Design Informatics Placement

Public and private sector bodies face challenging problems when it comes to designing with data. The summer placement is an opportunity to get to grips with a real world problem, in the field.

The Design Informatics Placement gives students practical experience of (a) working on design informatics problems in the commercial or public sector; and (b) working as members of a team. The placement involves applying and combining material from several courses to act as a competent member of a team, whose size and purpose will vary depending on the organization supporting the placement.

Placements are industrially/academically co-supervised projects with start-ups and established companies (SMEs or larger), and public sector bodies, including research organisations. The smaller hosts are typically local; the larger can be elsewhere in the UK. Length of placement varies between one and three months.

Course descriptors are here:

No tutorials are planned for this course, but there will be office hours, each week though most weeks of the summer placement period.

LECTURER:

Prof. Jon Oberlander

LECTURE AND SUPERVISION TIMES:

The initial Placement Meeting is the only formal teaching component associated with the placement. This provides an opprtunity to address any legal, ethical, social or intellectual issues associated with the placement. It takes place at the beginning of June.

Students and host supervisors meet regularly (face to face or virtually), normally two-weekly, throughout the placement. Students also meet regularly as a group with the academic supervisor, normally monthly.

ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK:

Assessment is by term paper only; there is no final examination. Feedback is planned as follows:

ASSIGNMENTS:

SYLLABUS

Placements involve students spending from 1 to 3 months onsite with a host company or organisation. Since the Design Informatics Community of Interest is the source of host companies, many of these are local to Central Scotland, but any interested UK-based company in our Community can be considered as a host. Host companies may pay the student a salary or stipend at their own discretion, but must agree to cover travel, accommodation, and/or subsistence costs for students as required, depending on their location. In the case of non home/EU students, any discretionary salary arrangements must be compatible with regulations of the UK Borders Agency.

Placements are project based and the tasks to be carried out are scope in advance, in consultation between a member of the host organisation and a member of Design Informatics staff, with a member of academic staff designated to act as a co-supervisor.

Internal and external supervisors are expected to ensure that each project: (a) offers sufficient skills development opportunities to be assessable; and (b) is of sufficient interest to the host for them to be able to commit to supporting in-kind a subsequent dissertation project, should this appear appropriate.

Internal and external supervisors must also ensure that projects avoid any mission-critical involvement with the host's operations and otherwise manage any potential conflict between the host's commercial/operational interests and students' academic interests.

PROCESS

  1. During Semester 2 of Year 1, students CVs and company/agency person specifications are collected and matched up by the Business Development Executive attached to the Centre for Design Informatics.
  2. Companies/agencies interview students at the end of Semester 2, with the Business Development Executive having the goal of finalising all student placements immediately after the Easter break.
  3. An initial meeting is the only formal teaching component associated with the placement. This Placement Briefing will normally take place in early June. At this meeting, each student will outline their placement project, presenting it to the group, and fielding questions. In addition, the student will catalogue the types of experience they wish to gain, and identify those they wish to prioritise.
  4. During the placement, the student keeps a weekly reflective journal, ideally a blog, recording examples of activities which increase experience in the selected areas, and their progress through the project.
  5. Students and their host supervisors meet regularly (face to face or virtually), normally two-weekly, or as needed, throughout the placement.
  6. Meetings with the academic supervisor will take place monthly, as a group, during a mutually agreed office hour.
  7. The office hour provides students formative verbal feedback on their verbal contributions.
  8. In addition, one office hour is set aside to provide and discuss formative written feedback on the student's draft reflective report. The draft report is submitted direct to the lecturer by the Draft Deadline (see above).
  9. Written feedback on the report is discussed at the next available office hour.
  10. Based on this draft, and following the placement, an accessible personal reflection is compiled, and made available for academic assessment before the beginning of the next academic year. The reflection will be presented to a small audience in a Reflection Presentation, as part of the Case Studies in Design Informatics 2 course. This form of assessment recognises that placement projects with external hosts may not succeed as planned, for reasons beyond the student's control. A reflective analysis provides the means for all students to submit a report whose assessment is not tied to the success or failure of the placement projects themselves.

>This page is maintained by Jon Oberlander


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