The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students... more The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students to practice problem-and project-based cross-disciplinary product innovation and research, in small multidisciplinary and international teams. To explore the potential and the restrictions of this international educational concept, in 2012 the Artesis University College became the first Belgian EPS provider to offer a multidisciplinary EPS programme in close collaboration with the following study programs: product development, engineering, business studies, social work and teacher training. This paper reflects on the learning process for the teaching staff and the 16 students who have participated to the first edition. First, insights related to the preparation, initiation and overall implementation of this new multidisciplinary teaching approach and interdepartmental semester program are discussed. Second, we focus especially on one specific EPS project which addressed the development of smart textile applications in health care. Reflections and lessons learned are shared from the complementary perspective of the EPS study programme coordinator, the 'smart textile applications' team supervisor and an engineering student who participated in this project.
Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semeste... more Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semester at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. This chapter describes how a multidisciplinary EPS team collaborated to design an interactive event, exhibit, and campaign to promote sustainable consumer behavior on a fair at the city campus of the university, with a focus on awareness-raising about fast versus slow fashion. Throughout all development stages, the team improved their work-in-progress during weekly coaching sessions with access to the sustainability-related research group and toolkits. This rich trajectory and the resulting fast/slow fashion fair triggered deep reflections on the team regarding fair fashion as well as taught them to plan a major event with many stakeholders, eco-design for the outdoors, and proactively communicate and develop their public relations and negotiation skills. It also raised awareness about the sustainable fashion cause among the students, staff, and the general public who visited the fair.
Design and technology education : an international journal, Nov 7, 2021
This study responds to calls to further investigate ways to make feedback more effective for stud... more This study responds to calls to further investigate ways to make feedback more effective for students in the context of higher education. More specifically it scrutinizes the feedback practice, adapted to the exceptional reality of a partly on Campus, partly online semester-long Product-Service System (PSS) design project for first Master students of X at the University of Y. To do so, an established model of feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) is used as a framework to seek answers to the research question: which types (and levels) of feedback are generated when applying Comparative Judgement (CJ) to guide the students' and teachers' feedback formulation? Following the model, first three types of feedback: feeding up; feeding back; and feeding forward and second, four levels of feedback are discerned: task; process; selfregulatory and self. The current study describes how first year Master students (n=72) and lecturers (n=4) apply CJ to formulate feedback. We evaluate which types and levels of feedback are formulated and received by the students, both towards and from their peers and teachers. Additionally, based on a post hoc survey and reflection paper, we list the strengths and weaknesses of CJ as a method to help students to formulate, interpret and receive feedback. Finally, we identify various opportunities to improve CJ based feedback during product development cycles and its impact on learning and self-assessment of the own project process and (intermediate) results quality, and metacognitive strategies for learning.
Handbook of Research on Improving Engineering Education with the European Project Semester, 2022
Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semeste... more Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semester at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. This chapter describes how a multidisciplinary EPS team collaborated to design an interactive event, exhibit, and campaign to promote sustainable consumer behavior on a fair at the city campus of the university, with a focus on awareness-raising about fast versus slow fashion. Throughout all development stages, the team improved their work-in-progress during weekly coaching sessions with access to the sustainability-related research group and toolkits. This rich trajectory and the resulting fast/slow fashion fair triggered deep reflections on the team regarding fair fashion as well as taught them to plan a major event with many stakeholders, eco-design for the outdoors, and proactively communicate and develop their public relations and negotiation skills. It also raised awareness about the sustainable fashion cause among t...
Sustainable design is highly relevant for design and engineering education, as designers and engi... more Sustainable design is highly relevant for design and engineering education, as designers and engineers are the ones that shape the (future) world. They can support a move towards achieving sustainable transformations. This article focuses on an educational initiative that incorporates knowledge and insights on sustainable design with the skills and attitude needed for interdisciplinary and international collaboration in a context of problem based learning. The article describes the approach taken for integrating sustainable design in the European Project Semester Programme, and how the content of the course has supported the student projects. The article concludes with lessons learned and future opportunities for further integrating sustainable design in an interdisciplinary educational programme.
Analyzing the strategic significance of a firm's intellectual capital separates tangible assets f... more Analyzing the strategic significance of a firm's intellectual capital separates tangible assets from intangible assets, and demands close attention to how the latter are valued. Conventional methods based on cost or market value are of little relevance. Ultimately, the analysis turns on who makes the estimate and to what end. We argue for a third source of estimates, the same managers whose application of strategic assets sets the value-adding processes of the firm in motion. This is a constructivist approach that raises important theoretical and methodological questions about the nature of the firm and its value-creating capabilities. Objective measures cannot grasp these capabilities, and current efforts to establish such metrics are deeply counter-productive. We propose the 'business model' as the firm-specific natural language within which the future value of the intangible assets can be estimated.
The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students... more The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students to practice problem-and project-based cross-disciplinary product innovation and research, in small multidisciplinary and international teams. To explore the potential and the restrictions of this international educational concept, in 2012 the Artesis University College became the first Belgian EPS provider to offer a multidisciplinary EPS programme in close collaboration with the following study programs: product development, engineering, business studies, social work and teacher training. This paper reflects on the learning process for the teaching staff and the 16 students who have participated to the first edition. First, insights related to the preparation, initiation and overall implementation of this new multidisciplinary teaching approach and interdepartmental semester program are discussed. Second, we focus especially on one specific EPS project which addressed the development o...
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design, 2019
Materials experience in design involves the meanings that materials convey to users through its e... more Materials experience in design involves the meanings that materials convey to users through its expressive characteristics. Such meaning evoking patterns are influenced by parameters such as context, product (e.g.shape) and user. Consequently, there is a need to standardise experiential material characterisation and large-scale data collection, by means of a meaning-less or ‘neutral’ demonstrator to objectively compare materials.This paper explores the conception of this neutrality and proposes two opposing strategies: neutrality through complexity or through simplicity. In a pre-study with 20 designers, six associative pairs are selected as neutrality criteria, and shaped in 240 forms by 20 (non) designers in a main workshop. Following the simplicity strategy, these forms are averaged out in three steps by a team of five designers, based on a consensus on of delicate-rugged, aggressive-calm, futuristic-calm, masculine-feminine, traditional-modern, and toylike-professional, resultin...
The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students... more The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students to practice problem-and project-based cross-disciplinary product innovation and research, in small multidisciplinary and international teams. To explore the potential and the restrictions of this international educational concept, in 2012 the Artesis University College became the first Belgian EPS provider to offer a multidisciplinary EPS programme in close collaboration with the following study programs: product development, engineering, business studies, social work and teacher training. This paper reflects on the learning process for the teaching staff and the 16 students who have participated to the first edition. First, insights related to the preparation, initiation and overall implementation of this new multidisciplinary teaching approach and interdepartmental semester program are discussed. Second, we focus especially on one specific EPS project which addressed the development of smart textile applications in health care. Reflections and lessons learned are shared from the complementary perspective of the EPS study programme coordinator, the 'smart textile applications' team supervisor and an engineering student who participated in this project.
Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semeste... more Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semester at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. This chapter describes how a multidisciplinary EPS team collaborated to design an interactive event, exhibit, and campaign to promote sustainable consumer behavior on a fair at the city campus of the university, with a focus on awareness-raising about fast versus slow fashion. Throughout all development stages, the team improved their work-in-progress during weekly coaching sessions with access to the sustainability-related research group and toolkits. This rich trajectory and the resulting fast/slow fashion fair triggered deep reflections on the team regarding fair fashion as well as taught them to plan a major event with many stakeholders, eco-design for the outdoors, and proactively communicate and develop their public relations and negotiation skills. It also raised awareness about the sustainable fashion cause among the students, staff, and the general public who visited the fair.
Design and technology education : an international journal, Nov 7, 2021
This study responds to calls to further investigate ways to make feedback more effective for stud... more This study responds to calls to further investigate ways to make feedback more effective for students in the context of higher education. More specifically it scrutinizes the feedback practice, adapted to the exceptional reality of a partly on Campus, partly online semester-long Product-Service System (PSS) design project for first Master students of X at the University of Y. To do so, an established model of feedback (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) is used as a framework to seek answers to the research question: which types (and levels) of feedback are generated when applying Comparative Judgement (CJ) to guide the students' and teachers' feedback formulation? Following the model, first three types of feedback: feeding up; feeding back; and feeding forward and second, four levels of feedback are discerned: task; process; selfregulatory and self. The current study describes how first year Master students (n=72) and lecturers (n=4) apply CJ to formulate feedback. We evaluate which types and levels of feedback are formulated and received by the students, both towards and from their peers and teachers. Additionally, based on a post hoc survey and reflection paper, we list the strengths and weaknesses of CJ as a method to help students to formulate, interpret and receive feedback. Finally, we identify various opportunities to improve CJ based feedback during product development cycles and its impact on learning and self-assessment of the own project process and (intermediate) results quality, and metacognitive strategies for learning.
Handbook of Research on Improving Engineering Education with the European Project Semester, 2022
Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semeste... more Sustainability is a principal research domain and part of the DNA of the European Project Semester at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. This chapter describes how a multidisciplinary EPS team collaborated to design an interactive event, exhibit, and campaign to promote sustainable consumer behavior on a fair at the city campus of the university, with a focus on awareness-raising about fast versus slow fashion. Throughout all development stages, the team improved their work-in-progress during weekly coaching sessions with access to the sustainability-related research group and toolkits. This rich trajectory and the resulting fast/slow fashion fair triggered deep reflections on the team regarding fair fashion as well as taught them to plan a major event with many stakeholders, eco-design for the outdoors, and proactively communicate and develop their public relations and negotiation skills. It also raised awareness about the sustainable fashion cause among t...
Sustainable design is highly relevant for design and engineering education, as designers and engi... more Sustainable design is highly relevant for design and engineering education, as designers and engineers are the ones that shape the (future) world. They can support a move towards achieving sustainable transformations. This article focuses on an educational initiative that incorporates knowledge and insights on sustainable design with the skills and attitude needed for interdisciplinary and international collaboration in a context of problem based learning. The article describes the approach taken for integrating sustainable design in the European Project Semester Programme, and how the content of the course has supported the student projects. The article concludes with lessons learned and future opportunities for further integrating sustainable design in an interdisciplinary educational programme.
Analyzing the strategic significance of a firm's intellectual capital separates tangible assets f... more Analyzing the strategic significance of a firm's intellectual capital separates tangible assets from intangible assets, and demands close attention to how the latter are valued. Conventional methods based on cost or market value are of little relevance. Ultimately, the analysis turns on who makes the estimate and to what end. We argue for a third source of estimates, the same managers whose application of strategic assets sets the value-adding processes of the firm in motion. This is a constructivist approach that raises important theoretical and methodological questions about the nature of the firm and its value-creating capabilities. Objective measures cannot grasp these capabilities, and current efforts to establish such metrics are deeply counter-productive. We propose the 'business model' as the firm-specific natural language within which the future value of the intangible assets can be estimated.
The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students... more The European Project Semester (EPS) programme offers an educational framework to support students to practice problem-and project-based cross-disciplinary product innovation and research, in small multidisciplinary and international teams. To explore the potential and the restrictions of this international educational concept, in 2012 the Artesis University College became the first Belgian EPS provider to offer a multidisciplinary EPS programme in close collaboration with the following study programs: product development, engineering, business studies, social work and teacher training. This paper reflects on the learning process for the teaching staff and the 16 students who have participated to the first edition. First, insights related to the preparation, initiation and overall implementation of this new multidisciplinary teaching approach and interdepartmental semester program are discussed. Second, we focus especially on one specific EPS project which addressed the development o...
Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design, 2019
Materials experience in design involves the meanings that materials convey to users through its e... more Materials experience in design involves the meanings that materials convey to users through its expressive characteristics. Such meaning evoking patterns are influenced by parameters such as context, product (e.g.shape) and user. Consequently, there is a need to standardise experiential material characterisation and large-scale data collection, by means of a meaning-less or ‘neutral’ demonstrator to objectively compare materials.This paper explores the conception of this neutrality and proposes two opposing strategies: neutrality through complexity or through simplicity. In a pre-study with 20 designers, six associative pairs are selected as neutrality criteria, and shaped in 240 forms by 20 (non) designers in a main workshop. Following the simplicity strategy, these forms are averaged out in three steps by a team of five designers, based on a consensus on of delicate-rugged, aggressive-calm, futuristic-calm, masculine-feminine, traditional-modern, and toylike-professional, resultin...
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Papers by Sarah Rohaert