DE7003 - Project / Thesis

You will learn through the School of Design’s extended studio approach (X-Studio) that embraces our physical studios and making workshops as well as our virtual spaces to create a flexible and rich environment that is responsive to our learners’ needs. It has created a supportive extended studio culture that encourages our students to learn flexibly, dynamically blending their learning and University experience between physical and digital interactions both in real-time and online at their own pace.

You will use your Personal and Professional Development Planning (PDJ) and Action Research Template (ART) to record what you have done and what you want to achieve. This will enable you to recognise an area that needs to be developed and identifying your personal contribution in design to improve the product offering. Your PDJ will describe both what you will do and the nature and value of the related capabilities that you intend to develop. Your PDJ will inform the planning section of a typical action research cycle (as described by your ART) of planning, researching, action (designing), observation, evaluation and reflection. Your PDJ will become more focussed and detailed this semester as you formulate and guide your direction of study with the aim of aligning your motivation and endeavour to realise your personal aims.

The supportive modules from previous teaching blocks will aid your research activities for this self-led module to identify knowledge, methods and concepts that will provide the grounding for your personal investigated topic.

You will be supported by academic experts who will facilitate discussion in one to one tutorials and group critiques around your chosen subject of inquiry in scheduled timetabled sessions and directed study. These formal conversations are opportunities to receive immediate feedback on on-going work and to act on that feedback. You will keep a record of this formative feedback in order to progress your work to enhance your skills and intellectual understanding and develop your PDJ which in turn will lead your practice. You will be part of a community of practice that will provide a topic ‘hub’ for cross-organisational collaboration and peer discussion.

You will be involved in reflective practice, which is inherent to the practice of the School. The School has introduced the role of the Associate Professors with the purpose of integrating research with teaching. The Masters programme curriculum has been developed to capitalise on the extensive, active and well defined research emphasis of the School and channel this expertise into the Masters Programme.
Where appropriate, you will be supported in developing relationships with material suppliers and potential companies that may support and have input into your developing proposal.

Further formal academic support is provided via information posted on E-Learning Portal.

Where appropriate, students may also be directed to engage with Study Skills +, or other resources offered through the University Student Support Services such as Dyslexia Support.

The Library is open 24 hours a day and E-Learning Portal houses all your module documents including your timetable. These services can be accessed on a range of devices.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding (KU):
1. Evidence your personal development underpinned by a clear direction and depth of knowledge. Through your study articulate the value of your knowledge in relevant contexts
2. Demonstrate an understanding of advanced research methods and employ appropriate methods in context to collect, analyse and synthesise data.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities (IPSA):
1. Present a portfolio of professional practice & experience and engage in an investigative and developmental dialogue with relevant academic and professional groups and communities
2. Through your enterprise create and justify a genuinely valuable resource for business and/or society
3. Demonstrate innovation in your own work and recognise creativity in others. Organise and interpret complex issues and evidence mastery of design problems and design solutions.

Personal Values Attributes (PVA):
1. Demonstrate an ability to work independently and collaboratively, to organise your dissertation effectively and to reflect on the outcome of your project.

Formative feedback will be given during tutorials when on-going work, drafts and plans will be presented by students for review. This cumulative formative feedback will help you to prepare for a final submission consisting of either:
1. A practical design project supported by a 6,000 word report that represents the culmination and consolidation of your work in the theoretical area of study.

OR
2. A design thesis of 15,000 words that demonstrates the student’s mastery of and contribution to new knowledge in relation to their subject.

Your submission will be of an original and innovative nature and will demonstrate advanced scholarship in the communication of a personally investigated topic that reaches an analytical conclusion.
Summative feedback will include assessment of your submission against module learning outcomes and assessors’ comments.

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This module provides the platform from which you will engage with in-depth reflection, analysis and synthesis based upon your practice outputs, processes and experiences. You will be expected to take an increasingly autonomous approach to your studies at this stage in developing, embedding and clarifying personally developed research themes theories and experiences that will be realised through either Option 1: a focussed major design project (Component A) and written report (Component B) that will embed reflection as part of the design process or Option 2: a design thesis detailing your engagement with your PDJ and reflection on your learning.

OPTION 1
Component A - The design outcome will demonstrate advanced scholarship in the communication of a personally investigated topic that reaches an analytical conclusion. It is expected that outcomes will be of an original and innovative nature ensuring findings are at the forefront of the discipline and future zeitgeist. The outcomes may prove a concept or be a finished designed artefact.

Component B - Prepares and enables students to produce a Design Thesis of 6,000 words and PDJ. It represents the culmination and consolidation of the student’s work in the theoretical area of study and it is expected that students will make some contribution to new knowledge in relation to their subject.

OR

OPTION 2
Design Thesis of 15,000 words and PDJ representing the culmination and consolidation of your work in the theoretical area of study and its impact in practice, it is expected that you will make a contribution to new knowledge in relation to your subject.