Proceedings

Launch of the New DRS Digital Library

We are very proud to present the new DRS Digital Library. It is an open-access hub for all things design research. It includes the full back-catalogue of DRS conferences (1971-2020) and research outcomes from many DRS SIG events. We are working to expand the content even further and will host publications and materials from design research events across the world.

DRS Executive Board member, Anna Vallgårda, is leading the Digital Library and said “I cannot express enough how exciting this is! It is a big deal for the design research community. It will provide consistent access to materials and will help consolidate design research as an independent and maturing research discipline.”

DRS Chair,  Peter Lloyd, also added: “the new Digital Library is a key part of the DRS strategy going forward. We are focussed on increasing the quality of design research through our peer-reviewed conferences and events, and by providing a central repository for design research publications.”

The Digital Library is built on the Bepress Digital Commons platform from Elsevier Science. This makes research materials easier to access, cite and explore. All content is listed with full DOI information, will be searchable and citable in Google Scholar, and makes full use of the range of referencing and citation analytics that Elsevier offers. Authors of recent papers can receive monthly readership reports and anybody can set up an account which will allow them to save searches and set up alerts on relevant new material when it's uploaded.

Be sure to visit the DRS Digital library at https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/ and follow #DRSLibrary on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Conference organisers and journal editors should contact DRS Publications and Archives Editor, Darren Umney dl@designresearchsociety.org to inquire about adding design research material to the collection.

Introducing Darren Umney, DRS Publications and Archive Editor

The DRS is pleased to announce the appointment of Darren Umney as Publications and Archive Editor. Darren will take responsibility for consolidating and developing the historic and ongoing publishing activities of the DRS with a particular focus on academic papers, reports and conference proceedings.

Darren will join the DRS support team that includes Online Editor Isabel Prochner and Administrator Linda Anderson. The support team works with the DRS Council and manages the day-to-day operations of the Society.  

Darren began his career as an artist and has experience in film making, performance art, exhibition curation and online newspaper publishing. In addition to his role with the DRS, he works as Associate and Managing Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy. He received his PhD from the Open University (UK) in 2016. His thesis explored the implications of studying parliamentary debate, and positioned the parliamentary process as a design process.

Darren received a DRS 50^th Anniversary Student Bursary, which he used to uncover the archaeological history of the Society. He also conducted an online performance—tweeting retrospectively about early DRS conferences. This work contributes to the growing DRS archive and was presented at DRS2016 in Brighton.

As Publications and Archive Editor, Darren is looking forward to consolidating his historical exploration of the Society. He also has an important role sharing past, present and future DRS work with members.

New DRS Digital Library in the Works

The DRS recently subscribed to the Bepress Digital Commons platform, run by Elsevier Science, to create an open-access digital library for all DRS publications and archive material. Digital Commons is used by many leading universities, societies and organisations around the world to manage institutional research publication needs (see full list). We will use this new platform to publish papers from new and existing conference proceedings as well as for historical material associated with the Society.

The Digital Commons platform will make DRS publications much easier to access, cite, and explore, taking advantage of a broad range of referencing and citation analytics that Elsevier has to offer. Many DRS publications are currently available here, but the webpage is somewhat limited and difficult to search for individual papers. The new platform also provides an opportunity to expand DRS publishing activities.​​

We are currently customising the platform with a planned launch in several months. 

Stay tuned for updates, sneak peaks and the official launch!

If you would like to know more, please contact the publications and archives editor Darren Umney at: library@designresearchsociety.org

Learn X Design 2019 Proceedings Now Available!

The fifth DRS Learn X Design International Conference for Design Education Researchers (LxD 2019) took place last year on 9-12 July 2019. Full proceedings are now available on the conference website and on Google Drive. The proceedings include all 87 papers presented at the main conference and 22 short papers from the PhD Pitstop session. You’ll also find track theme introductions, a summary of the keynotes and an editorial by the conference organisers Naz A.G.Z. Börekçi, Fatma Korkut and Dalsu Özgen Koçyıldırım. These sections give a flavour of current and upcoming research interests in design education. To top it off, the book is wrapped up in the fantastic LxD 2019 visual identity, courtesy of Dalsu.

Group photo from LXD 2019

Learn X Design is the biennial conference series of the DRS Pedagogy Special Interest Group (PedSIG). LxD conferences have been running since 2011. LxD 2019 took place in Ankara and explored 'insider knowledge' through thematic areas: approaches and attitudes, educational milieu, tools and methods, and making and prototyping. These subject areas show the variety of topics in design education research. Case studies and reflections are common in this work, but there are alternative methods and topics as well. For example, conference presenters discussed dramaturgy as an approach to understand the studio and human-squirrel interaction as an adapted mode of design studio practice. A full conference report is available here.

The next Learn X Design conference location will be announced shortly. Join the PedSIG Discussion Group to find out first!

Author

Derek Jones, PedSIG Convenor; DRS Interim Advisory Council Member; Senior Lecturer, The Open University, UK