Turning an Idea into a Valuable Teaching Resource and Research Output

McKelvey, Kathryn (2011) Turning an Idea into a Valuable Teaching Resource and Research Output. In: 1st International Symposium for Design Education Researchers, 18-19 May 2011, Paris.

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Abstract

This paper describes the journey of a teacher who became an author in Higher Education. The journey began with a simple idea about a fundamental resource book, designed to improve teaching in design and illustration classes with ever increasing numbers of novice fashion students, back in 1991. This resource was a taxonomy of fashion, designed to increase the awareness of garment shapes, context, proportion, terminology, construction, production and finish with a view to improving student knowledge, design and visual communication skills.

The paper reflects upon the subsequent publications that built on the previous resource, as outputs of rigour, significance and integrity in shaping the author‘s approaches to teaching and research in fashion and other disciplines. It describes the development of the original idea and the subsequent acceptance of this for publication and illustrates how this one idea allowed for further opportunities for publications in a partnership with a global publisher.

There are resource issues around gathering content for publications of rigour and originality and there have been challenges around communicating in the publications themselves due to technological and economical constraints.

There are also practical resource issues around creating and designing the publications as well as the need for the development of personal skills when keeping up with changes in technology and the fashion industry.

Each publication requires careful planning and needs to have unique reasons for being‘ that make it different to the competition. It describes the positive aspects of working with a colleague who brings similar skills and understanding, but a different handwriting and point of view to the publications. It looks at the impact of updating original editions and keeping the works contemporary. It also looks at personal and practical insights learned across almost 20 years of being an author with the same publisher.

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