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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2013/2014
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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : Design

Postgraduate Course: Design Informatics: Histories and futures (DESI11023)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Course typeStandard AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) Credits20
Home subject areaDesign Other subject areaInformatics
Course website None Taught in Gaelic?No
Course descriptionThis course offered in Semester 1, provides an introduction to the cultural and technical context for Design Informatics. The course addresses key historical and contemporary developments across digital media and the network society and plots the primary themes, initiatives and technologies that have informed the present conditions in which a design practice is bound to digital technologies and the flow of data. The lecture series will explore the role of data throughout the paradigms of desktop publishing, world wide web and mobile computing, moving toward ubiquitous systems that involve environments and material artefacts. Students will also receive practical support through a series of workshops in the first half of the module that are intended to provoke creative responses to specific design problems. Involvement in these early workshops will establish the skills sets for the development of a significant piece of individual coursework that responds to the themes within the module. In addition students will be required to record research material through a weblog (blog).

Module Aims
The module will:
1. Expand students understanding of digital media, network technologies and new technologies, and their relevance to all forms of contemporary design.
2. Develop a critical perspective upon the cultural implications for design informatics based upon historical theoretical and practical precedents.
3. Develop skills in the use of digital technologies and extend existing design skills within a research based framework of enquiry.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs None
Course Delivery Information
Delivery period: 2013/14 Semester 1, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Learn enabled:  Yes Quota:  None
Web Timetable Web Timetable
Course Start Date 16/09/2013
Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 50, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 146 )
Additional Notes
Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
1. Theory: demonstrate an awareness of theoretical and practical developments that underpin design informatics and extend a personal and critical perspective through the production of written and practice based work.


2. Practice: demonstrate an ability to develop a language and methodology toward the production of design artefacts that integrate aspects of digital systems and are informed by conceptual and cultural concerns.
3. Research: understand a research problem and apply appropriate methods for negotiating it, including an analysis of both literature and design precedents to support a personal enquiry.
Assessment Information
This module will be assessed under the Edinburgh College of Art Assessment 100% coursework. Students are expected to develop personal practical perspectives upon the series of lectures and manufacture a significant piece of coursework that demonstrates these ideas. The two intensive workshops will produce two separate responses which could be group based (20% each, 40% in total), before the larger individual piece which will constitute 60% of the module.

Learning outcomes will be assessed by coursework through presentations that articulate a theoretical framework for their practical work, submission of a design artefact (actual, digital or combination), and a submission of a URL that links to a blog that evidences their research, progress and findings throughout the course of the module.
Special Arrangements
None
Additional Information
Academic description Not entered
Syllabus Not entered
Transferable skills Not entered
Reading list Indicative Bibliography
Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society (Second Edition). Oxford: Blackwell.
Dourish, P. (2001) Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. MIT Press.
Haraway, D. J. (1995) Cyborgs and symbionts: living together in the new world order, in C. H. Gray (ed.) The Cyborg Handbook, xi-xx, New York: Routledge.
Hayles, N.K. (1999) How We Became Posthuman, University of Chicago Press
Kern, S. (1983) The Culture of Time and Space1880-1918. Harvard University Press
Latour, B. (2001) Reassembling the Social, Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, W. J. (1996) City of Bits. Cambridge. MA: MIT Press.
Rheingold, H. (2002) Smart Mobs, The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.
Shirky, C (2009) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin.

Study Abroad Not entered
Study Pattern Not entered
KeywordsDesign, Informatics, Digital Media, Digital Culture
Contacts
Course organiserDr Chris Speed
Tel: (0131 6)51 5747
Email: c.speed@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Emma Binks
Tel: (0131 6)51 5740
Email: Emma.Binks@ed.ac.uk
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