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Design Practice Doctorate


Image: Design Practice COURSE INFORMATION (2010 ENTRY)

3 years full-time

School of Design
School of Design Building, City Campus East

The Design Practice (Doctorate) is for those practitioners with 2+ years experience in a design related profession, who want the opportunity to develop higher level thinking skills while continuing to practice, with a view to enhancing their personal career and professional entrepreneurship. This Professional Doctorate will enable the development of role and career opportunities in, and towards, upper management, both commercial and academic, including: strategic planning, global project community management, new knowledge development and resourcing and market innovation. This course offers a stimulating and supportive learning experience, and will enhance reflective practice, intellectual ability, academic enquiry as well as professional practice. All study material provides a framework of application, to encourage students to communicate ideas effectively, to work independently and to collaborate with others.

There is also a strong focus on encouraging participants to use appropriate learning resources, to seek out knowledge and to find out for themselves, and a concern to enable participants to build upon their first taught year and to capitalise on, and advance, their research informed practices.

Subjects include:

  • Reflective practice on designing: considering appropriate processes for design practice.
  • Responsible design practices and innovation: investigating and considering issues of ethics, inclusion, sustainability and technological reduction of negative impact.
  • Systems-thinking approaches to design practice: including processes for the mapping of complex challenges, and the engagement of project communities.
  • Redesigning design processes: involving the questioning and development of more appropriate processes of designing.
  • Improving critical and creative thinking abilities: practicing and developing both divergent and convergent thinking processes appropriate to the practitioner's profession.
  • Improving written and visual communication skills for a wider audience: through assignments, presentations and publications.
  • Developing research and practice project communities: building upon practitioner subject engagement through creation and contribution to subject communities.

This course is for those practitioners with 2+ years experience in a design related profession, who want the opportunity to develop higher level thinking skills while continuing to practice, with a view to enhancing their personal career and professional entrepreneurship. An ideal candidate for this course will be:

  • Passionate about design thinking, enquiry, management and practice.
  • Creative and innovative, applying novel and informed perspectives on global issues.
  • A reasonable communicator who desires to develop their written and visual communication skills for a wider audience.
  • A person who is developing their professional focus and sense of direction, and feels they may already have a contribution to make to the advancement of design practice.
  • Someone who values the opportunity to discuss and reflect upon other perspectives on design challenges.
  • Someone who can manage work/study/life balance effectively, to create a more rewarding experience for themselves, and others.

This Professional Doctorate will enable the development of role and career opportunities in, and towards, upper management, both commercial and academic, including: Strategic planning; Global project community management; New knowledge development and resourcing; Market innovation.

N.B. This information applies to 2010 entry - if you are interested in 2011 entry, please contact us

COURSEWORK AND ASSESSMENT

The Masters level assessment is both formative and summative. It encompasses a variety of methodologies including assignments, reports, portfolios, presentations, case studies, literature review, a reflective learning log, and a project proposal or research plan in an area of learner interest. This strategy provides practitioners with the opportunity to demonstrate their systematic and systemic knowledge and understanding of a substantive body of knowledge that underpins their professional practice. It also provides the opportunity to demonstrate intellectual ability, practical skills and generic transferable skills. Module presentation material on the e-Learning portal will guide the practitioners through the key knowledge and considerations, which will underpin their assessed assignments. Written practitioner feedback is followed by tutorials where practitioners can discuss their progress, reflect on strengths and weakness and plan their future work schedule.

At Doctoral level, assessment involves a publishable Portfolio, with a support document (not normally to exceed 15,000 words), to be orally defended at the Viva, with a focus upon design practice. The Portfolio and support document enables practitioners to demonstrate their ability to engage successfully in advanced scholarship, extend the forefront of the discipline, and produce work of a publishable quality.

COURSE MODULES


Year 1


 

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Northumbria University has taken reasonable care to ensure that the information published is accurate at the time of publication. However, the University gives no warranty or representation as to the quality, accuracy or completeness of the information.



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