.