design college information tech & academic resources

this is a test.

2007-02-16T20:20:05Z

this is still a test to see if this works.

Documentation, Cataloging, Archiving and Access: The Digital Future and the College

2005-12-21T03:53:45Z

Representation is a critical component of design process, production and pedagogy, and access to digital representations, whether it be in the form of traditional images of historical importance or representations of professional or student design solutions, will be dependent on accurate, flexible database cataloging. Nearly everything stored as digital information will rely on data stored in a database for search and retrieval and for comparisons and connections to other relevant material/information. The days of maintaining a file-cabinet-like set of folders of analog and digital material are numbered, if not over already.

As we move away from physical collections of visual materials (drawings, slides, video, even audio), the cataloging component becomes more important. With representation becoming increasingly digital, opportunities to document the college’s work, essential to accreditation and to an understanding of the college’s history will require comprehensive storage and cataloging solutions. As yet, no commercial products (that I know of) offer the flexibility and breadth of what we need, though Google is probably working on it. The CALA VRC's joint effort with CLA to design a new collegiate image catalog is a promising start. It is being designed with flexibility to encompass items beyond traditional images.

We are rapidly moving into an age of digital representation where even printed output will be less common and may, as with 3 (and even 4D) presentations, become obsolete. Even now many design projects are best documented and stored digitally, whether as digital representations of the printed work or directly from the digital presentations themselves. Currently we have no organized method of documenting varying types of work, or of archivally storing and cataloging the presentations, nor any real means of making that work available to others.

We will be challenged to think ever more broadly about what our documentation and cataloging represents as more and varied materials are used in presentations. Those materials will include many items not traditionally considered part of our collections, such as digitally enhanced representational output from our students and from the design professions, done as a part of their work and whose digital output will certainly be used to inform the education of our students. Add to this the increasingly varied materials from our own faculty developed as a part of the process of teaching. Our storage and cataloging efforts will need to encompass all those inputs, and to draw linkages and allow access to and comparisons among and between those items.

An example of this would be the VRC's cataloged work records, documenting data about a specific work or design. Records such as these could be made available to students and faculty who are contributing to the college's collected work enabeling them to create the linkages and comparisons that will help inform themselves and others of their work within the cataloging context of the college. The VRC catalogs architects' work as the basis for the VRC's image collection; now we should begin systematic documentation of faculty and student work to prevent these efforts from disappearing in the ether of lost or undocumented bits and bytes.

The college will also need to provide a highly responsive system of networked storage and backup to accept, archive and safeguard this material as it will primarily exist only in digital form. Since the inputs will be highly diverse, cataloging solutions must provide an all-encompassing framework for this material. The volume of work may preclude use of a gatekeeper to manage this information, making self service, contextual cataloging even more important.

This cataloging system should be designed so that potential users will be encouraged to enter their data into this system as a means to help them keep their materials organized as well as to contribute to the college's goal of safeguarding and expanding the dissemination of knowledge. The system must be simple and concise to encourage use but sophisticated enough to provide the college with the ability to retrieve and use the information and material documented.

Given the speed of changeover to digital, planning and implementation of systems like this need to be considered a high priority or we risk losing our ability to archive, track and prove, in any meaningful way, the quality of the work done in our college.

Technology Lab(s) Strategies

2005-12-08T21:09:05Z

Kind Reader,
In the new design college, the use of the technology labs by students will likely increase dramatically. An important step in determining user expectations will be a survey of the CALA and DHA students, faculty and staff. Data from the survey, along with observations of how students actually work with technology will be necessary for thoughtful planning.
We also need to define our terms when we strategize about the future direction of the technology labs in the college. For example, what constitutes a “baseline lab�?? Baseline computing to me means word-processing, image management, presentation software and communication – web / email. For a CLA student it might be just Word, the web, email and itunes. Our current CALA labs offer this and more; cad software, video editing and most importantly, trained, helpful staff. Design students also need the specialized equipment the lab has: large format scanners and color plotters .In the future, baseline computing for students may be provided by their own laptops, PDA’s or phones. So far this has not been the case, as many students may own a laptop, but not the software needed for the representational work done in the design field.

Warren Bruland

Baseline and Strategic Technology Investment:

2005-12-02T22:08:03Z

CALA has invested in representation as a critical component of design process, production and pedagogy. Representation is central to the communication of visual information and especially to all spatial information.

Several aspects of this comparative advantage already exist, and platform the directions that are as follows:

2-D to 3-D to 4-D

This investment has been embodied in investments in production, reproduction and documentation hardware and software (e.g. AutoCADD, Adobe Creative Suite). While much imagery in design is 2-D, increasingly the transformational processes of design have pushed the necessity of 3-D visualization (e.g. 3-D Viz). Now as design problems become more complex, so have computer applications (e.g., BIM, GIS) that incorporate data and text, the fourth dimension.

Access/Cataloguing

Visual documentation of design in the context of space sensitive economies is the key to reflective practice and research. The efforts by the VRC to create our searchable database have afforded the University of Minnesota with a model that has been applied to other visual collections across the campus and incorporated in a multi-college model (with CLA.) For an academic institution this is a critical practice, both well-positioned from a scholarly and teaching perspective and well-scaled to the economic critical mass of the institution.

Visual Fabrication/Simulation

The next big things in design will be 3- and 4-D. In order to “road test�? the designs of the future, to evaluate alternatives in realistic material terms and settings, increasing use will be made of prototyping and simulation techniques such as can be achieved with laser- and water-jet cutters, CNC routers, 3-D copiers, FDM machines, and 3-D scanners and presentation spaces.

Studio Plus Mobility: Connection

The studio as a creative environment will be enhanced in a society whose increasing mobility is given ever greater technological support. Connectivity will be a necessity of an increasingly asynchronous, multi-tasked array of demands on professional students’, faculty and staff lives.

Whether this mobility and connectivity and the production it affords will make obsolescent or outstrip the productivity ,and the critical space of the studio (or its efficiencies measured comparatively against classrooms on a 24/7 FTE per sq. foot basis), is unclear, but for now the value of the studio should remain as a baseline from which to develop.

Accountability, Responsibility and (Re)Production: Resource Protection

Paper, inks and the other resources of visual production are not free goods and the license to use them is part of the technae of design. The need to provide the highest possible quality of image and form will also press us to require accountability among producers, both for integrity of design and the resources needed to create imagery and objects.

]]> Chuck,

Thanks for setting up the blog. I am just trying to get used to using it with this draft of some of the issues that I thought rose to the top of yesterday’s discussion in the CALAAR/T meeting.

General Thoughts and Ideas

2005-11-30T20:20:20Z

Hi All,

If anyone wants more information on blogging, there is a good reference in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog

It might be helpful if people could post their areas for discussion pertaining to their particular unit. I have added some ideas to the Imaging Lab category for example. While this forum was created to discuss the hierarchy of the AR/T, it might translate well as a general forum for discussion about other topics of interest to the merging of the colleges.

Imaging Lab
• Thoughts on service to both campuses or on both campuses
• Levels of service provided, specialties
• Technical capabilities
• Services that are provided or that might be necessary in the merging of the colleges
• Degree programs within the new college which might find these services useful
• Links to the Imaging Lab Website
• Required course for new students on proper lighting and basic photographic techniques

It would be nice to have a separate blog where students in degree programs from both campuses could weigh-in on issues of service, or with questions.

DHA/CALA Merger thoughts – Questions for creating the org chart: Please feel free to add questions as you think of them.

With two campuses, how do we structure these interactions
Teleconferencing
Video-teleconferencing
Intercampus bus

What are our day-to-day AR/T interactions going to look like?

For whom will these interactions increase?

For whom will these interactions be virtually non-existent?

How will the students utilize the different services offered by the different units?

These are some initial thoughts. I will be submitting the answers to these thoughts in my next few postings. One of my professors, Arthur Harkins, in my grad program has invented a process called Storytech, which is helpful in futurecasting and transitional change.
Aaron Fahrmann

Welcome to the Design College IT & AR blog

2005-11-30T18:01:04Z

The purpose of this blog is to discuss issues and strategies concerning the Information Technology and Academic Resource infrastructure of the new Design College (est. 2006) at the University of Minnesota.