From The Editor

In keeping with the current ICT industry focus on innovation, our current Issue looks at a couple of new approaches we can all benefit from, plus a word of warning on Big Data in Education.

Chauncey Wilson, (User Experience Architect at Autodesk, Inc., and Adjunct Lecturer in the Human Factors and Information Design Program at Bentley University ) teaches a  graduate course in “Prototyping and Interaction Design.” He notes in a December 16th, 2013 Smashing Magazine article that he starts with a class on ways to generate ideas. He touches on brainstorming but thinks it is “fraught with problems”, whereas “Brainwriting is simple”, see Using Brainwriting For Rapid Idea Generation below for an extract and link. (The Smashing Magazine UX Design category features quality articles on usability, information architecture, interaction design and other user experience (UX) related topics – for digital (Web, mobile, applications, software) and physical products.)

“Today’s modeling and simulation (M&S) software provides indispensable tools for systems engineering challenges. Such programs allow investigators to experiment with “what-ifs” by adjusting design parameters and examining potential outcomes.”

This quote is from a January 23, 2014  ScienceDaily article introducing a new open source “web-based tool that lets physically separated participants collaborate on model-based systems engineering projects”, see Collaborative software helps systems engineers link performance and cost  below for a reprint and link

A January 29, 2014  Innovation Excellence blog by Saga Briggs,  Big Data in Education: Big Potential or Big Mistake? looks at the upside and the downside of “Big Learning Data”, see below for an extract and link.

 

Current Issue

Articles in the current Issue cover:

Using Brainwriting For Rapid Idea Generation

“Brainstorming is often the method of choice for ideation, but it is fraught with problems…. Brainwriting is simple.”

Collaborative software helps systems engineers link performance and cost

“The program utilizes open-source software components to allow users to visualize a system’s potential expense alongside its performance, reliability and other factors.”

Big Data in Education: Big Potential or Big Mistake?

“Narrow academic assessment has become almost an obsession in some countries.”

 

Ted Smillie

QESP Chairman