Fourteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Many theorists of design have sought some kind of modeling language that can guide the composition and arrangement of artifacts and spaces of various kinds. For example, Christopher Alexander (along with his group at UC Berkeley) attempted to establish a pattern language for architecture. Their vision has been appropriated (whether or not they encouraged it) by researchers in disparate fields, such as computer and information science. Hence, the consequence - intended or not - is for the concepts of design theory to extend outside its own subject area. Given this expansive trend, is it possible to apply design principles to the definition and development of academic disciplines? Here it is assumed that disciplines (unlike their more inchoate counterparts, fields of knowledge) have well defined features (as well as learning outcomes) and also play a definite role within the institutionalized frameworks of educational establishments. Since disciplines have these roles, they can be designed with patterns that are instantiated within the social settings of institutions. A primary way of approaching the design of disciplines is by using a formal ontology that provides a standardized vocabulary, as well as a taxonomic framework that defines the discipline’s attributes. In addition, activity diagrams that are explicitly part of Universal Modeling Language (used primarily in software engineering) can help represent the institutional constraints of adopting a discipline within a curriculum. In this paper, digital humanities, as an emerging discipline that can be defined using these design approaches, is considered as an example.