School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Design Studio 1
  • Unit Code

    DES3650
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    30
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Joo JUNG

Description

Design Research is emerging as an increasingly important practice and role for design professionals. By collecting data through a range of design methods, analysing that data, and using the insights gained to inform the design process, designers can understand the needs and behaviours of users to justify the value of effective product and service design. Students will refine and apply their design research skills in this WIL unit where they will engage with real industry and/or social problems. Students will produce design proposals to an industry standard, through outputs such as Customer Journey Maps, Service Blueprints, and Value Proposition maps.

Prerequisite Rule

Must have passed DES1610, DES2650

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Examine practical, historical, and theoretical design contexts to inform research-based project development.
  2. Present a design project in a way that meets professional and industry standards.
  3. Critically assess personal and professional attributes and skills, including ability to learn and use digital platforms, to expand and enhance their design skill set and professional practice.
  4. Appraise design opportunities in collaboration with stakeholders, to formulate socially informed and ethically sound proposals.
  5. Apply professional strategies to work collaboratively to address diverse stakeholder needs to achieve collective success of a design project.

Unit Content

  1. Responding to project requirements and industry/community needs.
  2. Creative and professional praxis.
  3. Communication and management – methods, tools and documentation.
  4. Producing and presenting a professional-standard project for external evaluation.
  5. Managing roles and individual accountability in creative projects.

Learning Experience

WIL - Project

Students undertake an activity in collaboration or consultation with an industry partner but do not spend any time or only a very small amount of time  (e.g. 1-2 short visits) in an actual workplace.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
ReportProject charter30%
JournalReflective review & engagement20%
ProjectDesign outcome50%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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