Design to Improve Social Presence among University Students in Asynchronous Online Learning Environment

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online lectures are becoming more common in higher education. Specifically, asynchronous online classes have become increasingly popular because of their flexibility. Asynchronous online courses, however, may negatively impact students' academic performance and social development due to the diminished sense of social presence. To explore ways to enhance social presence among students in asynchronous online classes, this paper used a co-design methodology that involved 12 undergraduate students as primary stakeholders. As a result, we developed a design framework for designing in-class interaction to promote social presence in asynchronous online lectures. This framework consists of four high-level elements and sub-categories: interaction topic (direct or peripheral topics related to learning), interaction size (small or entire group), interaction mode (anonymity, synchronicity, instructor involvement), and interaction motivator (lightweightness and entertainment). Our design framework may serve as a guide to future technology for improving asynchronous online classes. © 2023 Owner/Author.

Playful Co-Design: Creating an AR-Prototype with Nurses in Interlocking Remote and On-Site Workshops

Deeply engaging nurses in a participatory co-design process, especially in times of COVID-19, is challenging. In this case study, we shed light on the process of developing a prototype for AR-glasses in nursing. We show the challenges we faced, the methods we used and how they contribute to the core principles of participatory design. A special focus is laid on small-scale interventions with high-impact, that helped us to truly engage users. We introduce empathetic ways to connect contrasting work environments, establish mutual understanding, make the more graspable with playful tools like PLAYMOBIL®, and support co-design development with online formats. Finally, we discuss the transferability to other projects. © 2023 Owner/Author.

ONLINE CO-DESIGN OF A UNIVERSITY WORK-BASED LEARNING DEGREE PROGRAMME: LESSONS LEARNED FROM COMPARING CASES IN UNITED KINGDOM AND ESWATINI

Greater collaboration is required between universities, industry and society to provide the engineering education that will tackle society's challenges. Work-based learning (WBL) programmes offer an industry-aligned, academically-informed education to support such socio-economic development. Co-design of such programmes is vital with responses to the COVID-19 pandemic innovating alternative ways to design programmes. Knowles et al (2021) [1] outlined an approach to online programme co-design in the UK university context, framed using Signature Pedagogy and through online conferencing and Miro (online whiteboard). Subsequently, the approach has been utilised to co-design a WBL degree programme in Electrical Engineering in Eswatini, supported by Knowles and other UK and Eswatini colleagues. This paper compares and contrasts cases from UK and Eswatini, and from this address the research question, "What considerations are required to support an effective online process to co-design a work-based learning programme in Engineering?” A collaborative autoethnographic methodology based around field notes, observations and reflections is used to allow exploration across pedagogy, technology, work practices, expectations and challenges. Many aspects of the approach worked well in both cases (for example, effectiveness of Signature Pedagogy, Miro as shared space), whereas differences arose related to limitations in the synchronous use of technologies, and readiness to adopt an outcome-focused approach. Addressing these differences, along with balancing progress against full participation and having clear expectations of participants, are key considerations in online co-design of WBL programmes. Moreover, the approach of Knowles (ibid) has shown to be adaptable with potential for broader adoption. © 2022 SEFI 2022 - 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings. All rights reserved.

Remote Graphic-Based Teaching for Pupils with Visual Impairments: Understanding Current Practices and Co-designing an Accessible Tool with Special Education Teachers

The lockdown period related to the COVID-19 pandemic has had a strong impact on the educational system in general, but more particularly on the special education system. Indeed, in the case of people with visual impairments, the regular tools relying heavily on images and videos were no longer usable. This specific situation highlighted an urgent need to develop tools that are accessible and that can provide solutions for remote teaching with people with VI. However, there is little work on the difficulties that this population encounters when they learn remotely as well as on the current practices of special education teachers. Such a lack of understanding limits the development of remote teaching systems that are adapted. In this paper, we conducted an online survey regarding the practices of 59 professionals giving lessons to pupils with VI, followed by a series of focus groups with special education workers facing teaching issues during the lockdown period. We followed an iterative design process where we designed successive low-fidelity prototypes to drive successive focus groups. We contribute with an analysis of the issues faced by special education teachers in this situation, and a concept to drive the future development of a tool for remote graphic-based teaching with pupils with VI. © 2022 ACM.

Co-designing an engineering professional practice program with students

To most students the internal machinations of the university are a black box, very rarely are they permitted to see behind the curtain. While in many areas academia has started to move away from the sage-on-the-stage mentality, much of what is done still does not involve the students' voice. While they have the opportunity to provide feedback on individual subjects, the structure of students' whole degrees are still the domain of the sage.At the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) we are reviewing our professional practice program for engineering. This program sees students complete professional experience activities such as internships, reflections and professional skill development in order to give students the opportunity to develop as professionals. While the program is well received by most stakeholders, it has remained largely the same for some time. Changes in the Higher Education sector, changing student needs and learning from the COVID-19 disruption have resulted in a review looking to redevelop the program.Typically a program review would be an opaque process for students if they were aware of it at all. However, UTS sought to bring students into the program development from an early stage. Engineering and IT students from any year of study were invited to apply to join a seven-week co-design studio over their Summer semester to reimagine professional practice at UTS. They were taken through the design thinking process to imagine a future program that meets the needs of all stakeholders. Students worked through empathising with past and current students, program academics, Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) experts, industry professionals and others they identified as important stakeholders. Additionally, the students completed independent research on context topics they identified as critical to understanding the space.The results of the project were that students identified three key foci for their program:•Supporting the development of a diverse student cohort•Improving the feedback loop between students, industry, and the University•Fostering connection(s) between the University and industryTo meet these aims the students proposed innovative solutions including a degree structure with an exit point for a lower qualification should a student not need the full qualification, and a flexi-points system to provide students access to a flexible professional development scheme tailored to each students' needs.Throughout the studio the students independently developed both insights and ideas that had previously been raised by the University and new insights and ideas that the University had not considered. They developed their design thinking, professional practice, complex problem solving skills, and expressed an appreciation for the chance to better understand how and why the University works behind the scenes. From the perspective of subject designers, the process and engagement of students rein vigorated the academics affected by a long COVID-19 disruption that had seen diminished engagement from students.This process significantly benefited all involved through the development of skills and knowledge in students, the reinvigoration of academic staff, and the development of confirmatory and new insights and ideas for the University. This innovative practice will be broadened and continued at UTS and the co-design processes it supported as the norm rather than the exception when redeveloping course content and program structures. © 2022 IEEE.

AGEING COLLABORATIONS: CO-DESIGNING FUTURE TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES

The Ageing experience and increased longevity presents innovation opportunity for emergent technology, e.g., mobile and wearable. In turn, these technologies can enhance quality of life and independence as we age;however, they can also increase social inequalities and exclusion. The Covid-19 pandemic affected how we interact, communicate engage and interact with people and also technologies. People - across the generations were impacted and disrupted, motivating new behaviours in how they conducted everyday tasks and activities. Co-Design approaches have previously revealed successful collaborations between older adults, students, researchers, designers and other disciplines as a means to define unmet needs. Edinburgh Napier University provided funding to the PI (Principal Investigator) as a means to mobilise a 'Creative Cross-Education Team' (CCET) consisting of undergraduate students, research assistants (post-graduate researchers) and other staff colleagues of the University. The CCET worked with members from 'Tap into IT' (a local charity based in Edinburgh with a remit and focus on enhancing and enabling digital technology access for older adults). Two CoDesign workshops were conducted online titled 'Express' & 'Create.' The aim of these workshops was to explore, identify and define unmet needs/gaps expressed by older adult participants as a catalyst to create and generate future conceptual technology opportunities. The workshops were framed around Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs). The team were broken into groups whereby they were encouraged to collectively collaborate, Express and Create with the participants. This multi-generational and transdisciplinary approach created a democratized outlook where each contributor added value through expression, commentary and creativity. The findings have generated themes which are the basis for new opportunity through education and research with a focus on future technology opportunities. © Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate and Transform, E and PDE 2022. All rights reserved.

NEW COLLABORATIVE WORKFLOWS - IMMERSIVE CO-DESIGN FROM SKETCHING TO 3D CAD AND PRODUCTION

Digital technologies have enabled design sketching to expand into new applications and domains. Inevitably, these new forms of visualisation require re-evaluating how we use drawing to see, visualise, understand, and fabricate products and services in design education and the profession. This paper presents a selection of discoveries after the authors performed research, made presentations and mediated workshops when face-to-face collaborations and travel were impossible because of the Covid-19 epidemic restrictions. Findings add to work intending to build a modern taxonomy for design sketching and visual knowledge while accounting for immersive virtual collaboration and distributed workflows from sketching to 3D CAD and 3D printing. These are among the first indications of a drive towards synthesising historically demarked design process stages into a singularity of actions that merge and move simultaneously among ideation, design, and production. Participants in two international conference workshops shared ideas and discussed their local circumstances relating to the potential use and acceptance of new technologies already researched and adopted in other disciplines such as computer science and entertainment. A critical consensus was that the challenge of new technologies for our design education and profession is not as much about technology and its tools as the process and steps that enable change. Significantly, conversation pointed towards a strategy that enhances and augments habits in design education and the profession as the means to modify and transform culture and practice. © Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate and Transform, E and PDE 2022. All rights reserved.

INNOVATIVE BOARD GAME DESIGN IN AN ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Leisure or entertainment, like other everyday needs, are fundamental activities for human well-being. The creation of activities that lead to moments of satisfaction and relaxation are also a focus of attention and one of the areas of intervention where design can contribute solutions. This project challenged a group of students on a degree course in product design to develop modern, alternative board games, centred on users and on situations and environments of use, in order to exercise the practice of product design and seek to present innovative solutions. The challenge came through a local Cultural Association, with a tradition in promoting this type of game. The project followed a design project methodology that led students through a first phase of immersion in the theme, mechanics and strategies of games and their variety, going through the generation of ideas, models, evaluation tests, to the production of prototypes. The project was subject to the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced students and teachers to work at home. To improve teaching and learning experiences, the project involved specialists and professionals who shared their knowledge and experience in developing this type of product. This gave rise to a great diversity of solutions, resulting from the use of an adequate methodology, making it possible to design new board games in which the mechanics, when articulated with a theme of interest to the target audience, can result in a proposal for an appealing and unique game. © Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education: Disrupt, Innovate, Regenerate and Transform, E and PDE 2022. All rights reserved.

A Workshop on Disability Inclusive Remote Co-Design

The COVID-19 pandemic forced researchers to find new ways to continue research, as universities and laboratories experienced closure due to nationwide lockdowns in many countries worldwide, including conducting experiments, workshops, and ethnographic work online. While this had a significant impact on the majority of research work across SIGCHI, research relating to disability and ageing was most impacted due to the additional challenges of recruiting participants, finding accessible online platforms, and ensuring seamless participation while juggling platform accessibility issues, facilitation, and supporting participants' needs. These challenges were more extreme for disabled researchers. In this workshop, we aim to bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore effective strategies and brainstorm actionable guidelines for supporting disability inclusive online research methods and platforms. © 2022 ACM.

Humanitarian engineering, global sociotechnical competency, and student confidence: A comparison of in-person, virtual, and hybrid learning environments

The PIRE Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities (RMRC) project is a multi-country, interinstitutional, and interdisciplinary global research collaboration whose goal is to co-design socially responsible and sustainable gold mining practices with communities, engineers, and social scientists. This paper will investigate two key research questions. The first question considers how participating in the summer session influences students' global sociotechnical competency with the second question analyzing how the changes in sociotechnical competency impact the students' confidence in their engineering ability. The project hosted three intensive summer field sessions that each enrolled a different group of students. In 2019, the students conducted research in the field in Colombia while in 2020, the students completed the research completely virtual due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, the students participated in the project in a hybrid format with time split between the field and virtual work. To assess changes in students' learning and attitudes, we collected data from the students before and after the summer sessions in the form of interviews, surveys, and essays. The data will be analyzed to investigate whether the format of the summer session (in person, virtual, and hybrid) differently influenced students' global sociotechnical competency and their confidence as engineers. Other research has shown that service learning increases engineering students' confidence in their engineering ability. The data analyzed from this project describes how this may be context-specific. This paper will shed light on broader concerns in engineering education about if and how specific kinds of service learning can enhance students' global sociotechnical competency and their confidence as engineers. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

American Indian and Alaska Native Youth's Experiences with COVID-19 Health Communication on TikTok

American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities are disproportionately experiencing the life-threatening and negative health impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As youth represent a large percentage of the AIAN population, we must consider how we can effectively reach them with essential health communication during a time when social distancing has caused significant disruption to their lives, including with their schooling, access to healthcare and community connections. We know that a high percentage of AIAN youth are regularly using social media and accessing health information through these platforms, yet we know relatively little about the health communication that has been created for their benefit along with their experiences accessing and engaging with it. Through an approach rooted in Indigenous research methodologies and ethics, I will consider how AIAN communities are leveraging social media for COVID-19 health communication. Additionally, through co-design sessions centered on Indigenous values, I will examine how AIAN youth are engaging with and experiencing this critical health information. With a focus on strength, resilience, and Indigenous lived experiences, I will seek to support the development of effective Indigenous COVID-19 health communication on social media that provides immediate and future benefits to Indigenous communities and youth. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Lessons Learned and Future Considerations for Designing Remotely Facilitated Co-Design Studies with Children Focused on Socio-Emotional Experiences

The IDC community has a rich history of developing new methods for involving children in design research. However, few papers discuss developing new remotely facilitated co-design approaches. Fewer still focus on the challenges of eliciting discussion and generating design ideas around subjective experiences involving emotions, feelings, and thoughts. We argue these are of growing need in a post-Covid world. In this paper we contribute a methodological design rationale for a remotely facilitated co-design study aimed at addressing challenges related to ethically eliciting reflection on, promoting ideation around and capturing data of children and families about their personal Covid-19 experiences. To illustrate our methods, we provide exemplar cases of data collected from our participants to show the type of data that can be elicited using our methods. Lastly, we contribute considerations for future methods design based on a selection of our lessons learned. © 2022 ACM.

Healing Justice: A Framework for Collective Healing and Well-Being from Systemic Traumas

The 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States demanded police reform and legislative action. Data-driven policing is just one technological intervention designed with the hope to tackle police brutality. However, these design interventions are often rooted in the continued racial profiling of poor and socially marginalized communities. Designers and researchers need a Healing Justice framework to circumvent this harm. Healing Justice addresses generational trauma and violence in marginalized communities and is not just a framework for policing but can address maternal mortality rates, COVID-19, medical malpractice, and other trauma issues. In this paper, we apply a Healing Justice framework to co-design activities focused on police brutality. We bridge Healing Justice and design by using an Afrofuturist Feminism framework, arguing that Healing Justice and Afrofuturist feminism frameworks lead to collective, grassroots, and pragmatic designs. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Virtual and in-person co-design workshops: From alternative to complementary approaches

Co-design methods and toolkits are commonly used to involve people from diverse backgrounds and disciplines in design processes, promoting collaboration, design thinking, shared decision making, and creativity. These methods and toolkits are generally tailored to in-person workshops supported by different physical artifacts (e.g. card-sets) in a shared physical location. Physical co-location and artifacts allow participants to interact in seamless ways, relying on everyday modalities of interaction. The CoViD-19 pandemic has forced many of such workshops online. This required transforming location, methods, toolkits and to rethink interaction among participants. With this workshop we aim to look back at these experiences of transformation and to reflect on the affordances of the physical and the virtual in co-design workshops. What are the challenges of transforming location, methods, and toolkits that are designed for in-person workshops into the digital? In which ways can in-person and virtual workshops co-exist and complement each other? We invite participants to share their experiences and reflect on how to bring together virtual and in-person co-design workshops. © 2022 Owner/Author.

Remotely Co-Designing Features for Communication Applications using Automatic Captioning with Deaf and Hearing Pairs

Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) users face accessibility challenges during in-person and remote meetings. While emerging use of applications incorporating automatic speech recognition (ASR) is promising, more user-interface and user-experience research is needed. While co-design methods could elucidate designs for such applications, COVID-19 has interrupted in-person research. This study describes a novel methodology for conducting online co-design workshops with 18 DHH and hearing participant pairs to investigate ASR-supported mobile and videoconferencing technologies along two design dimensions: Correcting errors in ASR output and implementing notification systems for influencing speaker behaviors. Our methodological findings include an analysis of communication modalities and strategies participants used, use of an online collaborative whiteboarding tool, and how participants reconciled differences in ideas. Finally, we present guidelines for researchers interested in online DHH co-design methodologies, enabling greater geographically diversity among study participants even beyond the current pandemic. © 2022 ACM.

Immersive Collaborative VR Application Design: A Case Study of Agile Virtual Design Over Distance

Due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a renewed interest in expanding the capabilities of remote collaboration tools. Studies show the importance of noticing peripheral cues, pointing to or manipulating real-world objects in face-to-face meetings. This case study investigated the opportunities of combining traditional video conferencing with a multi-user VR platform to enable the interactive collaborative design of a VR training experience between multiple stakeholders working from their homes. In this article, the authors reflect on the experience and contribute a fully online and immersive collaborative design workflow for future VR development projects. The authors believe this workflow is of benefit for remote collaboration in general, but particularly in severely restricted environments when face-to-face meetings are impossible. Copyright © 2021, IGI Global.

Co-design and Engineering of User Requirements for a Novel ICT Healthcare Solution in Murcia, Spain

This contribution summarizes the co-design and user requirements engineering work carried out in the framework of the Pharaon Large Scale Pilot project, in Pilot to be deployed in the Region of Murcia (Spain). During the co-design phase, authors defined the methodology for the co-design and representation of user requirements as goal models, use case scenarios, and user stories. The methodology entailed several up-to-date co-design methods for user requirements’ elicitation. ISO 9241-210 standards were followed. The original plan for eliciting and representing user requirements was modified due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The methodology designed and used is explained to serve as inspiration for similar approaches for smart healthcare, Ambient Assisted Living, or smart environments. © 2021, ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering.

IN PURSUIT of MEANINGFUL INSIGHT;COVID REMOTE COLLABORATION and DESIGN AS PROVOCATION

Conducted from June 2020 until the time of writing, this design research activity was conducted as part of the 3 year, H2020, Pan European TInnGO project which aims to create a sustainable paradigm shift in gender and diversity mainstreaming in transport. Such a shift is needed due to the lack of sex disaggregated gender data, gender gaps in employment and decision making and women in STE(A)M able to rise to leadership positions. This lack of diversity at all levels of transport, together with difficulties in engaging ‘hard to reach groups’ in transport planning, means that transport services and innovation continue to fail to consider gender and diversity. This would also encourage design input into future transport. A central concept of TInnGO was to use design activities as provocations and ways to engage with people in new ways – e.g., through visualizations, vignettes and cocreation activities – to develop greater insights into mobility problems and drive gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility solutions. Led by Coventry University, it was anticipated that this would entail management and leadership of codesign sessions in 10 Pan-European hubs. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly disrupted plans, making travel, physical co-design and contact with vulnerable groups impossible. The paper discusses strategies developed to work with placement students to develop gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility design provocations based on information provided by national hubs, and the technological challenges computer supported cooperative design posed. © PDE 2021.