COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL DESIGN NOTEBOOKS

Abstract

 Abstract – Many design courses require students to maintain a paper-based personal design notebook or journal. The potential advantages of a digital notebook have been described in the literature, but few reports can be found on the use of digital notebooks in practice. This paper describes the design and implementation of a cloud-based collaborative workspace to provide a shared team design notebook. The shared workspace uses Microsoft SharePoint sites and Microsoft OneNote notebooks as the main components. SharePoint sites were created for 34 design teams in a 2nd-year engineering design course. Each site had a team notebook, document library, discussion forum, and task scheduler. Instructions and training were provided at the beginning of the course. Students were able to use the tools with little difficulty, and were able to use them as an effective replacement for a paper notebook. However, many teams did not make full use of the available capabilities, and there was little evidence of higher-level collaborative activities. The described implementation is technically and financially feasible, is scalable to large classes, and satisfies most of the requirements of a collaborative design notebook. However, scaffolding and training are needed to ensure that students collaborate effectively.