Design, Development, Creativity

Usability, requirements analysis and feasibility study, to update the UCD student portal, Blackboard, through the integration of a digital collaboration tool. Complete Research Paper Scully, Nicole and McEntee, Mary-Elizabeth UCD School of Business, Ireland, Nicole.scully@ucdconnect.ie and mary.mcentee@ucdconnect.ie Abstract The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current student portal utilised in University College Dublin and to assess how this digital product can be updated to benefit its user base. To conduct our analysis of a suitable update to the portal, we conducted both primary and secondary research. Our primary research took the form of a questionnaire, interviews and observation research. The secondary research conducted for the purpose of this paper included analysing a case study and a literature review. Our research led us to conclude that embedding a collaboration tool into the current product would make it a more user friendly and engagin...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Tracy Kidder’s, The Soul of a New Machine, particularly as it tied many concepts discussed during the module together. Topics and themes which stood out for me were Management and the Importance of hard work. The management style visible in the Eagle project was Mushroom Management. That is, management appeared almost absent. The “kids” were given a general idea of work expected of them and then they were expected to complete the work independently. No one knew who to go to and any issues that occurred between the “microkids” and the “hardy boys” needed to be negotiated among themselves. It can be argued that this management style brought out the best in the “kids”. Many of them commented on the level of responsibility they were given, something they would not have received at rival companies, such as IBM. Something which stood out for me was the way that Carl Alsing announced that it was Tom West who built the Eagle. To me, this underlined th...

·        Iona was founded in 1991 by Chris Horn, Sean Baker and Anrai O’Toole ·        The company progressed from a Trinity campus company, releasing Orbix in 1992 and going public in NASDAQ in 1997 ·        Trinity College Distributed Systems Group (DSG) was a small group of academics and engineers conducting research and development into the problem of inter-network computing systems, essentially connecting systems which were developed as independent systems to work and communicate with one another ·        Their research was initially supported by Trinity and then the EU ·        They took a brave leap from academic to the commercial world due to the attractive opportunity of industries like banking and telecommunications embracing networks and internets ·        Iona found that their c...

A major assessment component for the Design, Development and Creativity module was conducting a research essay which involved working individually or in pairs. Myself and my partner, Beth conducted our research essay on updating a digital product, the UCD student portal through the introduction of a digital collaboration tool as a core offering for all students studying at the University. This essay involved conducting both primary and secondary research. In terms of primary research, we conducted a questionnaire, interviews and observational research to understand how students currently interact with the UCD student portal and how it can be improved. Once we understood the problems associated with blackboard and how it could be updated by making it a more engaging site, we conducted secondary research, studying existing literature and case studies on the topics of collaboration and utilising collaborative tools. Upon decision on the update required, a usability, requi...

In week 9, we worked in small groups to create a robot using an instruction manual and upon creating our robot, we were tasked with creating a "run" function so that our robot could drive around and "guard a base." (for the purpose of the class, the base was a large white box) This exercise was great fun, but at times stressful as we were required to create our robot within a short time constraint. To create our robot within the allotted time, my group divided the tasks amongst us. One individual called out the required materials needed and where they were to be placed, one found the necessary materials and two individuals put the robot together. As requested by our lecturer, we switched roles frequently so that each member got experience working on each of the tasks required. Dividing the roles out amongst ourselves enabled us to create our robot more quickly than if we had completed each of the tasks together as a group.

A reading which aided my learning greatly during the course of this module was an article written in 2008 by Ed Catmull, the president of Pixar. This reading was based on creativity and although written about Pixar, is applicable to all businesses and industries. Prior to reading this paper, my beliefs were such that the creativity arises from individuals and not from those working in groups. This belief arose from my knowledge on the subject of “groupthink”, where team members make decisions based on consensus rather than selecting the best ideas. Ed Catmull stresses however, that “creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems.” (Catmull, 2008) The author also underlines that it is more important to invest in good people rather than good ideas through explaining that, “creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many pr...